Sound Walk

     Walking without sight was an odd experience. Though I know that blindness increased your other senses, I had never experienced it personally before this. Being guiding around by Cameron was a worrying experience at first (He's a sneaky guy, you never really know what he's up to), but once I discovered all the new sounds I'd never noticed before, I stopped caring that I had no sight and he could guide me into a wall if the mood took him.
      From conversing students, to distant elevators, to trickling drains I found that traversing Northwest's Campus is greatly enhanced with an extra focus on its' sounds. When walking into a classroom, I heard so much more than a lecturing teacher. Creaking chairs, scribbling pencils, and students whispering gave the room character and distinction that I had never noticed before. Oddly enough I actually zoned the teacher out; she became nothing but background noise to all the new sounds I'd never stopped and payed attention to before.
     In some instances I was able to use my hearing to pinpoint my exact location, while at other times I could not. Walking from the classroom to the HSC, for example, I was clueless as to my location. However when we came near to the creek by chapel or the wooden bridge, I was able to use trickling water, tweeting birds in known trees, and creaking wood to pinpoint my whereabouts.
     At times I made a game out of guessing who given people were given their voices, conversation topics, and the noises their actions made. A few students could be identified as they were discussing homework and teachers, the well-paced, confident footsteps of a figure to my left suggested a teacher or faculty member, and a metallic clank made me think of a dropping trashcan, alluding to a clumsy janitor at work, or perhaps a student goofing off and paying for it.
     All in all, the experience was new, exciting, and very informative. Sound has a large amount of influence over how one perceives his or her surroundings, and can create powerful illusions if used to create the correct implications. I see the power in the kind of multimedia we've been studying lately, most notably the slideshows accompanied by sound. The images shown are always just enough to give the watchers a general sense of location, while the sounds allow them to fill in details, create the "movement and flow" of the show themselves. By including the small detail sounds (such as the ones I noticed while walking) viewers are possible enabled to create a deeper, fuller understanding of what's going on than a video could convey.
     I must confess that when this class began, I didn't understand the point of what we called "multimedia." It seemed to me like a an inferior predecessor to video, however I can now tell how video constrains us by directing our focus to the "main point," taking away our ability to focus on the small things. Both have their uses, but for a story requiring immersion and thought, sound based multimedia may rule supreme.