[sonic and digital literacies]

As I think about the kinds of things I'd like my pilot group to read while enjoying various brain scans (this is an experiement in the works) I find myself trying to make sure I'm not too text-centric. I'm working in the online environment (mostly) and that means there is often recourse to images, sounds, video, text (which in my experience is often quite visual too) and of course there's some kind of haptics. But I find I almost forget about sound...sounds odd saying that because as I write I am listening to myself, how can I *forget* about sound? Is it more likely that I'm so immersed in sound that I just navigate through its presence (as is the case for certain students according to Michelle Comstock and Mary E. Hocks) Cornstock and Hocks ask how might educators engage this kind of sonic sensitivity in their own writing (composition) classrooms. It seems that this might be similar to what Ximena Alarcon is doing with her research into sonic environments and memory. Ximena did her ph.d at DMU (in Music Technology and Innovation.) and now she is working on a Leverhulme Trust - Early Career Fellowship 2007 - 2009. For her ph.d Ximena created an ethnography based artwork. "Twenty-four volunteers participated in the project, sharing their (deep) feelings, spontaneity, curiosity, interest, and passion for discovering how sound is important in their life. Sounds included in this project have been selected by them, after a process of travelling, recording, listening and remembering."

Ximena's current project stretches the sonic environment to Paris and Mexico, this time comparing these results with the London one's which formed the base of the ph.d.

There are blogs devoted to Ximena's field work in Paris and Mexico and on the Mexican blog there's an interesting comment from one of the volunteers. She has just listened to sounds from the London Underground while navigating Ximena's "ethnographic artwork." She notes the sound of the bells (doors opening and closing I presume) and notes that hearing the sound means she visualises the tube" in action" (my translation):

"Lo que llama en particular mi atención son las campanas en la parte del corredor, la combinanción de imágenes y los sonidos hacen realmente imaginarte un mundo en moviemiento"

I wonder if this synesthetic response is something that might be made visible with brain scanning research and is it something we (as educators) can work into our teaching? I suppose this aligns with Ong's thinking that sound "emanate[s] from a source here and now discernibly active, with the result that involvement with sound is involvement with the present, with here-and-now existence and activity" (qtd in Michelle Comstock and Mary E. Hocks)

I'll look forward to reading what parisienne/parisien commuters think.