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| A 3-way Venn diagram of Individual, Sound and Environment |
Stratoudakis, Constantinos and Kimon Papadimitriou 2007. “A Dynamic Interface for the Audio-Visual Reconstruction of Soundscape, based on the Mapping of its Properties.” Proceedings SMC'07, 4th Sound and Music Computing Conference, 11-13 July 2007, Lefkada, Greece.
Every place, argues Stratoudakis & Papadimitriou (2007), has its own distinctive sound picture. That is, it had a unique identity, “not only in terms of geography or physical-temporal aspects, but also in its acoustic properties.”
In their map of understanding (Fig. 1), the individual intersects directly with sound through meaning-making and can also listen and/or emit, shaping sound as it exists. Sound likewise interacts with the environment through coloration and direct/reflected sound. Thus, the three worlds interact with sound as one of the mediators of the individual’s relationship to the broader environment. That is, the “inner reality – inner sounds, thoughts, feelings and memory,” as Stratoudakis & Papadimitriou put it, takes in environmental information through sound.
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| Figure 1: Sound as Meter, derived by Cynthia Cyrus from Stratoudakis and Papadimitriou (2007) |
This is an interesting point, since the shape of experience AS memory is heavily dependent on sensory memory. I wrote recently about the memory of a 1614 snowball fight and of the 13th feet of snow of one terrible winter that Sister Anna Wittweilerin attests to in her Tagebuch (absorbed later in the Thalbach Convent Chronicle). (Sister Anna Wittweilerin Looks Up)
As we follow her memory (Thalbach Chronicle, Gath 4 p. 86; Rapp p. 625), we actually superimpose sound details without her naming them. We can imagine the “thwuck” of a snowball thrown and successfully landed on its target; we can hear in our inner soundtrack the laughter of the sisters engaging in a bout of unusually fine fun. I can hear the clucking hens, their day disturbed by the unusual activity, and perhaps a single rooster crow to establish inner territory within the hen-house while the outer world manifests these unusual games and noises. I imagine the trees whispering off to the right of the convent yard in the hillside between them and the parish church as the inevitable winter breeze rolls down the afternoon mountainside. And we know from experience that the broader landscape would be hushed, since snow deadens sound. All of these elements were present in my inner landscape as I read Wittweilerin’s passage, though she uses no sound words at all. Her nouns – snow, snowball, hen-yard – become my soundtrack through an associative linkage of my own inner memories of these things.
My projection of this past environment, in other words, DOES appear to be mediated in part by sound-memory as well as by the convent sister’s narrative. Readers bring their own experiences to the things they are reading; that includes their own experiences of sound-as-mediator.
The second big contribution that Stratoudakis & Papdimitriou make is to model one approach to considering sound. Since “soundscape is an ever-changing version of a given environment [and thus] presents great spatio-temporal variability,” they provide a model for considering changes over time. They ask that we consider sampling positions as well as recording periods. For them, sound (and its attributes), space (geographical coordinates) and time (annual and daily cycles) are the three main elements for describing a soundscape. They suggest a day divided into three hour chunks, and consider a variety of individual parameters.
They also caution that one should note “places of particular geo-morphological interest.” The gurgling stream, for instance, that is close to Thalbach’s back property in summertime, would shape the soundscape as a kind of acoustical dent (or would it be hill?), a natural feature that would deform the experience of other sounds as its summer-time omnipresence shades and colors the other sounds in its proximity.
Measures from their study that could be particular useful for other projects (like my own) are these:
- Source (bird, frog, car…)
- Area sampled
- Timestamp
- Origin: biological, geological, anthropological
- Meaning: background, foreground
I gave some thought to those measures as I trod through graveyards on my research trip. Birds: check. Crickets: Also check. Stream: Yep. Fountain: noted. Bell peals: Cool, I mean, yep. Cars are, of course, historical anachronisms, but they function too as a reminder that the wagons and carts of former time should be accounted for in a historical re-imagining of the past.
To be fair, Stratoudakis & Papadimitriou’s ultimate interest lies in the mapping and manipulations that computer modeling allows, and it is indeed fascinating stuff. But for me, at this point, the pragmatic elements of parsing the sound-world had more ready applicability, and it is that more humanistic element of their study that I have shared here. A link to their full study is in the notes below.
TAKE-AWAY
Stratoudakis & Papadimitriou offer a handy model for thinking about sound as measurable yet deeply experiential. While their research is oriented toward computational modeling and A-V replication, its implications extend beyond technical applications. Their framework provides a useful lens for humanistic inquiries, helping us parse how environments, past and present, are aurally constructed and mediated. In particular, their model of a sound-mediated understanding of environment emphasizes the importance of spatial and temporal variability in soundscapes. It also inadvertently underscores the ways in which individual memory and perception shape our understanding of sound. My own reflections on convent narratives and historical re-imaginings highlight how memory itself can function as an imagination-informed soundscape—one in which readers contribute their own inner sonic realities to narratives that seem on the surface to be silent.
In short, whether addressed to the recorded sounds of a contemporary Grecian landscape (them) or to the imagined echoes of historical spaces (me), Stratoudakis & Papadimitriou’s measures offer a method for attending more carefully to the role of sound in shaping experience.
WORKS CITED:
Cyrus, Cynthia J. “Sister Anna Wittweilerin Looks Up” [Blog post]. Silences and Sounds Blog, https://silencesandsounds.blogspot.com, 19 Feb 2025.
Rapp, Ludwig. Topographisch-historische Beschreibung des Generalvikariates Vorarlberg, Bd. 2. Brixen 1896.
Stratoudakis, Constantinos and Kimon Papadimitriou 2007. “A Dynamic Interface for the Audio-Visual Reconstruction of Soundscape, based on the Mapping of its Properties.” Proceedings SMC'07, 4th Sound and Music Computing Conference, 11-13 July 2007, Lefkada, Greece. Digital copy available here.
Thalbach Chronicle (consulted from manuscript): Bregenz, Vorarlberger Landesarchiv, Kloster Thalbach Hs 9, Chronik des Klosters 1336–1629.
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