dive in
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DIVE IN AND LEARN TO SWIM | October 2010

I created this project at the beginning of my MA Communication Design course journey, in October 2010. The brief was titled 'Shared Language' and required me and my new fellow colleagues to each create a dictionary of academic terms provided to us by the tutors. All terms were related to future programme of academic lectures being a part of the course in the forthcoming year. I found the provided words varied in terms of familiarity - some of them were obvious and exciting, others obvious and disgusting, some unknown completely, some I quite likely misunderstood.

They were like a sea I hade to dive in and learn to swim. I created a sound landscape of this sea.
In order to do so I invited an actress - Dotty Kultys to collaborate with me on creating content.

///Note: This project is sound based only - for presentation purposes I have decided not to reveal any visual work-in-progress material.///

Stage 1. Primary classification of terms - word cloud
Classification based on three factors of my personal perception:
- VALUE VS SLOGAN
- I USE VS I KNOW
- MEANINGFUL VS MEANINGLESS

Stage 2. Secondary classification - notation system
The notation system of terms (in form of a graph) was used for briefing purposes before and during the recording process with Dotty Kultys (together with live verbal description of my feelings toward each term - the backstory)
Stage 3. Recording of the dictionary content
software used: Apple Garage Band
Stage 4. Post production
software used: Audacity (open source)

Stage 5. FIRST VERSION OF THE DICTIONARY
- emotional / narrative interpretation of words
- distribution of recorded material on a ‘mesh-based’ visual interface
- color-coded representation of my emotions towards each word
- the dictionary is an interactive application project
- each word can be heard ofter clicking on a particular area of the mesh
- media: flash animation + mp3 sound (application model)
Feedback:
- interface is unnecessary
- recorded words may create stronger relations / contrasts

Stage 6. FINAL DICTIONARY
Feedback implementation:
- no interface
- no interactivity 
- remastering of the recorded material
- sounds are relative to each other, forming a sound landscape dictionary
- media: mp3 recording

Stage 7. PUBLICATION:

Some self-critique:
I took an opportunity to work with sound and undoubtedly found this task very challenging. It was difficult for me to resign from visual creation at the beggining of the process but then I learned to perceive space in a more abstract way - measuring it and filling it with sound.
I also became more aware of the role of silence / emptiness as a factor in creating interesting effects and causing emotions e.g. suspense.
I realise that I need to work on my technical skills in the area of sound design. This challenge inspired me to search for new design tools which I could use in my work - not only to broaden my area of expertise but to gain new points of view, of approaching projects and
resolving design problems from a new perspective.

© Olga Surawska. Project first published: 21-10-2010
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