After all, has been said and done, I’ve had a good think about how my piece actually went.
Things I did well?
I used more audio techniques that I hadn’t in the previous project; I leaned into the fact that we’re doing an audio work for radio and made the voice the centre of my piece; I got a lot more personally out of this task than I thought what’s possible.
The assessment this time around with tricky because it was a lot harder to make something meaningful especially with the topic of dreams, but I do think I made a piece that has some nuance, is meaningful to me, and maybe to other people too especially when it is about an innocent, youthful experience that everyone goes through. I also feel like I have improved from my last assessment as I am slowly becoming more used to using different audio techniques.
Things I wish I did better or did in the first place.
One thing was the topic itself, looking back I do wish I leaned more into the idea of dreams, specifically the dreams you dream of when you’re asleep. This is mostly because I do think on some level, I “cheesed” the assignment, which allowed me to dodge restrictions that were set upon us. This is an awkward point because I also really like the topic I did so it’s up for debate whether this point is a good thing or not.
Another thing was the simplicity of the execution of the idea. Again, I went for something simpler than most people on our course would do, and it’s putting me in quite a weird spot because my work is quite different to the next persons’, making it hard to gauge the good qualities of my work against theirs. Also, I worry if I’m doing the same thing again and again or if it’s actually my style of sound art, which is rooted mainly in music and fine art, to be honest.
Personally, I think a good way to switch up the style of sound art I’m using would be to use analogue processes and live performance to allow for randomness and experimentation in numerous different directions instead of setting a course to a certain goal straight away.
It has also come to my attention that’s another problem with my work is that I’m not utilising my strengths. If I had more time to put into my script and the recording of my voice, I feel like this piece would have gone a lot better than it has. One thing I am more certain about, let’s say, is my voice. Another thing I’m almost certain of is music, so I do think it would be wise for me to weave an aspect of musicality into my work.
While I’ve done a lot more and quite a few things well in this piece in my personal opinion, I’m still stuck with quite a few of the same reflection outcomes in terms of making my work being exciting but also more unique to me. I do believe it’s just because sound for radio had my mind in a completely different place so I didn’t think to incorporate a lot of the last reflection outcomes I had before.
In the new sound project coming I’ll be sure to make my piece more musical so I can take another step to develop my practice.