Sonic presence
I’m still missing a social background. Something ambient. Something that implicitly communicates presence without placing any demand on others to engage. There, if you choose.
Sound feels like a good medium with birdsong being the most obvious parallel in nature. If you’re outside, it’s almost always present, always beautiful, but only if you choose to listen. The dawn chorus is the perfect ambient signifier.
So sound as a canvas? Or texture? Wild Ventures play with this idea for meditation. But I keep coming back to Brian Eno and Peter Chilver’s Bloom. The input and visualisation is still beautiful and I love the way the generative nature of the sound kicks-in when the product is left idle. No need to interact for the experience to be valuable.
But what about people’s presence? Could this come from audio too? Perhaps everyone has an audio signature or motif. Something subtle but recognisable that still reveals your presence to others. And adapts to communicate your current state. Curtis tells me this is very much a thing in Animal Crossing.
Get James Box’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
As a practical example, when I worked at Clearleft there was an unwritten rule that wearing headphones indicated you were concentrating and would prefer not to be interrupted. What’s the audio equivalent? Similarly, how does iMessage’s anxiety-inducing typing indicator work as sound?
All this is not to say that audio is the only channel for delivering this experience. I can’t help but be drawn to the nature of the hypnotic screensavers in the latest Apple TV. Or the wistful quality of slow tv. Even illustrations like those in the Wild Ventures products have a place.
And all this talk of Bloom means I keep thinking of the weird radar visualisation that Mac OS Airdrop uses to indicate presence to others.
