Shuhei Hosokawa’s 1981 essay The Walkman Effect
We read the article as a class and enquired how we live and interact in a sonic world; about our agency in its auditory design; and how our subjectivity is entrained and formed through listening and sound making.
I found the part where eighteen to twenty two year olds were asked whether men with the walkman are human or not; whether they are losing contact with reality; whether the relations between eyes and ears are changing radically; whether they are psychotic or schizophrenic; whether they are worried about the fate of humanity particularly interesting especially now with our 40 years of perspective.
Armed with my cd walkman Louie and I walked almost to London Bridge. He was tuning into different radio stations on his cassette walkman while I was listening to a free cd compilation that I had never heard before (that I randomly found in my Dad’s junk) from a magazine. We didn’t talk much, more eye contact and pointing to things, enjoying the music we were separately listening to. This however felt quite intimate in a way and brough us closer together – Occupying the same place/ traversing through it; sharing a deafness of sorts and communicating in a rudimentary manner. We didn’t discuss a route and it never felt as though one of us were leading yet in our time limit we basically walked in a straight line and back.
I find the idea of the ‘lonely crowd’ very interesting as it is more relevant than ever especially in a city like London, but doing this exercise in a pair caused the completely opposite effect – us against the world haha
Thinking of this felt relevant as I had recently been made more aware through the spatialisation module that I find it very hard to associate sound as something that fills and takes up space in a room. I suspect it is to do with how much I use headphones and even worse earbuds. Although many people use headphone while traveling to drown out noise I feel I do it to have something to focus on, to enjoy, feel more productive, block anxious thoughts.