For this assignment I chose to tune-in to one common sound in my apartment and analyze it in the context of working from home. The sound I chose was typing, which I considered through a written reflection and visual interpretations at the scale of the paragraph and the single word.
What does working from home sound like? There are the background sounds out the window, and the appliances whirring in the kitchen. There are the neighbours vacuuming the hallway and the unintentional slamming of doors. The apartment is not quiet, but my focused attention to the screen sends these noises to the background. I block out every distraction and focus on my own presence and the screen in front of me.
I usually forget to listen to music while I work. I like the sound of marker on paper, and the auditory feedback of clicking a mouse. We are trained to rely on touch and sound to navigate the keyboard of a computer – reserving vision for the results at eye-level. For the first time ever, I am considering the sensorial harmony of the keyboard as a comfort, even an extension of the body, rather than simply a pragmatic tool.
At first it is unsettling to realize that I can not hear my body over the tapping of the keyboard, but then I remember that it is my body and mind producing this sound. Brain, fingers and computer come together in a complex dance of thought and muscle memory to conjure and record ideas, whose auditory representation may only ever exist in this sequence of keystrokes. I am subconsciously responding to these sounds as I work – alert to the subtle tonal variations in the slip of a finger or a rogue extra space. An almost-rhythm accompanies my thoughts as they solidify in the form of words. A startlingly long silence settles when the line of thought dissipates, prompting a small but short-lived surge of panic before the tapping continues.
