Michel Foucault
What is the role of sound in identification of the place we live in at that moment? And how can it affect our redefinition of our identity?
The first topic that I always encounter when trying to understand the sound of a city, is the identity of the city. Is seems like the identity of a city consists of the mental understanding and inference of the inhabitants of the city about the language, sensations and perceptions of the city; a meaning that is given by people to the abstract environment of the city, and are affected by it too. In fact, it is nothing else than the urban culture in a certain time and space.
Therefore, from this perspective I see human as the central axis that builds the identity based on a perception of similarities and differences, and consequently, by creating a symbolic construct, transforms it into a system of symbols.
It can be said that the identity of a city is nothing else than the social memory of the inhabitants of the city, and a city without memory is identityless .
Now, the collective memory (here an auditory memory of a social setting is meant) that has entered the social and psychological layers of the environment, gradually and through repetition has turned into a subconscious quality. Because they are accustomed with, they turn into an ordinary subject, such that they are no longer heard (in fact, they become invisible; for instance, the sound of two people brawling in the southern parts of Tehran, or the sound of the train horn in a region near the railroads).
As a result, my experience with the sound analysis (as a sound artist) of a region is defined with focus on the auditory memory of that region. I try to redefine and rehear them in a new audio context, by re-identification and entering the auditory memory in the audio narration (with regard to the symbolic structure and its semiotics). In this way, I no longer regard them as invisible qualities, but try to reproduce it as the predominant sound in a region or even a significant auditory material of the region.
