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:: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 ::

That iPod Aura

Walking around in any public place, you will inevitably pass though clouds of smells from various sources. Some pleasant, many less so. In recent I've noticed the smell of bus exhaust has improved significantly and have wondered if the fuel mix is being perfumed?

That aside, it's the aura, the passing cloud that surround an individual, that has been dancing around my mind recently. Passing through the fall-out of someone over laden with processed chemicals, as much as the dash through the perfume section of a department store (why are they always in the entrance?), often causes me to curl my nose in disgust. Yet a fleeting waft of what I would call a more natural perfume, such as coconut, vanilla, or honey, always makes me smile to myself and occasionally causes my head to spin around. (Involuntarily, of course.)

Recently I've noticed an increasing phenomenon of what I've dubbed the aural-aura. The haze of sound a person carries around with them like their scent. This is not limited to the sounds their clothing makes as they walk; the clump of boots or clatter of heels, the slap of flip flops or jangling of lose jewellery. The rise of the iPod has given us another generation of people who carry their own personal soundtrack. Or in my case the incredibly street "GoGear," I bet that had Steve Jobs quaking in his boots. (I think this happened in the '80s too, but I was a little young to remember clearly. The awkward size and shape of the discman must have caused a decline in the '90s.) Walking though a pedestrianised town centre full of commuters during rush hour I find myself passing though one persons soundtrack after another, as their over loud in-ear headphones emit a staccato nu-metal guitar riff, a jangle of indie, a snare rush, a gabba kick, an orchestral stab, or a scream of "Smack My Bitch Up." (Remember: If someone else can hear it you are probably damaging your hearing).

I'm finding this more interesting than locking myself away to listen to my own. Like the themes that follow characters through a film, we are increasing each creating our own theme to beam at all who pass us. It's another way of telling people more about us, and in a very controlled way as we control the audio. Another expression of our self on top of our outward appearance and, as I started talking about, our smell.

Like all other areas of everyday life, this is moving away from the natural and into the realm of fashion. As personal style gives way to high-street conformism and branding, the scent of the things you work and wash with is masked by mass produced chemicals with logos on the bottles, now the sound of your clothing, your tools, what ever you carry is now drowned in the tinny rattle of the latest major-label teenage-angst. Or even worse, the latest ring tone craze.

Whilst we are increasingly isolating ourselves in meatspace we are increasingly extending our social lives into cyber-space, into myspace, befriending people we will probably never meet and discussing ever more niche topics. This was brought home to me last week, when I attended GlitchNight at the Arc Bar in Bristol, and met up with Canadian on holiday, Jen (a.ka.a. The Square Root Of Evil) after her set. I had helped her get the gig, and have discussed copious subjects with her a part among many others on messageboards, yet for years I didn't even know she was female. We spent most of the evening discussing the electronic music community to which we both belong, comparing views on and stories about gigs, mutual acquaintances, "the scene," and how liberating the internet had been having grown up not knowing the other people who shared our passion for this music. It's a conversation I've had many times now, but would never have had if I had not got to know these people virtually first.

So if we are to connect these things, how unique we can be in the virtual world, with how uniform we can be in the real world, lets use our aural-aura to express it. I guess this applies to musicians more than anyone, but we should be making soundtracks purely for the sake of carrying with us. Purpose designed music that says something about you. I guess designers do this already if they make their own clothes, or graf artists who print their own t-shirts. Now musicians have the opportunity to do the same with their environment, and if we're quick, we can personalise it before the advertisers get there and make it sterile.

:: Dan 8.3.06 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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