Writing 2: Scales of Social Space

The reading, "No Dead Air! The iPod and The Culture of Mobile Listening" by Michael Bull presents the desire in our world to overfill our spare time with noise, specifically music on the iPod- which now would be our phones. A new way to have control over our everyday lives by selecting our own music to be played to correspond with each daily activity. To, "choose the manner in which they attend to these spaces, transforming space and time into their personalized narrative".  By creating a soundtrack, or choosing the music to listen to, it completely shifts the experience to be had. It also gives the listener the power to  shape a moment into what they want it to be. Bull says, "if users live within their personalized soundtrack then I argue that they attempt to reclaim the significance in the literature on time, identity, and experience". Reclaiming time, recreating the space. Now, 20 years after this article was published the options of media to be accessed through our devices has expanded. Endless music, podcasts, videos, games, shows, images, and social media can be chosen as material to engage with during our walks or commutes. This media that now fills our free time-the time to be bored and to think is used as background noise. With a trend of 'romanticizing' spaces comes the ability to use music as escapism on walks. It is an imaginative act of creating your own world and in another sense, taking control. Listening to media on walks can also take one out of the space, especially with visuals like scrolling on social media or watching a video. The surroundings no longer matter as most of the senses are honed in to the device. The sense of control can be positively or negatively effective and can be controlled by the person or the media consumed. I would argue that any consumption of sound during a walk, or during time spent in a public space is automatically giving control to one or the either. The effects of this can happen unintentionally. You may believe by curating a soundtrack for your walk you are taking control of the space, but the music itself is what is influencing the experience and therefore controlling the space. This manner being chosen is our simple desire to exist beyond the simplicity of the day to day experience. 

The graffiti writers in Style Wars are also choosing the manner in which they attend to their spaces. They have a sense of control by 'bombing' their names on structures and trains. They are creating the space. By leaving a mark of their own it is influencing the way the space is consumed by other individuals that encounter these areas. Arguably, they have more control than someone who uses a form of media that is not created by themselves. Graffiti writers are using their own art to define spaces, while someone who wants to use sound media is letting that creator define the space. This idea of feeling in control of our lives can be followed throughout many other aspects of society. Consuming and creating are the most influential ways of control in everyday life, both fullfill the desire of filling time by our own means.