Introduction: My project explores playing music as a method of shaping the auditory environment by actively engaging with the sounds produced and present in the domestic space. It is driven by my own ritual of playing music to control ambience, alter mood and create a sensory connection to personal memories and comfort. This ritual is essentially a form of human control over the environmental space in the home. However, people's control over the sound of the space is fragile and not constant; it can change over time, as the natural space changes, be influenced, disrupted, until it becomes chaotic.

This is a sound-driven experimental project that aims to capture the tension between controlled and uncontrolled sound in domestic spaces through audio recording and editing. Using audio recordings to capture the presence of controlled sounds in the domestic environment, and the presence of uncontrolled, naturally occurring, random sounds, a piece of audio about the home is constructed, which is spliced together through audio editing to form a progression from the controllable to the chaotic of the uncontrolled. The project critiques the ephemeral nature of human attempts to control ambient sound in order to create a sense of belonging, questioning whether this auditory ‘home’ is real and lasting, or merely a manipulated illusion.

Reference to the artist 4'33' is an avant-garde musical work composed by John Cage in 1952. The work itself consists of four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence, in which the musicians make no sound and the audience only hears the ambient sounds of the scene. The work allows the audience to rethink the boundaries between music and sound, questioning the role of control and expectation in the sonic experience. Cage attempts to break down the traditional definition of music by transforming silence into a listening experience. In the absence of musical instruments, the audience becomes aware of the various sounds in the environment, such as breathing, coughing and the sounds of nature. Cage's intention is to bring awareness to the random and uncontrollable nature of sound, exploring the unconscious control we have over our sound environment.

Whether playing music in domestic spaces really fosters a lasting sense of belonging or only provides temporary comfort and masks the organic soundscape of the home. The ritual of playing music is a means of controlling the auditory environment, and the controlled auditory environment contrasts with the unpredictable ambient sounds of the home. With reference to John Cage's 4'33', the viewer is required to switch between “sound” and “no sound” to reflect on the sounds of the home. This artificial control of ambient sound to create a sense of home is temporary and does not completely exclude other ambient sounds in the home that cannot be controlled (e.g. neighbours' voices, wind, construction, traffic noise). This ‘control’ reveals that humans have limited control over the sound environment.

Core Critique. Can the ritual of playing music truly create a sense of emotional belonging? By revealing the paradox of human manipulation intertwined with ambient sound, this project reflects on how attempts to control the sound environment have failed, and in turn explores the complex relationship between humans and space, emotion and memory.