Michael Bull: an analysis (2)

The question posed for this analysis is based on the reading of Michael Bull’s publication: Sounding out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday Life. Bull’s premise is that an auditory understanding of people’s behavior through an analysis of personal stereo use helps to shed light on the understanding of urban culture. We normally tend to judge a culture or a subculture through visual interpretations. Michael Bull asks us to challenge our understanding of how people, through the auditory senses, negotiate central experiences of urban living and the management of everyday experiences and then takes a look at how technology plays a critical role.

The resources that the author uses to base his analysis are interviews with real people. This ethnographic approach is highly useful when trying to isolate and discover particular reasons and experiences that individuals have when using their personal stereos. He seems to mix it up with young commuters, teenagers, older people, bus riders, housewives, businessmen, etc. I found the interviews with each of the people to be extremely revealing about how they cope with the stresses and challenges of their day to day lives.

One of the reasons people use personal stereos is to construct an imaginary space to connect with someone else. The feeling of being alone, despite being in the center of thousands of other urban residents, seems to drive many of people to connect with others (voices) so that they can forget about their loneliness. I think that is why many people listen to radio talk shows or respond to the solipsistic YouTube video posts or use online dating tools. The need to connect with and be with others is so very necessary to our humanity that even the illusion of having eliminated that chasm is sufficient sometimes to be free of loneliness. In the case of the woman with the dj, she accepts the illusion that she is with a familiar friend even though, obviously, the dj is not physically present.

People use personal stereos to ensure a feeling of security by maintaining control of the external sounds of their environment. As Michael Bull pointed out, the perceived reduction of distance from the safety and security of the home is achieved through the use of listening to a controlled track on the personal stereo.

The aura created by surrounding oneself with a familiar soundtrack induces a sense of being cacooned and engulfed in a safe place. This provides a comforting, reassuring and stress-reducing atmosphere. Anyone who has ever non-chalantly left a radio on softly in the corner for a pet as they leave for the grocery store has inadvertently used this technique to try and produce a feeling of security.

I enjoyed Michael Bull’s discussion of the dialectic nature of personal stereo use: there is the reality of the user and the reality of the person seeing the user. This is discussed in the chapter entitled Empowering the Gaze. Some of the interviewed subjects in his study made use of the personal stereo to construct a space that would reject unwanted advances. This made me think about how people use the ipod today: it has become so ubiquitous that perhaps many of the premises of Michael Bull’s thesis might have to be re-examined in the context of the ubiquity of cell phones, ipods, blackberries and other personal technologies. These days, using any of these devices does not guarantee a personal zone anymore!

What is actually STILL true to this day is the discussion of the use of personal stereos as a way to reconfigure public space into personal space from your own brain. As Michael Bull claims, “the site of experience is transformed from the inside out”; for example, what you’re listening to changes the perception of the space you’re walking into. From a young age, we learn that bringing our own audio soundtrack into a place will instantly transform it to whatever we like: listening to Dick Dale at a bonfire on the beach will provide the viewer with feelings of a trip to a distant 50’s vintage past; blasting Marilyn Manson’s “Beautiful People” while picking up some kitchen knives at some small-town farmer’s grocery in Minnesota will likely make the listener giggle at her own personal comedy show.

What I found really interesting is the investigation of the use of technology to reduce stress. On page 33, Michael Bull points out that, if the music is stopped or if someone finds themselves in a situation without their stereo that the person feels totally freaked out. He mentions that “left to themselves with no distractions, users often experience feelings of anxiety.” The personal stereo is a device used to alleviate perceptions of alienation, of small-ness and of insignificance, especially in the realm of the urban environment. Hence, the necessity of having that sense of we-ness, or being a part of something else even if not in physical reality.

The discussion of the reciprocal gaze is quite fascinating and reminds me of debates I’ve had with others about Laura Mulvey and her theories of visual pleasure. Although Michael Bull explains in his preface that he is not considering gendered aspects of his study, aspects of feminist critical theory pop up whenever I read about claiming visual space. Strategies of urban survival are dependent upon proper use of ‘the look’ and how to manage separateness and maintain subjective distance.

So, to sum up and answer the question posed: “How then should the site of experience be articulated so as to cast explanatory light upon personal-stereo use?” As with any space, whether private or personal, there is no real true collective experience when it comes to evaluating a site based upon this variable. To fully convey a particular experience when connected to physical space, the soundtrack or accompanying audio used by the agent has to be taken into consideration as a major influence upon that moment.

I use my ipod for a multitude of reasons: they are all covered in the Michael Bull reading: to combat loneliness, to pass the time, to have control over the noise in my environment, to make a bring situation more palatable, to connect with others’ ideas. But I also use it for a ton of other reasons: to critically review my friends’ audio compositions, to inform myself of news around the world, to self-educate through lecture podcasts, to avoid annoying people, to try and fall asleep on the plane, to set a pace for my exercising, to learn a new song that I have to play, and more. What do you use yours to do?

Source:
Bull, Michael. Sounding Out the City : Personal Stereos & the Management of Everyday Life. Oxford, , GBR: Berg Publishers, 2000. p 17-28, 31-37, 71-83.