Bryan Moreno | Blog Post #6

1.  In Krukowski’s “Love” episode of Ways of Seeing, he shares his past personal experiences on the fidelity of analog phone calls. He informs me on the information lost in digital phone calls in the modern age. Krukowski does a great job in explaining the function of sound and how we interpret it, such as the proximity effect. Low end is annunciated when the person is near a microphone while the high end is annunciated when further away. Krukowski then briefly pauses and invites us to reflect on the meaning of language, “When we share our voices, whether through song or speech. Aren’t we always saying more than our words? We’re sharing sounds so basic to our understanding that they proceed language.”. Krukowski is not giving us an answer here but is pointing out something we see with hindsight. There’s more to speech besides language, such as inflection, proximity, space, etc. These are important factors as they provide us with information beyond what is said. Inflections tell us if it’s a question or statement, proximity tells us how far the source is, any form of reverb which can give us a sense of space. These are all elements of speech that get lost with digital technology through compression which removes dynamics in volume, EQ to remove unnecessary low end that’s not needed for speech recognition and noise gates to removes unwanted noise that could be picked up. All we hear is the spoken language.
2. The most interesting topic that’s explored is the social aspects of sex and language and how that impacts A.S.M.R.’s perception to the public. I never put into words my thoughts on our languages limitations on expressing the grey areas of love and pleasure. Jamie Lauren Keiles’ provides an example, if you enjoy getting your feet touched, that doesn’t necessarily mean you go to shoe stores for fun. There is a name for people who seek that–eccentrics,  perverts. Since the language used to describe A.S.M.R. share the same language in those gray areas, being sexualized is an inevitability.