iPod Isolation
December 16th, 2004 by Roderick RussellThe Technical Background
I recently purchased an Apple iPod to replace my Dell Axim as a media player in my stage show. I have quite a nice little sound setup which fits comfortably into a Staples� purchased hard-shell laptop briefcase and consists of a Behringer Eurorack twelve channel mixer, Shure wireless receiver, Shure body pack, Countryman E6 headset microphone and all of the accompanying power, XLR, and RCA cables to run the entire setup.
I have until recently been utilizing my Dell Axim X30 as a media player for music during my show. It has worked quite well, hooking easily into the mixer, but the problem has always been that I can not remotely control the tracks on the handheld. As a result, I always require a soundperson to run the sound.
The availability of such a person is never a problem, especially at good venues, but there has always been inconvenience residing in having to instruct each new person afresh in the show�s intricacies, and quite frankly, those can and often do change from show to show. I�ve been desiring more control for some time so as to cut down on pre-show prep time and to give me the flexibility to create more dynamic situations on stage, on-the-fly.
After some research, I came across the RemoteRemote2 by Engineered Audio. Designed for the Apple iPod, this is an RF remote system that seemed to fit my needs perfectly. It enabled me to transmit commands to a portable media player via a very, very small remote that is easily concealed and more importantly, easy to operate. So, I sprung for this device and an accompanying iPod and I am now in the process of phasing out the Axim (only for that use, as it is overall one of the most useful devices in the world) and installing the iPod.
The Ontological Issue
I love music, yet I’ve never been the type to use walkmans or headphones all that often. Why, you ask? Because, quite frankly, when I’m out and about in public I intensely enjoy studying the people and environment around me. I suppose this goes hand-in-hand with what I do on stage, and I believe that it is quite crucial that I continue to do so. Besides, when you’re walking and listening to music through headphones, there’s no steering wheel to drum on, you can’t hear yourself sing, whistle or hum and it’s difficult to dance while walking towards a destination, especially on a crowded street.
However, though I purchased the iPod with the explicit intent of having it serve a very specific, particular purpose, I could not resist tossing some music onto it, slipping the ear buds inside my head and experiencing the sensation of walking downtown to my favorite cafe while listening to music and effectively cutting off the outside world. So I threw caution and personal preference to the wind and committed myself to witnessing the experience of being in the world but not of it.
Strange for me, yes. But a question gradually arose as I watched the world move around me in an oddly surreal and fictitious way; is my experience with this sense of iPod isolation and changed status a result of personal preference, or is it perhaps reflective of our very mode of operation and interaction in society and with the natural world?
It seemed to me that, as I walked among the streets of my home city and encountered others that, though I would nod and acknowledge the glances and waves, I was in actuality imposing a subtle psychological barrier to any possible relationship. While we all have a world of thoughts in our mind that are, seemingly, private from outside scrutiny, we accept this and acknowledge it as given. When I’m engaged in listening to something above and beyond my inner voice, as in listening to headphones, I am creating a private world not of like experience, but rather, as in addition to any common ground. I felt guilty of participating in the world while simultaneously augmenting it in an almost unfair manner.
Yet augmentation did not seem to be what was bothering me. We all use cell phones (though those could arguably be considered a “common ground”) and PDA’s (not arguably “common” just yet), and create of our world a highly augmented reality that others do not “share in”. One can walk into any cafe in America and find people, variously; talking with others on cell phones; instant messaging friends; surfing the web; getting GPS coordinates; and otherwise mining a huge field of information and thereby creating an “uncommon” ground (appropriately here too, as the cafe in which I currently sit is Uncommon Grounds, though I doubt they considered the alternative meaning). Yet we do not experience any such overwhelming and unusual change in social relationship in these instances.
Could it be that the resultant change in perception and social status is a result of the capitalization of one entire sense channel, in a walkman setting? Perhaps the elimination of the aural aspect of the world is what is responsible for both the inner and outer changes of both the listener as well as observer.
As it so happens, there appears to be one and only one critical investigation of this topic, and quite an interesting one at that. The one paper that I found online concerning the topic is entitled The Walkman and the Primary World of the Senses, available at www.phenomenologyonline.com
The article contains a fairly thorough phenomenological consideration of the topic at hand and pursues in detail those questions, and others, that I’ve only barely hinted at here. For those of you that care, I’d recommend it as interesting reading.
It’s wonderful to know that there are people in the world doing this exceptionally important work. I myself am relieved to have found this article, for as a result of listening to the iPod I am relaxed, warm and happy and have no desire to pursue the matter further. Since the matter has already been investigated, I am freed of the task of actually organizing my thoughts and doing real work.
Now that I think of it, I don’t recall reading about the lulling effects of music in a personal headphone environment. Damn!
tags: behringer eurorack, dell axim, ontology, phenomenology, remoteremote2, ipod
December 30th, 2004 at Dec 30, 04 | 1:19 am
2¢
I think this is an interesting comment on how technology has “reduced” our worlds as well as minimized our relationships with those that we share it with! Now, I’m not one to condemn the need to observe without being forced to participate, especially at this juncture on my life… However, have you noticed that with the advent of all these technologies we keep condensing our contact with our fellow man?
With a Walkman we tell others – “Don’t approach me – I don’t want to talk to you.”
We shop online, avoiding the aggravation of waiting in lengthy queues, but also missing the smiles of the cashiers.
We can do all our banking via Internet and ATMs – avoiding the interaction of the tellers.
We buy DVD’s and Direct TV, home entertainment at our fingertips, but miss out on the glamour and excitement of opening night at the theatre!
I’ve always thought all of these things are a strange sort of selfishness (something I admit to being guilty to at times as well) … a technological hibernation of relationships, so to speak. A planet that is filled with 6,415,219,699 individual worlds, weaving and avoiding each other – but what fun when those little worlds collide! Enjoy yourself observing through your self imposed isolation – just don’t sacrifice personal connections for disjoined surveillance!
May 31st, 2007 at May 31, 07 | 3:10 pm
[...] free-form article about the role of the iPod in the promotion of social isolation ( available here: iPod Isolation ). I haphazardly thought out-loud about the power of the iPod to augment reality in an empowering [...]