Reconstruction of Cultural Soundscape toward a Sound Experience in West Central District Tainan City Taiwan

Abstract

During the last several decades the concept of soundscapes as an alternative viewpoint on environmental sound has been gaining considerable attention There is no single agreed definition of soundscapes but a working definition is soundscapes are the totality of all sounds within a location with an emphasis in the relationship between individual’s or society’s perception of understanding of and interaction with the sonic environment Furthermore this study focused on the selected four cultural zones in West Central District in the City of Tainan that is the most historical district and is filled with the historical buildings ritual ceremonies of traditional religion and folk activities However the soundmap of this district has not yet been investigated For the purpose of constructing soundmap and reconstructing the soundscape toward an innovative sound experience exploratory study to this historical district are conducted First of all soundscape investigation and recording was carried out in this district Categorizing the soundscapes into people-oriented activity-oriented and space–oriented and revealing the profound meaning and regional culture behind the soundscape Secondly construction the soundmap of the four culture zones in West Central district in the city of Tainan was conducted to indicate where the soundscape recordings were collected Furthermore interviewing with the residents to explore the individuals’ perception towards the soundscape and the interrelationship between individuals soundscape and place was carried out Finally this research selected the representative cultural soundscape recordings from the four culture zones and found a way to share them with people It is expected that this sound experience could trigger audience to aware the soundscape around the location and make the reflections about what audience experienced in the past In this study the cultural value behind soundscape and an experimental setting of representing the cultural soundscape were described It is expected that as a reference for soundscape and sound experience research in the future

Date of Award	2015 Feb 13
Original language	English
Supervisor	Hui-Wen Lin (Supervisor)