Drift Assessment

1. Describe two situations that aggravated, bothered, shocked or otherwise stressed you during Drift 1. (Please note that the situation CANNOT be technology-related.)


I was aggravated that I could not find too many unique sounds or at least sounds that were different from each other. I was also frustrated because I was, in a way, constrained to one area on my sound walk. This did not allow me to find too many sounds. Some of my sounds were too short to do anything with them.



2. Describe, with details, two situations during Drift 1 in which you felt unusually peaceful, at ease, or contemplative.


I felt at ease when I was walking past a dog. I was unusually at ease because I did not notice the dog barking until I had walked in front of it. I was getting used to my surroundings at that point. I actually felt so comfortable, that I stood in one place until I thought I had enough sound recorded. In addition, I felt at ease when I entered a neighborhood that I was not familiar with, which made up most of my drift walk. Even though I was in an area I knew little about, I was still at ease.



3. Describe three surprises or unexpected situations you encountered on your Drift and in the days that followed. The surprise could stem from your expectations that conflicted with "on the ground" realities, cultural or social issues of which you were previously unaware, feelings and reactions that you did not expect to have, appearances and soundings of things you did not expect, good or bad outcomes of "on the spot" decisions you had to make, or the discovery of "deeper" realities in the materials you brought home. (Again, skip anything technology-related!)


One surprise that I came across was the sound of a dog barking. I didn’t hear the dog barking until I was directly in front of it. The sound of the dog barking blended in with the background noises, which made it hard for me to recognize what was going on until I reached the dog. Second, as I was walking through the neighborhoods, I would pass people and some of them would look at me in a strange way, possibly because I was wearing the microphones. In addition, others would walk by and just simply say hi and not give a reaction. I was surprised nobody asked what I was doing and what the two “things” were on me. Finally, I did not expect to get lost, yet somehow I did. I thought about where I wanted to walk but made some bad choices, meaning bad turns. At one point, I was unsure if I was going to make back to my starting point. However, I just looked at the street numbers to help guide me. What surprised me was that nobody seemed to be too worried about me when I returned. However, it was a great experience altogether.



4. Describe your favorite experience, situation, place, or recollection from your Drift. Be specific about what happened, how you felt, how you reacted, and why you think this particular experience affected you so much.


My favorite experience was listening to all the people around me and seeing what they had to say. At those moments, I got a glimpse into how they were feeling and the things that were on their mind. People just carried on doing what they either had to do or what they wanted to do that day without me getting in the way. For example, I captured the sounds of men moving objects into a moving truck. In order to get enough sound recording, I stood there until they entered the house again. They saw me standing there and they just continued with what they were doing without asking why I was standing there. I thought they certainly were going to say something to me but they did not. It was one of the most unique experiences in my life to see how the world, or at least a small portion of Milwaukee, continued to move and progress while I was on my sound walk.