English poet and novelist Thomas Hardy once said, “A man’s silence is wonderful to listen to”. This could be taken as a motto of my essay, as in two of my recordings made for the first assignment I listened to the silence. Both times it turned out not to be as silent as I imagined. Moreover, in each of the recordings it is very different. It appeared that my ear very often does not pay attention to many of the surrounding sounds.

The first recording I made at home – in a small and closed space. When I was making it, I thought that there would be just nothing, but it appeared that though it was quite in the room, there were also other sounds – steps, mouse scrolling or car passing near the window. The conclusion that can be drawn is that the thing we usually assume as silence actually is not so silent.

The second recording was from a ... Read more »