Horrifying Poltergeist Encounter

Overview

This sound art is a story of a group of friends
having a good time when suddenly, they encounter a poltergeist.
It was made with some voice recordings of random conversations,
a background beat downloaded from Archive.org and poltergeist
sound effects from Sound Bible.

Background

I started doing some random recordings at the bar and
at my neighbors. I mashed these recordings together first
on Audacity to see what I had to work with. After that was
done, I added the background music and then decided that
the poltergeist sound effect was the best one for the
project.

Description

We start out with a group conversation with people talking,
laughing and drinking beers as the ominious background music plays
quietly in the background. Only parts of the conversation can be
made out, much like how it would actually sound like to be there
in that situation. All of a sudden someone says, "what's that" which
is where the poltergeist comes in and starts terrorizing people
and making a mess of things.

Statement of Purpose

I wanted my piece of sound art to be a fun listening expierence,
I wanted to invoke listener curiosity with the conversations that
were going on in the audio. And with the background music staying
low throughout the most part and then increasing in volume and
intensity as the plot starts to thicken, I tried to create a
sense of suspense.

Influences

When I was a little kid I was never allowed to watch
many horror movies, so ever since I've been old enough
to watch them I've been obsessed. For the most part,
whenever I get artistic creative freedom, my work usually
tends to lean in the direction of the macabre.

Materials & Methodology

I used my smartphone to get all the voice recordings
I needed for this project, with some sounds downloaded
from Archive.org and Sound Bible. The image you see
was saved from Google Images, labled for reuse with modification.
All the sounds were mixed together in Audacity. This webpage
was coded in the text editor, Notepad++ using css, and html.

Fit within Larger Notion of Aesthetics

This work was created with entertainment value in mind, I
wanted my listeners to get some sense of amusement when they
listen to my sound installation. I didn't really incorperate
anything from other similar works, I wanted this listening
experience to be origional and unique. This work promotes critical
thinking about our culture in that, as we move into an uncertain
future we tend not to concern ourselves with unforeseen circumstances
until they are actually happening to us.

Outcomes

This project turned out pretty good, I thought. Of course it
wasn't a masterpiece that I expect some sort of an award for
but I enjoy having the opportunity to work on projects such as
this. It really gives me the chance to imagine all of the creative
possibilities there are when all you have is an idea to work with.

Self Reflection

What I hoped to achieve with this work, was to create
a semi-convincing dialogue between several different people
and try to make a convincing recordings of their experience
with the poltergeist, while at the same time, providing
the listener with a chance to use their imagination and
place themselves in the same room in which this is all
happening. I am happy with the way this work turned out,
but I wish I could have pushed the deadline for this
project back a little bit to clean up around the edges
and stylize this webpage a little better than what it is,
but, it is what it is.