Fight of Flee

In the last week, I have mainly focused on the present situation and characteristic of Rohan Island, so I recorded music (soundscape) of Rohan Island. We can speculate whether it is music or just a set of sounds and noises of the landscape. In my case, I deal with harmonic and dis-harmonic music (soundscape) and observe how it affects me in my research. The sound of Rohan Island surprised me, because the recording contains repetativeness, tempo and has a clearly defined structure with which I can play and respond to it in terms of movement and dance. I was also inspired by musicologist Julian Treasure, who comments on how sound affects us, divides it into categories: Physiologically, Psychologically, Congnitively and Behaviorally. In the first case, we humans are carriers of sound, because we are made up mostly of water, and sound binds to water. It has also been shown that sound speeds up our heartbeat and affects our breathing, a sudden and distinctive sound can cause a stressful reaction to fighting and running away. In that case, we start flushing out cortisol, called the stress hormone, which just wakes us up to a Fight or Flee reaction.

Among other things, sound strongly affects our emotions, but also the ability to concentrate. Last but not least, sound also changes our behavior, for example, that we start to move away from an unpleasant sound. The sense of hearing is our main sense and therefore affects our whole life, after the search we would be surprised how much!

In my research in the dance studio, I focused on the physical response to sounds that are industrial, noisy, and sometimes unpleasant. I observed what movements occur and how intense they are, how they affect the quality of movement, but also the pace. I put the acquired movements in contrast with highly harmonic and classical music. I'd like to figure out a way to capture the hormone cortisol and turn Rohan Island's soundspace into something beautiful and harmonic.