The symphony of sounds heard in everyday life explored in immersive documentary '32 Sounds'

How filmmaker Sam Green became captivated by the sensory world of sound:

“The last film I made was about a musical group called the Kronos Quartet. They’re a famous classical quartet, and it made me think a lot about listening, and it also exposed me to a lot of people who were smart about sound, like John Cage and Pauline Oliveros, these avant-garde composers who really pushed the boundaries of music and sound in a fascinating way,” said Green. “The more I started thinking about sound, the more it struck me how rich it is, and we go about our lives tuning most of it out, which we have to do. There’s so much sound and noise, but if one can stop and pay attention and open their ears, I think there’s a wonderful world of pleasure and meaning out there.”

Featuring the deaf sound artist Christine Sun Kim:

“I watched some of her work, videos of some of her work, and read some of her material and was just knocked out by her. She’s so smart about sound, and the early point she makes in some of her talks and stuff like that, is, a deaf sound artist – people would probably think, ‘How could that be?’ But she points out that for deaf people, deaf people think about sound much more than hearing people do, because they have to navigate a world built around and for hearing people,” Green said.

“We who are hearing people don’t give it any thought. It’s natural. We never really think about sound, and how the world is geared for people who can hear. Christine Sun Kim has to struggle and navigate that every day, every moment of her life, so she knows much more about sound than we do… in an odd but interesting way. And so she has a lot to say about sound, and so I was very happy to film an interview with her and include her in the film, because I think it’s important. It broadens our sense of what sound is, and how it acts, because I think there’s a lot of different ways of thinking about sound, and the more broad our perspective is on it, the richer it is.“

Unusual strategies for fully immersing a theater audience:

“We who are hearing people don’t give it any thought. It’s natural. We never really think about sound and how the world is geared for people who can hear. Christine Sun Kim has to struggle and navigate that every day, every moment of her life, so she knows much more about sound than we do… in an odd but interesting way. I was very happy to film an interview with her and include her in the film, because I think it’s important…I think there’s a lot of different ways of thinking about sound, and the more broad our perspective is on it, the richer it is.“

“If you’re making a film about sound, it’s another challenge – how do you show it in all sorts of venues with different sound systems? Some movie theaters have great sound, and some have terrible, and there would be no way to make a consistent experience,” Green explained. “My producer had this idea, ‘What about everybody wearing headphones?’ And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s actually a great idea because you can have a consistent sonic experience that we can control, and make sure is fantastic at every venue.’ But it’s also that really interesting thing about when you’re listening to things on headphones, you’re totally alone in the world. It’s this very intimate experience.”

An immersive screening of “32 Sounds” takes place at the Ferst Center for the Arts at Georgia Tech, Feb. 10. Tickets and more information are available at https://www.gatech.edu/event/2022/12/14/32-sounds-film-sam-green-music-jd-samson