Since discovering the Sound Conditioner in the upstairs waiting room I have become interested in the conflicts between how interaction with the natural world can positivly influence health and wellbeing, and the actuality of such experiences.
There are definite biological effects from sunlight and oxygen rich air but how does viewing nature have a positive impact mentally? As increasingly the majority of the population around the world are living in built-up areas the chance of engaging with natural spectacle becomes more remote, and often abstracted as a result of the way we live, for example when the sun sets over a city the sky turns a nice shade of pink or red as a result of pollution.
In researching further into sound conditioning I found a whole range of sounds produced to relax the listener/block out the immediate environment. The majority of which are sounds of the natural world but others noises that become such a part of everyday experience they are found to be comforting such as air-conditioning, note that often these are used by people who have some form of tinnitus. The variety of sounds available to buy at www.whitenoisemp3s.com are from instances in environments that are so remote few have experienced them, but somehow feel satisfaction through an indirect engagement with the sound and the idea of the location. It reminded me of reading about the NYC Waterfalls Project by Olafur Eliasson in 2008.
There were four waterfalls in total located through-out the city, in relatively close vicinity. The scale of the cascades are somewhat spectacular and the industrial materials used compliment the infrastructure of the city, in many photographs the falls seem dwarfed by the scale of the architecture.
New York state is not short of waterfalls but if we imagine New York City as a rockery these do seem rather like over-sized water features. Unfortunatley the time the falls were operating had to be reduced by half due to the public notifying the Pulic Art Fund that the falls where producing a salty mist, which when it landed on surrounding plants prevented photo-synthesis and killed them.
