London. Underground. Central Line.
Silence. We all sit motionless. Why do you wear this helmet?
It’s not a helmet. It’s a headpod.
OK, a headpod. So why are you wearing it?
It’s a communication pod. I can listen to music, talk with my friends, voice-browse the web, listen to radio... but also I can stay in silence whenever I want to. It’s good to have it. It’s isolating me from this terrIble urban noise, because it’s soundproof. Today this is important. It’s something like ear lids really, but much better.
Do you think a device that detaches you from others is generally good?
Well, everyone is detached now anyhow... you know. And it’s just a thing. It can’t really isolate anyone. It’s people who isolate themselves. I’ve seen some old digital shots from around 2010 with people on the tube. They were sitting, talking through their phones, watching films, playing on those old funny touchable gadgets, listening to music... They were already detached and isolated. A thing does nothing on it’s own.
So what can you do with your headpod?
Well, I can do plenty of stuff. I can stay in touch with everyone in my network. And I don’t need to switch between devices. Everything stays on my head. It’s really handy. And it looks smart.
But what about the real world? What about natural sounds?
What about them? They’re still there, no one took it. Birds still sing, the wind blows, water splashes... I can listen to it whenever I want to. I just need to press here and everything from the outside I can hear inside my headpod. But I don’t use it much—it’s boring.
It’s also electroacoustic. Don’t you find it impoverishing to hear the world only through a pair of speakers?
What? Why should I? That’s how it is... Do we find it impoverishing to see the world through window panes? If we need to become electroacoustic, then probably that’s the way it needs to be...
