Touching All the Senses

Touch All the Senses

Well my fellow 2P98ers this certainly made for a rather unique and challenging venture.  I have this tendency to naturally want to know the space locally around me rather quickly once I move there.  So actually finding a location that I actually wanted to go and haven’t been made for a slight challenge until my roommate reminded me of the construction projects north of where we live.  Nothing like a skyscraper just a new subdivision but I always enjoy finding new place to walk and just explore the new space so the journey had been decided on.  And then the blizzard started.  By the way we got to the site both Matt and I were rather glad we decided “Yeah a sweater underneath our jackets was a good idea”.  Despite being able to feel the warmth and heat across my chest I could slowly feeling my face becoming less skin and more ice.  Receiving a snowball to the back of the head and having it slowly slide down my back did not assist in the feeling warm dilemma.  Without the assistance of the bright light of the streetlight cutting through the snow It would have been rather difficult seeing much of anything other than the snow skating and darting past my eyes.  Equal parts beautiful and a show of mama nature’s wrath.  The storm let only the cold piercing whistle be audible to my ear with the exception of matt and I’s discussion and threats of total snowball war.  A war that to my great delight only shortly after.  It’s rather thinking about what the place smelled like because I can only think of a single descriptor which lacks description.  It smelled cold.  Breathing through my nose simply felt and smelt cold as if the the storm demanded that you feel it on all levels and not just by slowly freezing to death.  I’m to report that I did not freeze to death that day!  However I am disappointed to report that this trip tasted heavily of freezing snow as I opened my mouth right at the wrong time as I literally ate a snowball during the war.  With any luck we shall have another storm so I can find a new spot to lay siege my Matt’s face in return.

Lighting is fun to play with

This image is my little souvenir who has since been living in my freezer.  He is the final snowball of the war who shall remained preserved until a proper opportunity can be seized where it can be fired as counter-attack onto Matt’s face.

 A Reading: Sensorium 
 
The reading associated with this assignment made it much easier to actually participate in the activity required for it. Without going into too much detail to reinstate what exactly the article describes; I think the thing to take away is that the sensorium is always around us and we should pay more active attention to it and see how it manipulates what we perceive our the world around us. Certainly most people are usually highly aware of what we are seeing as that is the most direct feedback method that we experience as a species on a day to day basis. Yet past that point the feedback we receive from our other senses really has to be focused on to even notice sometimes. We of course are always hearing what is going on around us but not necessarily listening. It is really cool to close your eyes and just actively listen to a space and you will suddenly notice there is a lot of background “noise” that builds up a location we typically do not listen too. the last three senses get even dicier as we use them on a more task per task basis. With smell we notice when there is something in the area that is either really good or really bad on a proximity based system. Which in turn can play a huge part on our psyche and thus is actively used to the benefit of a certain industry I shall mention further down. Taste and touch can truly only work on a task by task basis when interacting in our world. So what’s the point of knowing all of this information? Well it's actively used everyday to persuade us to do certain things. As the readings mentions, when done correctly commercials based operations can use our senses to lure us into purchasing things or services from them. No industry does this better than the food industry. Is it hot where you currently are? Better go buy a nice refreshing ice cream or a cold coke. Have you ever smelled or craved (I swear it must have drugs in it) Mcdonalds? Mcdonald's has a certain smell which in turn triggers you remembering the flavour which in my experience at least makes me go crazy craving Mcdonalds until I am able to actually get my own to enjoy. May I suggest Mcdonald’s? It has a unique and clearly identifiable visual aesthetic (Golden Arches anyone?). Every Mcdonald's sounds the same as you enter with the same greeting being given as you prepare to order. You are bombarded with the menu; a visual feed fest. You can smell the greasy and awful(ly) delicious Mcdonalds smell before you can pick up the flimsy cardboard box holding that ever so sacred Big Mac. And then the world of tasting begins. May you enjoy it and not regret it later.