How do nondescript spaces of transfer (Warped Space), as such, relate to the wide-spread headphone culture in those spaces? To address this question, the chapter presents a reading of Vidler (1999) on Warped space, Simmel (the Stranger) and Bull (2012) on Toxic Audiotopia. The chapter concludes that Warped spaces or spaces of transfer call for people not to connect, and it was also found that this is supported by the emphasis on looking rather than hearing, and the ‘othering' of all others that can be seen happening amongst travelers if analyzed as all Strangers. So because the space of transfer is not conducive to connecting with others – rather the opposite – and because travelers see each other in an object-like way in that space, it has been a particularly suitable space for headphone listening. For marketers, I suggest that marketing efforts can favorably be about creating appealing images and sounds reminiscent of other places that people long for, and also about creating art or ads for Warped space, that convey meaning and are imaginative and reassuring at the same time.
TopHeadphone culture and commuting are linked – even though the first Walkman users had to endure resistance from fellow travelers (e.g. Du Gay et al., 1997). Today it seems self-evident that many, or most, bring their headphones and listen to music/sound during traveling or a commute. However, there is little deeper discussion of why the headphones are ubiquitous in these spaces. In this chapter, my mission is to make visible the interplay between the public spaces in question and the widespread culture of headphone listening there. In order to shed some new light on this interplay, I will apply an archeological and artistic work in the form of the concept of Warped Space (Vidler, 1999), to conceptualizations of private listening and headphone use from sonic research. In this case, the bridging concept – between architecture and sonic research – is that of The Stranger (Simmel, 1972).
Warped space is, in my interpretation of Vidler: a space which has a distinct public character, mostly with an uninspired standard design – a space that is so large, impersonal, and void of meaning that it inspires anxiety in many. I believe it is often a space of transfer, taking people from A to B – although Vidler only hints at it in his chapter “Terminal Transfer” where he discusses warped spaces of air transfer as spaces that are not places (p.180). Notably, on the cover of the book “Warped Space” there is a large picture of an escalator hall in a nondescript place, empty of people – a choice of illustration which gives support to my interpretation of a Warped space as a space of transfer. Non-spaces (Augé 1992) is another term that is used to refer to airports, large malls, etc. However, I will use Vidler’s concept of warped space for a similar analysis, because it offers a richer perspective. Similarly, soundscapes is a central term in Sound Studies. It was coined by Schafer (1993), meaning the sonic scapes we are all living in – mainly consisting of the noise of our everyday lives. I agree that the term soundscape is generally useful tool for the analysis of everyday life sounds. However, I believe that the present chapter investigates at the intersection between silence and sound, public and private, in a way that requires space to be the overarching concept and area under scrutiny here. Consequently, I will use the terms space and warped space for the purposes of the present paper.
The contribution of this chapter is an understanding of headphone use in contemporary society – more specifically – in warped space. This can help understand the musical world of commuters in relation to the silent reality of the warped space itself (as these spaces are usually made to absorb sound), and include insights on the impact of marketing and advertising in warped space. These insights contribute to the book’s notion of engaging customers with brands, in the sense that customers are available for certain advertising messages more than others during this commute or transit. This includes both what they are more likely to be drawn to in their private listening, and for instance QR-codes on bill boards in the space, leading to content to listen to. The main insights of this chapter can also be applied to building brands in related industries (flights, trains, subway, waiting halls, etc.) using sounds – something that may be an interesting way to expand on these ideas in the future.
The aim of this chapter is to introduce warped space into the discussion of headphone culture and make problematic the choices available to people in these spaces. In order to trace Vidler’s line of thought and compare it to my own reading of Simmel’s Stranger, I will briefly go back to some of Simmel’s work in the chapter. Other trajectories I will take is into Bull’s (2000) work on the idea of a space (a car) as a music machine, his idea of Toxic Audiotopia (Bull, 2012) and Du Gay et al.’s well-rounded early take on headphone culture and headphone use. In other words, the present chapter uses the concepts of 1) warped space, 2) the stranger, and 3) audiotopia to analyze headphone culture in public spaces of transfer in a new way.