drive by muzak
eliza slavet
a sound environment
UCSD Price Center
October 14- November 15, 1999
a part of SPACED OUT: California Vernacular
Drive By Muzak Responses Muzak: A Brief History UCSD and the Price Center top
Drive By MuzakThe sounds of cars and traffic, blasting stereos zooming by and a general hum of motors are as stereotypical of Southern California as bikinis and taco stands. For Drive By Muzak, I recorded the sounds of cars on some of San Diego's busier streets, including Highland Avenue in National City on Sunday evenings, La Jolla Village Drive, and Interstate-5 at various times of day and night. Like MuzakTM, Drive By Muzak is designed to accompany specific hours of the day, depending on the amount of consumer-traffic and general sound level of the food court on a typical weekday. Thus, between October 14-November 15, the sounds of San Diego were pumped from the streets, through the system and the ceilings, consumable by all who walk inside, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Depending on the hour of the day, one would hear the freeway rushing, trucks rumbling, motorcycles zooming by intermittently, or cars blasting music particular to San Diego's radio transmission area, including soft rock, Mexican polka music and Latino disco music.
Drive By Muzak Responses Muzak: A Brief History UCSD and the Price Center top
ResponsesPOSSE (Pissed Off Students for Silence while Eating)
PRESS RELEASE (5 Nov 1999)
"UCSD Cafeteria's 'Drive By Muzak' Hard To Swallow,"
San Diego Union Tribune (Nov 11 1999, FRONT PAGE)
POSSE Protest- PRESS RELEASE (11 Nov 1999)
"UCSD Students Protest Noisy Art Project,"
San Diego Union Tribune (Nov 12 1999, B2)
Excerpts from the most memorable responses to questionnaire
Drive By Muzak Responses Muzak: A Brief History UCSD and the Price Center top
Muzak: A Brief History
Environmental music for public spaces (including telephones and elevators) was introduced by the Muzak Corporation in the 1940's. Muzak's background music was advertised as "programming," and designed to be unobtrusive and unnoticed by visitors to the space, except to remind them of some familiar past experience. In 1981, the Muzak Corporation moved from producing background music and introduced 'plans to enter the foreground music market' to compete with major record labels' sales to institutions. While background music consisted of orchestrated string arrangements of popular tunes, foreground music consists of the popular tunes themselves picked for the particular clientele of the place, and played at a louder volume, 'with just enough presence to be an active, enjoyable part of their dining, service or shopping experience.' Whether background or foreground, Muzak is an uninterrupted flow of sound, played at a constant volume with no obtrusive silences or breaks, designed for particular clientele and times of the day. (The beat is faster in the morning to energize the workers and the consumers and slower in the afternoon to provide that end-of-the-day feeling.) Muzak is usually played through smallish speakers which emphasize the mid to high range, overlapping the sounds most present in human speech. Installed in the ceilings, the Muzak sound system surrounds the people and serenades them from above. Shops selling hip clothing for the L.A. clubbing scene play the dance music of the clubs making you want to dance into the clothes; Victoria Secret plays "bedroom music"-- classical music designed (and marketed to the clientele) as intimate music-- making you want to slip into something more comfortable; and the Price Center plays a commercial radio station with a boppy announcer and contemporary soft rock, presumably making you want to consume Wendy's french fries.
quoted text is from Elevator Music by J. Landa
Drive By Muzak Responses Muzak: A Brief History UCSD and the Price Center topThe campus of UCSD was designed to maintain calm order, to avoid urban unrest and to create a place free of disruptive collective action. Located in the center of campus, the food court in the Price Center is the central meeting place for student consumers to eat grease and imbibe caffeine. In addition to the comfort of big name food chains, there are other reasons why the campus consumes here, and not at some other consumer center. The Center is inaccessible to vehicles, save police cars, campus shuttles and delivery trucks, and what parking exists is scarce and far-flung. Thus, though UCSD is located in the city of San Diego with its wide streets and major freeways, cars headed for the Price Center must chance upon one of the limited metered spaces off to the side of the Center or park in one of the more distant lots (some still under construction). While the architectural structures of UCSD loom in institutional magnitude, the sounds of the campus are perhaps less noticed but no less controlled than the architecture. Like many malls, the Price Center is equipped with a multi-speaker system to control the sounds of the space both for emergency intercom use and music. Ordinarily, when people walk through the Price Center, they hear the sounds of a local commercial radio station (including both music and advertisements) wafting from the ceiling speakers, accompanying the sounds of the people talking, ordering food and exchanging money. There is no aural evidence that the scene is not some other food court in some other mall, in some other city or town.
Drive By Muzak Responses Muzak: A Brief History UCSD and the Price Center top