Growing Pains by Kristen Ganz

Artist statement
For my two sound art pieces I wanted to recreate what growing up sounds like. I named the two part series “growing pains” because it depicts not only the joy but the pain and diffi culty of growing up. Nostalgia can also be sad or painful as we desperately try to hold onto our memories that tend slip out of our grasp like soap. With time we lose memories one by one and visions of childhood, people and places become forever lost. Photos, videos and songs are our only means of restoring these memories. The fi rst part goes back in time to my early childhood. I extracted the audio from some home videos. My moms voice features heavily in the fi rst video as she was the main voice of my childhood. I also added bits of sound from my favorite movie as well as birds calls that remind me of home. Both sound art pieces have drone and ambient synth chords as well as reverb which add to the nostalgic and melancholic feeling. The second piece is slightly more eclectic with diff erent sounds extracted from videos on my phones camera role. These include voices of friends, ocean sounds and wind. This represents the move from my childhood in-land to the seaside town of my teenage years. The sound is both soothing and unsettling with some sections being bare and contemplative and other parts loud and bustling. I also included a whispered poem that I wrote at the end about the relationship between me and my mother. The title of the fi rst part is “pulling”. This describes the process of me trying to recollect my memories. It also links to the vulnerability of childhood while the second part, “pushing” refers to the retaliation and questioning process of growing.