By: Islah Muhammad, Monroe Community College
Hello! My name is Islah Muhammad and I am a recent graduate of Monroe Community College where I majored in Screen and Cinema Studies. As a film student, I am extremely passionate about storytelling and the creative process behind bringing stories to life on screen. My academic interests include screenwriting, film editing, and audio production. I am especially interested in learning how visual and sound elements work together to create meaningful and immersive experiences for audiences.
Sound is one of the most powerful yet overlooked ways that people experience and understand the world around them. Beyond simply serving as background noise, everyday sounds can reflect a community’s traditions, values, history, and sense of place from religious practices and public gatherings. To transportation systems and natural environments, soundscapes help shape how people connect with their surroundings and form memories of a location. Because these auditory experiences vary across regions and cultures, they offer a unique perspective on culture identity and ways that communities express themselves.
With the support of the Tyler center of Global Studies, I will be traveling throughout Indonesia to investigate how regional soundscapes contribute cultural identity, memory,
and the perception of a place. Through field recordings, interviews, observational research, and multimedia documentation, I will explore everyday sounds from prayer calls, and market activity, to transportation networks and environmental soundscapes across different regions of Indonesia. I hope to better understand how sound shapes both individual experiences and collective cultural identity.
Alongside conducting field recordings, I will be traveling throughout several regions in Indonesia to explore how sound contributes to cultural identity and the perceptions of a place. My research will take me to Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, solo, Pandang, Bukit Tinggi and Sumatra, where I will be documenting a variety of urban, cultural, and natural soundscapes. During my travels I plan to visit film archives, museums, art galleries, historical landmarks, temples, and many other community spaces that reflect Indonesia’s rich cultural heritage. Sites such as the Wayang museum, and Parangtritis beach will provide me with opportunities to observe how sound interacts with history, tradition, public life, and the natural environment.
Through my fieldwork, I will focus on recording and analyzing the sounds that characterize each region. From this research, I plan to create a multimedia project that combines audio recordings, observational research, interviews, photography, and video documentation. I will examine how daily sounds shape the experiences of both residents and visitors. By comparing auditory environments across different locations, I hope to better understand how sound functions as a form of storytelling and how it influences memory, belonging, and the unique character of a location.
As a film student with interest in screen writing, and audio production, I hope this experience will help strengthen my understanding of how sound can be used as a powerful storytelling tool and deepen my appreciation of the relationship between culture and media. In the fall I will continue my academic journey at Suny Purchase where I will pursue degrees in Screen and Cinema Studies, and film production. The knowledge and experiences gained through this journey will provide a valuable foundation allowing me to approach filmmaking with a broader perspective of how sound, culture, and a place shape the stories that we tell.
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