Forest 404 is a BBC Podcast about uncovering the mysteries about the past. The story is set in the 24th Century, where the protagonist Pan, is going through old sound documents from the 21st century that survived a data crash called the cataclysm. Pan discovers a recording of a David Attenborough documentary about a forest while deleting other old recordings. She is instantly haunted by the recording, and she is drawn to it in a way she cannot explain. Meeting up with dodgy people, traveling outside of her home, and getting influenced that the Forest sounds are actually viruses, Pan must dodge many obstacles to be able to uncover the truth about the Forest soundtrack. The setting of the story is in a place called Fumetown, where everyone is a robot, which is why so many things that humans in 2020 would call normal means nothing to the people of Pan’s time. Living in a place where nature is non-existent, Pan must uncover the truth about the past life. There are 3 sections to Forest 404: The episodes, the Pod talks and the Soundscapes. The episodes are where the actual story happens, and all of the action and mysterious fiction unravels in the 20- minute long episodes. The Pod talks are where an expert of a certain field comes and talks about a topic or issue that has been shown in the previous episode. It gives off a documentary feeling, and provides more information about Forest 404. The soundscapes are a section of Forest 404 that showcases the soundtracks and music that has been used throughout the Episodes. The soundscapes reveal the music in full form, without the voices of the characters, to show how meaningful and interesting music can really be in a podcast. Altogether, Forest 404 provides an action packed listening experience, along with mysterious events that leave a possible outcome of humanity.
Forest 404 is about a world where the inhabitants are living in the ‘Fast Times’ after a ‘cataclysm’ wipes the slate clean. At the beginning Pan listens to an audio file about nature which elicits ‘something’ within her. Pan’s reaction to this would not be the same as mine, where nature is surrounding us. Pan’s world is one crafted almost entirely from technology, one that is inherently different because nature is non-existent. Because of her discovery, Pan is betrayed by her friend Daria and her memory is wiped by the governing power of Forest 404, who are ‘cyborg hybrids’, who try to contain the sounds of nature and regard it as a disease. However, Pan subconsciously recalls bits of her memory back and goes too find an interlockiter located in an area called Fumetown, in a sense, they were like a fortune teller, someone who could answer your question in a vague manner. But when Pan shares here recording, the interlockiter commits suicide. We as humans, do not get infected with a sudden suicidal urge if we heard forest noises, but there are other sounds that make us recoil or flinch, different sounds can cause different things. Someone’s favorite song could calm them down but sounds like fingernails on glass can cause physical discomfort. Pan then meets Guggy, who proves that her memory was wiped and discovers that the audio file makes the hearers sad. The story then cuts to Daria, Pan’s ‘friend’ who takes pleasure in ‘harming others for the sake of justice’ interrogating a civilian and torturing them to gain info on Pan’s whereabouts. Torture is primarily used in warfare and combat and isn’t something that should be used on a civilian. Daria’s attitude on hurting people in the name of justice seems flawed because justice is subjective to different people. Pan then meets a tree for the first time and is filled with a sense of awe and wonder, after she is shot by an individual named Thea, where it is revealed everyone is an AI. The tree somehow instills a sense of awe and wonder within Pan. For me, a tree isn’t very special, but I did not live in a world where they did not exist. If I were to see a tree for the first time, I would think about how unusual it looked. It wasn’t symmetrical in any way; it was more of a tangle of brown tentacles. A tree didn’t make any indicator that it was alive, but it felt alive. Pan being an AI is something that could be possible soon, but it could cause problems. There would be a divide between AI and human, even if both could feel emotion. AI might not necessarily be considered ‘alive’. Thea, a living human, talks about how the world came to an end. AI was given the number 1 priority of protecting civilization and making progress. Forest 404’s world came to be because the actions of humans making the AI protect civilization rather than protecting human beings. The disaster that made Forest 404 could have been prevented with a bit more care and control. Pan and Thea then discovered that a coder named Artemis had coded out a noise that would generate a feeling in the androids when they listened to it which would make them go crazy. This feeling was regret. For me, regret was a powerful emotion, it motivated you to move on from past and also made you ashamed of yourself. Forest 404 begins to wrap up with the death of Thea and Daria sacrificing himself to make the audio file spread across the entire civilization of Forest 404. In all Forest 404 brought up a lot of interesting ideas and themes, particularly the thought of the world devoid of nature.
The podcasts throughout forest 404 have all been revolving around topics that might happen to us or about how moments in the podcast affect us. It is trying to make us realize that the way we might be living now has to change for us to prosper. The podcasts explore these changes that we could make for us to survive. One option is what happened in forest 404, we use an algorithm to generate AI so smart to work like humans. This is wrong in many aspects because this would mean that everyone under the algorithm would all be complacent and any slight change in emotions that the government does not approve of would be taken out. Another aspect is how our inner clocks work as shown in the podcast many people below aren’t the fastest in the world because of how they are always shrouded in the dark. In this world of the algorithm, there is obvious pollution beyond repair below. “Humans” had been experimented on and there were byproducts like the hands these beings had unnatural powers but had very limited minds. They had no other thoughts other than what they were set out to do. Even without becoming zombie like figures humans could do a who bunch of things to modify themselves. It could be physical but most of it was mental. The less fortunate people can even have access to mental changing equipment. It could be used for such trivial things such as winning conversations that had already been decided. This shows that messing with the mind is not frowned upon it is more promoted. As a human, it is our individuality which makes us who we are. In a way we have our own algorithm that shouldn’t be changed because you wouldn’t want everyone to act the same and do the same things. If this were to happen then there would be no more inventive minds for us to advance into the future. One of the other themes in this podcast was what is the importance of trees. Obvious reasons were for shelter for animal and oxygen were not used but more so things like how trees make you feel. Since trees live for so long, they can have positive effects on many generations. There was a study taken for recovering people in the hospital and some had a view of a tree and some that didn’t. It has been proven that people that had the tree to look at outside their window had recovered faster. The trees provide a calm and natural demeanor to us. I had listened to the sample of the forest in the podcast and it had calmed me down in the sense that I may have been a bit stressed. The choice of if we do become cyborgs or not comes up in one of the talks. Would we sacrifice our normal parts of ourselves for more improved stronger parts? This could prove to be disastrous if put in effect because if one of those parts begins to fail due to a technical problem it could start to shut down most of your body that has been replaced by parts. On the other hand, the idea of how we will die out has some interesting answers. When we keep evolving and innovating, we get things like global warming, dead zones and deforestation. Most of the podcast that had serious topics like how an AI government will work and how we function as human beings without modifications normally had an expert to guide the conversation. It isn’t just one person on the topic of robotic evolution but many. This reinforces the ideas or can contradict the statements made by previous guests that had come before them.
At first glance the soundscapes may look like humble sounds with no purpose other than to sounds good to the human ear, however in my opinion they are the most meaningful part Forest 404 with the most to cover. I believe music expresses feelings and emotions better than any words or pictures. Starting off with S1: Rainforest Symphony. This is the recording that Pan uncovers that makes her go astray. From our perspective it appears to be a simple rainforest as we know it. However, from Pan’s perspective it would be nothing like she has heard before. I think the reason for putting in many different species in this recording would be to show Pan the beauty of nature living in harmony with each other, something beautiful, that she had never heard before. I believe the composer of this track was going for a more mysterious feeling when making this track, combining it with a sense of awe, to leave Pan in astonishment, which would lead her to go on the amazing journey of trying to discover these possessive sounds that Pan was so captivated by. The frog chorus was quite similar, the sounds of nature itself was combined with sounds of frogs around the world to make a hypnotic chorus of sounds. I think the fact that the frogs were heard in harmony has something to do with how the interlocuter was struck by this sounds. The whale songs were designed to be a calming soundtrack, one that puts Pan to sleep. It is how the whale sounds play out, that make this soundtrack peaceful enough to put Pan to sleep. S4 was calming and peaceful, but in a different way to the whale sounds. Instead of sounding sleepy, joyous birds are played in their natural environment. The fact that these birds are in their natural environment, combined with the background noise of the sheep and leaves rustling lead to a more meditative state, where you do not feel sleepy like the whale sounds, but rather in a more alert state, while also being relaxed at the same time. Meanwhile, S5 is unlike any of the previous sounds. In which, instead of being sounds of nature it is a more urban environment. This constructs a feeling of familiarity in listeners being an accurate interpretation of what an urban soundscape would sounds like today, however like the rainforest, it would develop a feeling of mystery in Pan, making her want too know more and fine the truth behind these sounds. At the start dogs are heard barking, this would be a rather mysterious sound to Pan as she would have never heard this before. This evokes feelings of wonder and excitement into listeners and Pan. S6 was quite scary, as it shows sounds of nature, being mixed in with sounds of technology. This would support the idea of the rupture, where the natural world and all its inhabitants were wiped out and replaced by this very technology. This is quite disturbing for me. This also constructs the idea of an artificial world, like the very one Pan inhabited. S7 is definitely very interesting as it is all about perspective. Just like how Daria had a ‘wrong’ perspective on what Pan was doing and the noises, she had the same perspective on these sounds. These noises of birds would be calming to most people and would be enjoyable to listen to. However to Daria they were the cries of terrifying monsters. S8 is another soundscape that is quite relaxing to listen to. The sounds of oceans and seagulls are quite calming and instill this idea of a calming thunderstorm. This track is quite relaxing, which is surprising since relaxing is not what is usually thought of when considering a thunderstorm. Finally, my favorite soundscape of all, S9. This soundscape builds and develops a feeling and idea of mystery in the listener combined with the episodes. It flows perfectly with the plot of forest 404 and the episodes. The percussion is tackles perfectly, with a fast pace beat created while keeping the sounds of nature alive. As a musician I have to say this piece is a work of art. Ultimately these soundscapes are, in my opinion the heart of Forest 404 and it would not be the same without them.
The British Podcast written by Timothy X Attack demonstrates the freedom of listening to a podcast, and how you are able to and must imagine every scene in your head. The drama in the episodes makes people predict and decide for themselves how they are going to view the world. Questionable outcomes and the idea of leaving all of earth’s memories in a few files are what makes the episodes unique. The Pod talks accompanies the episodes, giving an insight to the themes, ideas and questions that are found in the episodes. The statements that the Pod talks make are all about the world changing, and which factors humans need to consider. Lastly, the soundscapes are showcased using the sounds in the episodes, and gets rid of all of the voices or other sounds to give the deepest and best layers of the soundscapes. Some soundscapes have a mix of nature sounds and robotic sounds, giving off the futuristic but also natural aspect, which others may by raw nature of robotic. Both the Pod talks and the soundscapes support and somewhat make the episodes more understandable and interesting. Forest 404 is a classic example of a podcast that give off a possible outcome of Earth and adds action in the mix. When someone says ‘dream big’, Forest 404 is an unlikely but possible outcome.