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Colonialism and the First HIV Epidemic
Get PDFSince the HIV-1 pandemic began, 79 million people have been infected, and 36 million have died. While the origins of the HIV-1 pandemic are not widely known, research suggests that HIV originated in Kinshasa, the capital city of the former Belgian-Congo colony (Faria et al., 2014; Pépin, 2013). HIV was circulating within Africa for decades before its global spread. How did a virus originating from Africa spread globally? Evidence points to colonialism (Faria et al., 2014; Giles-Vernick et al., 2013; Pépin, 2013). Colonial influences on urbanization, social dynamics, and healthcare created conditions that favoured the early spread of HIV. Addressing the impacts of colonialism and its influence on the spread of HIV is critical, given the rise of infectious diseases such as COVID-19.
Keywords: HIV epidemic, colonialis
Learning to Listen: Children’s Books that Guide the Way
No full textDo you remember those special sounds of childhood? The sound of sleet against the window, birds singing in the tree above your favorite playground swing, or the echo of kids laughing in a vacant urban lot?
Memories from the soundscape of youth often come to us at the most unexpected times, stimulated by a gust of wind, the rustle of leaves, rain on the roof, a distant voice, or the sound of a car. The acoustic environment in which we grow up can leave a lifetime of impressions on us
Haiku for Pauline, as Pauline
Get PDFBoth of our work with Pauline has cut across many elements of her life and practice. We performed with her, managed projects, organized events, engaged in Deep Listening, studied with her, and have been deeply involved in the stewardship of her archival materials. Most importantly she was our friend and mentor as a colleague in her role as a Professor of Practice at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
We wrote the haiku below together as a series of games. The fifteen letters of her name, multiplied by the three lines of the fifteen haiku equals 85 lines, which would be her birthday number this year. Fortuitously, the resulting 255 syllables equals the maximum value representable by an 8-bit byte and is both a sphenic number and a Mersenne Prime. Since Pauline was a supreme punster, it seems only appropriate to note it here. We can almost hear her giggling
Discrete mapping of urban soundscapes: Sound design
No full textSince the introduction of the EU directive of June 25, 2002 there has been a profusion of research grants and public- sector spending on quantitative acoustic maps. But what are they going to be used for? Who is going to consult them? Will they serve as the basis for upgrading our urban soundscapes? There is every reason to doubt this. This article reports on work that could form the starting point of a vast research drive to build sound maps of a new sort, maps that are more descriptive and able to supplement the information provided by mapping of acoustic measurements
Acoustic Objectives for Designed or Managed Soundscapes
Get PDFThis paper describes acoustic objectives for designed and managed soundscapes, and suggests that these be called "Proposed Acoustic Environments". These acoustic objectives need to be defined on the basis of the information content of the sound, not, as is dominant in conventional noise abatement and control assessments, on the level of the sound. Starting with acoustic objectives specified in this way, there is a logical design process that can be followed that requires separate analysis and assessment of the wanted and unwanted sounds at a site and their appropriate management. Such an approach is essen- tial if soundscape planning is to bridge a major communicational divide that currently exists between the concepts of acoustic ecology and the large body of knowledge and practice represented by conventional noise management
Conversations: David Dunn, Nick Miller, Emily Thompson
Get PDFConducted in person, over the phone, and via email during fall & winter 2005–2006, these three conversations reflect a wide range of professional activities, each with a particular set of concerns and area of focus. My interest was in delving into the broad field of sound stud- ies, and finding out what some of the leading practitioners in areas as diverse as academia, industry, arts, and sciences are doing, thinking, and talking about. What stands out to me as a link among the three is the passion, dedication, and deep concern for the acoustic environ- ment in all its myriad forms. These are three individuals who truly turn their ideas into action. Brief excerpts from these conversations were first published online at http://www.arts-electric.org
Sound Object? Sound Event! : Ideologies of Sound and the Biopolitics of Music
Get PDFThis article elaborates on the ideology of the sound object, as a predominant factor in common attitudes of sound-making and listening, and contrasts it with an understanding of sound as the event of time-specific and space-specific traces left by desired or necessary interac- tions. The discussion is described as one bearing on the biopolitics of music: by weaving together an ecological awareness of sound and a critical (and creative) view of music technologies, the article emphasizes the relationship between the material conditions and the cognitive mechanisms of auditory experience qua “conditions of existence” of purposeful sound-making in general. Commitments of the kind can take the form of scholarly research and/or of artistic explorations. Therefore the discussion touches both on broader questions of musical knowledge in their relation to issues in audio media theory, and on particular examples of sound art practices where reconsidered notions of aura seem to emerge
Listening as Reciprocity: Heidegger’s Appropriation in Being-Time
Get PDFHow does the soundscape bring awareness to states of being and senses of time?
Heidegger’s last lectures, Identity and Difference (1969) and On Time and Being (1972), advocate an end of philosophy so that the experience of Being is foregrounded rather than further abstracted. These treatises serve as a turn away from the metaphys- ics of Being, of linear conceptions of time-space toward a fourth dimension grounded profoundly in an experience of relationality, the unity of past, present and future in the constancy of approach. The always-already movement of insistent approach instantiates aware- ness of Being through reciprocal Appropriation (a key term) of time by Being and Being by time. This is a phenomenological turn that opens radical consideration of how sound works to position the listener in myriad acoustic fields diverging and converging, the soundscape vivified, where fierce reciprocity gifts awareness of self and world in profoundly experiential ways..