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Acoustic Ecology in Commissioned Work
Get PDFAs a collective, which is specializing in sound scenography, Idee und Klang Audio Design creates auditive environments for exhibitions and the public space. Sometimes we create our own artistic pieces, but in most cases we are hired by a client. Nonetheless, in our 17 years of existence, we have found that more times than not, there is room to align our own beliefs with the ones of the project to some degree. This paper focuses on two aspects: a) the ways in which acoustic ecology informs our work as sound scenographers and b) our experiences with commissioned projects, which feature acoustic ecology as a core topic
A hybrid listening across totems and talking wires
Get PDFThis article unfolds around the notion of hybrid listeningfrom the perspectives of Hildegard Westerkamp ontotemism, and Pauline Oliveros's proposal of embodied technologies to expand our sensorium [1]: Both composers were led by the notions of ecology and utopia [2] and approached soundscape recordings from a long tradition of technologized humanism [3]. Their contribution enlighten a complex relation between soundscape technologies and indigenous listening [4] This encounter is highlighted with themes from the painting “The song of the talking wire”, by Henry Farny (1904). This approach underlines an attentive listening to wind driven soundscapes amplified through the telegraphic infrastructure.
Hybrid listening means to combine embodied and technologically mediated listening [5] including diversified and non-extractive approaches to technologies for environmental sound [6]. In accordance with the painting’s theme, this article proposes a diversification of these technologies as an emergent agency raising from the discordance between western technologies and ancient cosmologies
How Aircraft Noise is Heard in Okinawa, Japan
Get PDFThis paper presents how nearly meaningless aircraft noise is heard differently according to social/historical backgrounds, taking Okinawa, Japan, where the fierce ground battle was fought during WW2, as an example
Why I Wrote Listening to Places
Get PDFThe book Listening to Places (Void Gallery, 2022) contains exercises designed to encourage self-reflexive listening. These activities are predicated on platial thinking, a philosophy that asserts the importance of places as responsive contexts that shape, and are shaped by, our being-in-the-world. This belief weaves an ontology of being with an ethos that’s literally grounded in the places we occupy. Despite the philosophical foundations, this is a practical handbook that will aid musicians, composers, sound designers, field recordists, producers,... anyone who wishes to enhance their experience of sound. These exercises are designed to facilitate workshops, soundwalks, and other activities
Political Acoustic Ecology: On the Role of Political Ecology in Soundscape Studies
No full textWhich role may Political Ecology play for studies of Acoustic Ecology? As global environmental change is rapidly transforming soundscapes along the frontiers of resource use, important questions arise about who precisely occupies the common sonic environment, how resulting sonic burdens and benefits are distributed among diverse social groups, across the audible and inaudible spectrum, as well as how affected communities, activists and movements may respond to adverse sonic environmental change. This paper delves into some of the intersections of Political Ecology and Acoustic Ecology and explores five points of inquiry for a ”Political Acoustic Ecology” that may offer fresh insights in the socio-political dimensions of sonic environmental change.  
Prehistoric Sites, Indigenous Voices, and Preserving Identities: Using Sound Mapping to Engage with Indigenous Sites in North America
Get PDFScattered along the Southeastern United States, thousands of stone wall and mound sites existed in the landscape long before explorers and subsequent settlers came to the area. These structures were formed by prehistoric indigenous people of the area and mark this area's cultural heritage and landscape as holding importance beyond the current development taking place.In this paper, I will explore the cultural landscape of Skeleton Mountain and the surrounding Mountain Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge, Alabama, USA. This site holds regional and national significance to the indigenous population's cultural heritage and the United States heritage. There have been ongoing development efforts with increasing human populations and changes in human development and settlement that pose a challenge to protecting and managing these cultural and historical sites. The use of sound mapping and place provides a way for us to communicate and educate others about the stories and histories of the indigenous peoples of North America and their imprint on the landscapes which still exist
Situated Listening: Partial Perspectives and Critical Listening Positionality
Get PDFCritical listening positionality, as theorized by sound studies scholar, Dylan Robinson, points to the way in which our identities and histories shape what and how we hear. In his 2020 publication, “Hungry Listening,” Robinson remarks of Deep Listening, the practice of sonic attunement developed by composer Pauline Oliveros: “in my experience the meditative opening up of listening through the body has also seemed to distance me from the particularity of listening positionality.” In this paper, we explore the tensions between this “opening up of listening through the body” and the prospect of critical listening positionality. Thinking alongside Robinson, Oliveros, and decolonial scholars such as Rolando Vasquez, we propose frameworks for situated listening that acknowledge the partial perspective of our own listening, while allowing for the porous and transformative experience of attunement to the many presences within, and histories of, the places and times we are embedded in
Listening to Insect Agency: Reconsidering Relations Through Ecological Sound Art
Get PDFInsects are vitally important to the survival of life on earth. Yet, in many western societies, humans have become quite averse to insects, and this is exacerbated by a narrative of fear, avoidance, and elimination. If we are to act on utilitarian evidence alone, insect decline caused by anthropogenic impacts makes it critically important to improve our relations with our insect kin. In this paper, we argue that listening to insects – and speculating as to how they listen – can move us towards relations based in curiosity, respect, and a recognition of their value. We present two works of ecological sound art that focus on cryptic insect sounds beyond the limits of human hearing ability: HVAC (2022) and Formiphony (2020). By foregrounding cryptic sound, we emphasize the vast unknown sound-worlds of insects in our shared environments. Through this expansion of our listening, we can recognize insect agency as expressed through decisions concerning their sonic relations. These works have been presented in performance, exhibits, lectures, radio, and albums, bringing a broad audience into conversation about our relations with insects
An Uncomfortable Audio Ethnography: Sound and Politics in the Evolution of an Acouscenic Listening Approach to Softday’s Sonically Engaged Art Practice
Get PDFSound art is at the vanguard of contemporary fine art practices seeking to establish a platform for meaningful creative debate on a range of contested anthropogenic, social, political and environmental issues. This paper explains how Softday’s practice of Acouscenic Listening may be utilised as a methodology for the Creative Soundwalk, thus creating conditions for a participatory sound art praxis, which advances a novel understanding of the everyday. The etymology of the Creative Soundwalk is defined through the assimilation and application of key theoretical frameworks that demonstrate where and how the practice may be positioned within the everyday. The practice is influenced by the work of experimental composers, scientists, artists and researchers who have created the conditions for this particular interdisciplinary line of enquiry. The practice incorporates adapted Deep Listening, Tai Chi/Chi Kung, creative soundwalks and mindful sonic meditation practices and philosophies. This study clarifies how Softday’s practice of Acouscenic Listening supports a creative turn in the execution and delivery of the Creative Soundwalk, and explains how interdependent both elements are in communicating this new creative praxis. This paper also discusses the development of this creative approach for sound art and acoustic ecology, developed over a nineteen-year timeframe within a collaborative art/science. Importantly the theories we have included locate both the practice of the Creative Soundwalk and Acouscenic Listening within the everyday
Objections to the Anti-Complicity Principle
Get PDFThis paper was originally written for Professor Bruno Guindon’s Philosophy 120W course, Moral and Legal Problems. The assignment asked students to write an argumentative philosophy essay evaluating McPherson’s anti-complicity principle. The paper uses APA citation style.
This paper examines the morality of meat eating, drawing on the inefficacy objection and the anti-complicity principle. It argues that the anti-complicity proves too much. This is because the anti-complicity principle deems meat-eating morally permissible only under extreme circumstances. This paper then proposed a revised principle which broadens the permissibility of meat-eating. It thus complicates McPherson’s argument on the permissibility of meat-eating using the revised principle