The Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology and World Listening Project continue their partnership with the National Park Service to present a concert by Chicago Phonography and a Miller Woods soundwalk at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore’s Paul H. Douglas Center for Environmental Education. All ages, free and open to the public.

Explore the natural soundscape of Miller Woods trail with a soundwalk led by the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology. Enjoy a surprising concert of environmental sounds by Chicago Phonography, a collective of artists who gather audio recordings of Chicago and Gary soundscapes. Using a four-channel playback system, Chicago Phonography members collectively mix their recordings in live, improvisational performances. In a sense, Chicago Phonography substitutes microphones and field recordings for musical instruments to create new and dramatic soundscapes that surround and engage listeners in surprising ways—using only real world sounds. Chicago Phonography will host an “open mic” session for new members, and this performance will also feature sounds archived by the National Park Service—such as whale songs recorded in Glacier Bay, a dawn chorus of Isle Royale in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and forests of the Great Smoky Mountains.

http://www.nps.gov/
http://mwsae.org/
http://www.borderbend.org/chicago-calling.html

Com­puter net­works and cities both are so­cial spaces that have emerged as ma­te­r­ial spaces where lives are lead and work gets done. They are su­per­struc­tures for com­mu­ni­ca­tion, net­works of chan­nels where in­for­ma­tion and goods are trans­ferred. Both spaces have their par­tic­u­lar acoustic prop­er­ties and qual­i­ties, and while ex­ten­sive stud­ies of en­vi­ron­men­tal acoustics and the sound­scape of our en­vi­ron­ment have been emerg­ing in the last 40 years, net­work spaces are still con­sid­ered to be spaces with­out sound, acoustics or any sonic prop­er­ties.

The panel on Sound­wwwalks will ex­plore this from mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives: In­ves­ti­ga­tions to­wards an Acoustic Ecol­ogy of Net­works, and web browsers and media stored on the web as in­ter­face and ma­te­r­ial for live sound per­for­mance. The in­vited artists and re­searchers pre­pare lec­ture per­for­mances within the stan­dard pre­sen­ta­tion setup of the con­fer­ence.

Per­for­mances by:

Bern­hard Gar­nic­nig, ex­plor­ing the tran­si­tion of the built and “nat­ural” en­vi­ron­ment to the net­work space as the defin­ing sonic en­vi­ron­ment of our lives.

Ceci Moss, play­ing a “dense, care­fully arranged Sound­wwwalk com­po­si­tion using record­ings of the human voice found on the web. Beat­box­ing in­struc­tional videos, vocal med­i­ta­tion ex­er­cises, on­line singing lessons will all find their way in this eclec­tic cho­rus, one that fore­grounds the warmth and dex­ter­ity of the human voice.”

Jamie Allen will per­form a sound­wwwalk which ref­er­ences and mines the vast func­tional audio archives of the in­ter­net. A sound walk for hard­ware, through hard­ware, on hard­ware.

As well as im­prov, re­mote and tape per­for­mances Peter Moos­gaard, Con­stant Dul­laart, Ju­lian Palacz, Joel Holm­berg and Will Schrimshaw.

Bios of the Par­tic­i­pants

Ceci Moss is a free­lance writer, mu­si­cian, DJ, and cu­ra­tor. She is cur­rently pur­su­ing a PhD in Com­par­a­tive Lit­er­a­ture at NYU. Her re­search ad­dresses con­tem­po­rary in­ter­net-based art prac­tice, dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy and per­cep­tion, the ma­te­ri­al­ity of media, post­mod­ernism and dig­i­tal art preser­va­tion. From 2007-2011 she was Se­nior Ed­i­tor of Rhi­zome, where she is presently a Staff Writer. She writes and edits the on­line con­tem­po­rary art and music blog A Mil­lion Keys. For the past ten years, she’s pro­grammed the weekly radio show Radio Heart on KALX and East Vil­lage Radio. She stud­ied So­ci­ol­ogy, His­tory and French at UC Berke­ley, and Crit­i­cal The­ory in Paris, France at the Uni­ver­sité Sor­bonne Nou­velle, Paris III/Cen­tre parisien d’études cri­tiques.

Jamie Allen makes things with his head and hands. These things most often in­volve peo­ples’ re­la­tion­ships to cre­ativ­ity, tech­nol­ogy and re­sources. They often at­tempt to give peo­ple new, sub­ver­sive and fun ways to in­ter­act with all of these. As some­one who works at the in­ter­sec­tion of art, so­cial the­ory and tech­nol­ogy, Jamie is an artist, a de­signer and a tech­nol­o­gist, as well as a teacher, re­searcher and ex­per­i­menter. His work has been fea­tured in a num­ber of media out­lets, in­clud­ing Wired.​com and the New York Times.

Bern­hard Gar­nic­nig is an artist and cu­ra­tor based in New­cas­tle and Vi­enna. In 2011 he grad­u­ated with an M.A. in Dig­i­tal Arts from the Uni­ver­sity for Ap­plied Arts Vi­enna. He has been re­search­ing the re­la­tion­ship be­tween sound and its spa­tial con­text from dif­fer­ent as­pects. In Crav­ing (with Got­tfried Haider) they de­vel­oped a GPS based bin­au­ral sound sim­u­la­tion en­gine for urban spa­tial sound nar­ra­tives in 2006. After that he started play­ing and or­gan­is­ing elec­troa­coustic im­prov con­certs at c17 Vi­enna, an art space he co-founded with Albért Bernàrd. After that he fo­cussed on sonic ac­tion in the field of browser and net­work based art, started to com­mis­sion browser based Sound­wwwalk per­for­mances with WORM/vi­enna and re­leased “Three Re­cur­ring Ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties”, a web­site that’s part feed­back in­stru­ment, part net­work field record­ing de­vice.

Peter Moos­gaard is a media artist and writer, work­ing in Vi­enna and Hels­ing­borg. In his work he deals with top­ics like pain, na­tion­al­ity, mythol­ogy, sci­ence and dig­i­tal media. Moos­gaard’s am­bi­tion is “..​to ex­ploit the nev­er­land be­tween art and tech­nol­ogy,” as he once said, “be­cause I´m not sure that cul­ture is my friend.”

Joel Holm­berg is a Los An­ge­les-based artist, one of the found­ing mem­bers of the Nasty Nets surf­ing club, and the cre­ative force be­hind Chillsesh. Com­bin­ing orig­i­nal per­for­mance and video with mash-ups of all kinds, Holm­berg’s site makes the line be­tween what he’s found and what he’s orig­i­nally au­thored dif­fi­cult to de­ci­pher. Se­lected works in­clude Palm Tree Palin­drome, a video that fea­tures a mes­meric pro­ces­sion of palm trees on ei­ther side of the frame, evok­ing film sprock­ets and the no­table ab­sence of nar­ra­tive in a piece with a seem­ingly for­ward thrust; BwO, which hi­lar­i­ously el­e­vates the soft-fo­cus ef­fects in a scene from the movie My Life star­ring Michael Keaton to the meta­phys­i­cal by over­lay­ing a read­ing of A Thou­sand Plateaus, a fa­mous book by the­o­rists Deleuze and Guat­tari; and Log roll, which lit­er­ally shows the artist rolling across an empty stu­dio, a repet­i­tive ges­ture am­pli­fied by a tech­nique that rolls the video back and forth in per­pet­ual mo­tion.

Con­stant Dul­laart (NL 1979, Ri­etveld Acad­e­mie Am­s­ter­dam, Rijk­sakademie Am­s­ter­dam): Trained as a video artist, his work has re­cently fo­cussed on the In­ter­net and re-con­tex­tu­al­iz­ing found ma­te­r­ial. Work­ing as a so called ‘in­ter­net aware’, or ‘post in­ter­net’ artist, his work shows the chang­ing ver­nac­u­lar of the con­tem­po­rary com­puter user, and how global cor­po­ra­tions (google, adobe, apple) con­trol that new lan­guage. In net­worked per­for­mances, cu­rated salon evenings, pho­to­graphic prints, youtube video’s, do­main name works, blog­posts, lec­tures, Dul­laart finds a way to em­pha­size the value of chang­ing in­ter­na­tional dom­i­nant (image) di­alects. His works are widely seen and dis­cussed on­line on blogs such as vvork.​com, rhizome.​org, artinamerica.​com, todayandtomorrow.​net, trendbeheer.​com etcetera, and his re­cently fea­tured in the Me­trop­o­lisM. Dul­laart taught at the Ri­etveld acad­e­mie, and (co)cu­rated sev­eral events in Am­s­ter­dam, Berlin and New York, such as the pe­ri­od­i­cally held Lost and Found evenings (with his final event in the New Mu­seum), the Cy­clus DVD for PARK4DTV / Mr Mot­ley, ‘Con­tem­po­rary Se­man­tics Beta’ in Arti et Am­ici­tiae, and re­cently the ex­hi­bi­tion “Ver­sions” in NIMK. His work is shown in­ter­na­tion­ally in places as the MASS MOCA North Adams USA, Cen­tre Pom­pi­dou in Paris, Art in Gen­eral and MWNM gallery in New York, ICA Lon­don, NIMK, de Appel, W139, the Stedelijk Mu­seum, Ellen de Brui­jne pro­jects, and Gallery West. Dul­laart lives / works in Berlin and Am­s­ter­dam.

Will Schrimshaw is an artist-re­searcher from Wake­field based in New­cas­tle upon Tyne. Often work­ing with sound amidst a larger vi­bra­tional con­tin­uum, his work is broadly con­cerned with the sub­lim­i­nal in­flu­ence of back­grounds, am­biances and at­mos­pheres, with the often im­per­cep­ti­ble de­ter­mi­nants of space and place. These con­cerns are man­i­fest in an ex­per­i­men­tal prac­tice com­bin­ing earth, text and code.

Ju­lian Palacz is an artist and pro­gram­mer based in Vi­enna, Aus­tria. He grad­u­ated with an M.A. in Dig­tial Arts from the Uni­ver­sity for Ap­plied Arts Vi­enna in 2010. His piece “Al­go­rith­mic search for love” has re­cently re­ceived a Prix Ars Elec­tron­ica Hon­orary Men­tion and the In­ter­ac­tive Art Prize from the Fes­ti­val In­ter­na­cional Mul­timédia, Por­tu­gal.

World Listening Day observes July 18 as a day to: Celebrate the practice of listening as it relates to the world around us, environmental awareness, and acoustic ecology; Raise awareness about issues related to the World Soundscape Project, World Listening Project, World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, and individual and group efforts to creatively explore phonography; Design and implement educational initiatives which explore these concepts and practices. For further details and updates please visit the MSAE website/.

Image: Photo courtesy of the Purdue College of Agriculture/Tom Campbell, via ScienceDaily

Sound, Pijanowski suggests, is a kind of ecological indicator: an audible symptom of other, sometimes literally invisible changes in a living network or ecosystem. Sound, for instance, can “be used to detect early changes in climate, weather patterns, the presence of pollution or other alterations to a landscape.” As Pijanowski explains one example of this approach, “The dawn and dusk choruses of birds are very characteristic of a location. If the intensity or patterns of these choruses change, there is likely something causing that change. Ecologists have ignored how sound that emanates from an area can help determine what’s happening to the ecosystem.”

So far, unfortunately, it seems that a great flattening of the acoustic field has been the primary discovery: “One of the most significant findings was that as human impact in the landscape increases, the natural rhythms of sound created by the diverse wildlife population are replaced by low and constant human-produced noise.” The great machine-drone of human life fills forests once ringing with birdsong.

Of course, this is at once slightly redundant—there is already acoustic ecology, for instance—and fantastically cool, throwing the door wide-open for future acoustic research (and institutional funding).

Read more: http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/soundscape-ecology-or-archive-fever-of.html

However, one point of immediate limitation, I’d suggest, comes with Pijanowski’s apparent focus on sounds produced by animals. Indeed, I’m reminded of an old essay by Francisco López, called “Environmental Sound Matter,” from La Selva: Sound Environments From A Neotropical Rain Forest.

There, López seeks to remind listeners that “there is also a type of sound-producing biotic component, present in almost every environment, that is usually overlooked: plants.” He then makes one of my favorite sonic observations of all time, which is that “what we call the sound of rain or wind we could better call the sound of plant leaves and branches.” Quoting at length:

“If our perspective of nature sounds were more focused on the environment as a whole, instead of on behavioral manifestations of the organisms we foresee as most similar to us, we could also deal with plant bioacoustics. Furthermore, a sound environment is not only the consequence of all its sound-producing components, but also of all its sound-transmitting and sound-modifying elements. The birdsong we hear in the forest is as much a consequence of the bird as of the trees or the forest floor. If we are really listening, the topography, the degree of humidity of the air or the type of materials in the topsoil are as essential and definitory as the sound-producing animals that inhabit a certain space.

So, add the sounds of plants, molds, and root networks, of soil itself and groundwater, of shifts in air pressure and humidity and even the underlying deep geologic structures that support all that living terrain in the first place, and an intensely interesting sonic portrait of terrestrial ecosystems takes shape, mutating through complex blurs and inflection points over time, its parts weaving in and out symphonically.”

Again, this is functionally identical to acoustic ecology—with equal parts acoustic geology thrown in, perhaps—but it will nonetheless be interesting to see if a slight change of name (and some news buzz) results in more opportunities for funding and research.

On a slightly unrelated note, meanwhile, Britain’s superlative music and sound art magazine The Wire reported on something called Field Studies 2010 in an issue published last autumn. Field Studies “provide[d] an environment for architects, artists and urbanists to explore the relationship between architecture and sound, and to ’see’ sound not as a scientific, acoustic event, but as a sometimes inexplicable, poetic and place-specific phenomenon.” In a sense, then, specifically in terms of the discipline described above, Field Studies was a kind of urbanized anti-soundscape-ecology: more emotional and poetic than scientifically diagnostic.

But one of the workshop leaders, Marc Behrens, makes the interesting point that there is “a tech version of Moore’s Law,” quote-unquote. “In other words, as recording devices get smaller, more sophisticated and cheaper, opportunities increase and the art of sonic field studies evolves accordingly.”

This seems to resonate well with Pijanowski’s work, that, as acoustic sensors and deployable sound-capture networks become easier and cheaper both to install and to monitor (which, of course, includes for surveillance purposes), we’ll hear, at the very least, a massive quantitative increase in the amount of archived sonic information available for later study. An archive fever of the ear!

Part of her Sewing Sonifications series, Waveforms originated from a collaboration with UW Oceanographic Scientist Dr. Neil Banas and is an exploration into using data from ecosystem models along the Washington coast to create tangible experiences of research through art. Sound is translated from data, then visualized and made tactile by the artist embroidering the combined waveform into a continuous sound wave.

Waveforms was made with the support of Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, 4Culture, and Harborview Medical Center.

A day of presentations, participatory workshops and informal performance around themes of urban sound, networked sound, locative media and acoustic ecology – the relationship between living beings and their environment, as mediated by sound. Featuring Furtherfield (Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrett), and guest speakers Stanza, Peter Cusack, Ximena Alarcón and Pedro Rebelo.

The event is free, and open to anyone interested, including musicians, artists, curators, technologists; ecologically inclined thinkers, makers and doers of all kinds.

BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL. Space is limited. Reserve your place.

What to bring: Bring headphones to take part in the VisitorsStudio workshop. Wear comfortable (and quiet!) clothing and shoes for the soundwalk, and be prepared for rain. We hope to offer wireless access. If you wish to have wireless access you MUST email in advance your name, computer model and MAC address to Katharine Norman at Katharine.norman [at] city.ac.uk by 7 November 2009.

Sound Ecologies: Listening in the City is a partnership event funded by LCACE and convened by Katharine Norman, Department of Music, City University London and Furtherfield.org

Visual and sound artist Carrie Bodle will create a five-channel sound installation and sewing performance sonifying data from an ecosystem model developed by UW oceanographic scientist Dr. Neil Banas. Sound is translated from data, then visualized and made tactile by the artist embroidering the combined waveform into a continuous sound wave.

This computer model simulates the growth and consumption of plankton in the ocean ecosystem along the Washington coast during summer 2005. The five sound channels broadcast five dimensions in this data: wind (1) and tides (2) drive the currents and turbulence that bring nutrients (3) to the surface. Once in the zone where sunlight penetrates, phytoplankton (4) grow, zooplankton (5) eat the phytoplankton, and so on up the food chain. Embroidering these five sonified data sets as one ecosystem through a public art performance, research data from the Washington coast is made audible, visual, and tangible.

In collaboration with Dr. Neil Banas, UW Applied Physics Laboratory, and Keith Grochow, UW Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

This project was created with support from a 4Culture Individual Artist Project Grant

ArtsSparks is made possible by a unique partnership between the Seattle Parks Department, Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and 4Culture’s Site Specific Program.

The Art + Design Department is proud to present the World Listening Project (WLP). Panelists will talk about its current local and international efforts, and discuss opportunities for designers and artists to participate in the unrealized potential that lies in the field of acoustic ecology, in order more fully to realize an effective and creative response to an all too often neglected part of human experience and knowledge—the world of sound and our ability to listen. Listening means paying attention. If you want to change the world, you need to listen to it. The panel discussion’s participants include: Eric Leonardson, Jesse Seay, Chad Clark, Brett Balough, and Dan Godston.

The World Listening Project (WLP) is a not-for-profit organization devoted to understanding the world and its natural environment, societies and cultures through the practices of listening and field recording. WLP maintains and develops a repository of sound recordings and provides access to this information via web-based technologies, workshops, forums, lectures, and festivals. WLP hereby seeks to encourage worldwide opportunities for collaboration, education, curation, research and experimentation across the disciplines of the arts, humanities, and the social and natural sciences.

Ear to the Earth 2008 began with the launch of New York Soundscape, a multi-year project to create a panoramic portrayal of the city’s audio personality and urban ecology by composers, sound artists, students, and New Yorkers from all walks of life. The composers this year include Walter Branchi, Francisco Lopez, Alvin Curran, Michael Schumacher, Miya Masaoka, Richard Lainhart, Lo Vid, Marina Rosenfeld, Andrea Polli, Ezequiel Vinao, Charlie Morrow, Helen Fisher, Matthew Burtner, and John Cage.

Don’t miss New York Big Fritz, a multimedia presentation of Times Square around the clock, produced by faculty and students of the NYU Music Technology program, among them Agnieszka Roginska, Paul Geluso, Robert Rowe, Joel Chadabe, and Tom Beyer. (Image above is: Recording New York Big Fritz - Photo by Izzi Ramkissoon)

The festival continued with other soundscapes and performances with an ecological bent, including music by Ezequiel Vinao, Charlie Morrow, Helen Fisher, Matthew Burtner and others, and performances by So Percussion, Matthew Burtner, Madeleine Shapiro, Stephen Gosling, and Jenny Chai.

The festival will close with a star-studded New York City first performance of John Cage’s Lecture on the Weather.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

For information about the ideas, the music, the artists, the events, ticketing, reservations, and venues, here are the contact points: http://www.emfproductions.org/ :: http://www.arts-electric.org/ :: and eartotheearth [at] emf.org :: Phone: (888) 749-9998 and (212)206-1505.

EVENTS

Soundwalks: Guided by members of the New York Society for Acoustic Ecology :: Wednesday, October 15, 6pm :: Meet at Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South :: http://www.emfproductions.org/upcoming/soundwalks.html

Citizen Sound :: A public forum on urban sound moderated by Andrea Polli :: Wednesday, October 15, 7pm :: Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South :: http://www.emfproductions.org/upcoming/citizensound.html

New York Society for Acoustic Ecology :: Works by Andrea Polli, Jonny Farrow, others :: Wednesday, October 15, 9pm ::
Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South

Commissions 1 :: Richard Lainhart & LoVid :: Thursday, October 16, 8pm :: Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South :: http://www.emfproductions.org/upcoming/commissions1_2l.html

Commissions 2 :: World premieres by Michael Schumacher, Miya Masaoka, Marina Rosenfeld :: Friday, October 17, 8pm ::
Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South :: http://www.emfproductions.org/upcoming/commissions2_3m.html

Cloud Car :: An (auto)mobile installation by Andrea Polli :: Saturday, October 18, 12-6pm :: Eyebeam, 540 W 21st Street ::
Sunday, October 19, 10am-3pm :: New York Hall of Science, 47-01 111th Street, Queens :: http://www.emfproductions.org/upcoming/cloudcar.html

New York Metropolis :: A public forum on culturally driven urban development :: Organized and moderated by Charlie Morrow :: Saturday, October 18, 3pm :: Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South :: http://www.emfproductions.org/upcoming/metropolis.html

Commissions 3 :: Alvin Curran: TransDadaExpress :: The Brooklyn Bridge :: Saturday, October 18, 8pm :: Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South :: http://www.emfproductions.org/upcoming/curran.html

Other Soundscapes 1 :: Music by Olivier Messiaen, Ezequiel Viñao, Helen Fisher, Matthew Burtner :: Performed by Madeleine Shapiro, cello, Jessica Schmitz, flute, Jenny Chai, piano, Stephen Gosling, piano :: Monday, October 20, 7:30pm :: Chelsea Art Museum, 556 W 22nd Street :: http://www.emfproductions.org/upcoming/othersoundscapes1.html

Other Soundscapes 2 :: Music by Charlie Morrow, Matthew Burtner :: Performed by MetasaxDRUMthings, Charlie Morrow ::
Tuesday, October 21, 7:30pm :: Chelsea Art Museum, 556 W 22nd Street :: http://www.emfproductions.org/upcoming/othersoundscapes2.html

Other Soundscapes 3 :: Music by John Cage, Orlando Garcia, Jason Treuting :: Performed by So Percussion, Madeleine Shapiro, cello :: Wednesday, October 22, 7:30 :: Chelsea Art Museum, 556 W 22nd Street

John Cage: Lecture on the Weather :: Performers include Merce Cunningham, Joan La Barbara, Jan Williams, Agnieszka Roginska, Chris Mann, others :: Friday, October 24 & Saturday, October 25, 7:30pm :: Chelsea Art Museum, 556 W 22nd Street :: http://www.emfproductions.org/upcoming/lectureontheweather.html

Many opportunities to contribute and to participate :: http://www.emf.org/joinus/invitation.html

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