From March 23-27, 2009 the National Phonoteque and the Mexican Forum for Acoustic Ecology will have the honor of hosting the next major event for the WFAE, a conference designed as an academic space allowing reflection on a rarely studied and explored subject in Mexico: acoustic ecology.

The conference with the theme of Sound Megalopolis: Cultural Identity and Sounds in Danger of Extinction invites researchers, sound artists, musicians and sound professionals to attend conferences, workshops, installations and presentations of sound and audiovisual works, which will be performed by professionals and artists from 16 countries from the acoustic ecology and soundscape world community.

The conference will feature keynote speakers: Dr. Derrick de Kerckhove, Director of the McLuahn Program in Culture and Technology and Dr. Barry Blesser reviewer and current Consulting Technical Editor for the Audio Engineering Society journal.

The conference will also include local Soundwalks and an excursion to significant sites outside Mexico City (details TBA).

Sponsors: The National Council for the Culture Arts - Through The National Phonoteque of Mexico, supported by the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology.

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PROGRAM Environment and Soundscapes Acoustic Ecology and geographic space Research in the Bioacoustic realm Acoustic pollution (Sound and its physical and psychological effects) Megapolis: Sound and Legislation Sound Heritage Soundscapes Technology and soundscape construction From stereophonic creation to sound dimensionality of 5.1. Virtual sound environment creation World presentation of sound art creation Culture and Human Soundscapes Projects on listening development Recent research on pedagogical material for listening Listening culture for children Sound environment design Private and public acoustic spaces Urban vs rural space Sound design and architecture Program Subject to Change. Check Web Site For Updates.

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Tesla Roadster Now Available With Warp Drive (Wired Online). One can order their Barbus Telsa roadster with a space sound generator designed "to give the sports car a more exciting sound." "The volume of the sound is dependent upon the momentary power output of the electric motor." In other words, the faster you go, the louder it gets. Read More.

French composer-director finds music in stone (Reuters). French composer-director Michel Risse and his Decor Sonore troupe turned the massive concrete structure of the Cairo Opera House into a giant musical instrument. Musicians and technicians thumped the walls, rubbed the ramparts with brushes, probed the fishponds with rods wired with sensors, and even explored the acoustic potential of the metal fire escape. Read More.

Pilots Complain the A380 Is Too Quiet for Sleeping (Wired News). The last thing you'd expect to hear from anyone who's flown recently is that planes are too quiet. But that's exactly what Airbus is hearing from pilots who say the A380 super-jumbo makes so little noise they're having trouble getting to sleep. Read More.

Art soundscape heard but not seen. (BBC Archive) An art installation consisting entirely of the sound of human voices was a major 2004 major exhibition at London's Tate Modern gallery. Created by US artist Bruce Nauman, Raw Materials the installation was made up of 22 segments of spoken text played over loudspeakers into the museum's vast turbine hall. The voices range from a man repeatedly shouting "thank you" to the words "work" barked out over and over like a yelping dog. Read More.

Recording: Instamatic Series by Jez riley French.

The first 3 editions in the 'instamatic' series by Jez riley French on the engraved glass label are now available. Each release comes in a folded card outer sleeve containing the CD and an original, limited photographic print.

These releases features mainly one take recordings capturing simple moments in each location. The recordings were made for the composers own pleasure and without any preparation or pre-conceived aim. It's often the case that one ventures out with ones equipment and spends several hours recording only to return without any recordings that hold the attention.

The instamatic series was conceived to present recordings made in the most relaxed situations.

• instamatic # 1 - Bridlington harbour and Thornwick Bay hydrophone recordings made in June 2008
• instamatic # 2 - Vienna binaural recording made sitting by the Danube waiting for a train, September 2008
• instamatic # 3 - Ghent bird market
• instamatic # 4 - Ghent beguinage recorded with binaural, contact & stereo microphones in Ghent, October 2008

For more information see http://engravedglass.blogspot.com/

Listening To Birds is a two year Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council investigating how people perceive, identify and make sense of bird sounds. Full research details, blogs, and other related information available on the Listening To Birds: An anthropological approach to bird songs web site.

What happens when we hear a bird? This is the question at the heart of this project that will be listening to birds with others and finding out how bird sounds become a part of people's lives. The project has been generously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and is based in the Department of Anthropology at Aberdeen.

Researchers want to investigate how people listen to birds because we're fascinated by two subjects. First, the researchers are interested in the relationships between humans and birds and the role that sound plays in this. They wish to understand how bird sounds become important and meaningful to people, for example as being evocative of time, place or season. Second, they want to explore hearing and to consider how people become skilled at differentiating what they hear. How do people learn the skills of listening to, and identifying, bird sounds? And in the first place, how do people come to attend to bird sounds, rather than ignoring them? Through addressing these questions researchers aim to explore the relationship between vision and hearing, something critical to understanding what happens when we hear a bird. For example, we intend to consider how hearing a bird might be different to seeing it. How does seeing influence what we hear and how we hear it? What is the relationship between a bird as an object and the sounds that it makes?

Principal Investigator: Tim Ingold
Researcher: Andrew Whitehouse

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The Holiday Story Project by Jason Goodyear. Jason Goodyear, a New Mexico sound artists, is undertaking a sound art project that basically requests people call a phone number and tell a story. The stories are then uploaded to a website where anyone, anywhere can access and listen to them.

This project, started in December, was initiated by the observation of how many holidays, observances and celebrations there are in that month. The project coordinator, having an interest in the expressive sound of the human voice, considered this a good time to collect holiday stories.

Why phone? Because it's more intimate and expressive than text, lends itself to spontaneity and people don't have the same sense of performance on the phone that they do when they make a recording elsewhere.

Participants can call from anywhere, talk about anything, speak in any language. They don't have to worry about being perfect - this project is not about perfection, it's about communication.

1. You can find the instructions for sharing your story here: Tell Us A Story
2. You can hear the stories here: Holiday Story Project

Jason Goodyear is the web designer for the new EarthEar site soon to be online. He is also a teacher of audio
engineering and field recording, and a sound artist living in New Mexico. USA. This item forwarded by Jim Cummings, President of the ASAE.

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LOCUSTREAM PROJECT

Locus Sonus is a research group specialized in audio art. It is organized as a post graduate lab by the Art Schools of Aix-en- Provence (ESAA), Nice (ENSA Villa Arson) and Marseille (ESBAM) in the south of France. It has a partnership with sociology lab CNRS, LAMES Aix en Provence (who are interested by the way that practices related to new technologies are creating modifications in artistic production and the way that the public responds to these modifications), and it currently continues collaborations with the CRESSON, architecture lab CNRS in Grenoble (sonic spaces research centre), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), and other international partners. To learn more visit the Locus Sonus Audio Streaming Project Map.

Deadline: January 23rd, 2009
Call for papers - Sensewalking: sensory walking methods for social scientists
RGS-IBG Annual Conference, Manchester: 26-28 August 2009
~~~ The session will include presentations of a variety of sensewalking methods in different research contexts, encompassing theoretical and empirical contributions. As such, we invite proposals for papers that fall within the broad theme of sensewalking as methodology.  Since much work in this area is of an urban nature, we anticipate the majority of papers to reflect research undertaken in an urban context; however, papers demonstrating the use of sensewalking in rural areas are also welcomed.  The session organisers are aware of the lack of an academic text on sensory methods for social scientists and hope there will be sufficient interest from contributors to develop a book proposal on this topic. 
     For information about submitting papers (and potentially chapters), with a short abstract and full contact Mags Adams (m.d.adams@salford.ac.uk) or Kye Askins (kye.askins@northumbria.ac.uk). We will be asking for full papers to be circulated prior to the session.  More information online.

March 23-27, 2009
International Conference: Sound Megalopolis (Cultural identity and sounds in danger of extinction)
Mexico City, Mexico.
~~~ Researches, teachers, sound producers, musicians, and individuals will gather in Mexico City to explore issues of cultural identity and the soundscape. Sponsors: The National Council for the Culture Arts - Through The National Phonoteque of Mexico, supported by the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology.

April 15-18, 2009
The 8th SCHOOL OF SOUND International Symposium
Southbank Centre, London
~~~ Since 1998, the SOS has presented this stimulating and provocative series of master classes by practitioners, artists and academics on the creative use of sound with image. Directors, sound designers, composers, editors and theorists working at the highest levels of art and media show us the soundtrack from unexpected perspectives. Read More.

Please send proposals of no more than 300 words for 20-30 minute papers, together with your designation to richard.hollingum@northampton.ac.uk no later than 31st March 2009. Proposals for panels of up to three speakers are
also welcome