WFAE Newsletter

WFAE Affiliate News

Diversion from the WFAE Chair! By Nigel Frayne. The sounds of Winter were ringing in my ears, wind in the power lines and sheoaks, rain and occasion hail on the tin roof and resigned Aussie voices drawling on about lost sunny days. What to do but divert to the northern hemisphere! As I remove the ear plugs at Charles de Gaulle airport I am immediately greeting with florid French public address announcements. As usual this airport is caked in confusion compounded by my lack of comprehension of the French language. The last English I hear for 2 days is the Immigration Officer, "enjoy your trip". "Merci!", I'm enjoying it already.

The white noise of an A380 has crossfaded into the deep diesel rumbling of an Air France bus. Two hours to get into Paris in peak hour traffic is relieved by 4 hours of TGV comfort as we speed towards Toulouse. My reserved seat is taken, in fact the whole carriage is overtaken with young school kids heading for the Pyrenees. At first the voices are softer, a rolling chatter of animated cadence. As the boredom starts to set in and the sugar from sweets and soft drink start to take effect the friendly banter becomes a din and I wonder how any of them can actually discern anything meaningful from this aural stream of mass consciousness.

The first thing that strikes me about Figarol is the backdrop of deep silence. We have assembled our bicycles and rolled out for an afternoon ride. The chatter of our small group ends when we reach a small climb, overtaken by heavy breathing; inhalation and exhalation if not gasping. The slower speed causes the rush of air in the ears to cease and one can finally connect with the soundscape and thereby the extraordinary beauty of the lower reaches of the Pyrenees. Speeding along the valleys the sound of a bicycle chain takes on a smooth whirring character which is amplified by the tarmac and is reflected from posts, road barriers and signs to create a rhythmic mechanical song, of sorts. But it is during the climbs, when the speed is low, that one can most enjoy the natural beauty of the soundscape, the transparent sheets of sound from the wind in the upper trees, the rising and falling cadence of rushing water as one passes small ravines and the occasional bird alarm at the appearance of our two wheeled machines of 'torture'. CONTINUED - PAGE 2

Report: Forum fuer Klanglandschaft (FKL) By Gabriele Proy and Lorenz Schwarz. For the first time an international symposium with the topic ‘Soundscapes & Listening’ took place in Austria: in May 2009. The bi-annual FKL-Symposium was hosted by the St. Poelten University of Applied Sciences (Photo at Left).

Members of the four FKL European member states Austria, Germany, Italy and Switzerland as well as guests from Austria, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Canada and Japan participated at the symposium and presented their recent works in presentations, concerts and sound installations.

One of the aims of the FKL-Symposium is to offer its members a platform to present and share their most recent works and thoughts. Thanks to the FKL-president and project-leader Gabriele Proy, and to the head of the Institute of Media Production and co-organizer Hannes Raffaseder and team at the St. Poelten University of Applied Sciences.

The event started with an evening concert in the Klangturm St. Poelten (sound tower), where Hannes Raffaseder, curator of the Klangturm, guided participants through the current exhibition. The opening concert presented ‘Haru’ (Spring) by the Japanese composer Yoshihiro Kawasaki, ‘Looted cityscape’ by the Swiss composer Bernadette Johnson, ‘Gently Penetrating – beneath the sounding surfaces of another place’ by the Canadian composer Hildegard Westerkamp and finally the piece ‘Waldviertel’ of the Austrian composer and FKL-chairwoman Gabriele Proy. CONTINUED - PAGE 2

Report: Finnish Society for Acoustic Ecology (FSAE). By Noora Vikman. The FSA has been quiet over the summer but it would like readers to know about two items. First, up-to-date information regarding the International Conference of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, Koli, Finland June 16-19, 2010 and a Call For Papers is now available here online. Second, the FSAE's recent pubication, Acoustic Environments in Change & Five Village Soundscapes (reprint) now appears as a joint publication together with four CDs. Read more.

Report: American Society for Acoustic Ecology (ASAE) Compiled by Andrea Polli. Here are two reports from ASAE chapters:

New York Society for Acoustic Ecology.

NYSAE members Jonny Farrow, Todd Shalom, Andrea Williams and Jamie Davis are to lead several soundwalks for the 2009 edition of the Art in Odd Places festival with the theme of Sign. The festival centers around 14th street in Manhattan and features work and performances from over 60 artists and artist groups. Running the entire month of October, NYSAE will be leading walks on festival weekends listening to many aspects of the busy 14th Street/Unioun Square nexus. For more details (which are currently evolving) visit this page of the NYSAE site.

Art in Odd Places also will feature a collaboration with free103point9 and thier 2009 Radio Festival at the Ontological Hysteric Theater at St. Mark's church in Manhattan's East Village Neighborhood on October 24. NYSAE will lead mobile broadcast soundwalks that will begin from three different parks in the 14th Street vicinity, converge, cross and split again to end at St. Mark's as a leadup to the free103 evening event. Soundwalk leaders will each have a mobile broadcasting unit which walk participants will tune into with small receivers. They will listen to an amplified version of their own walk as it is mediated by/interfered with the local airwaves as well as hearing the other walker's aural perspectives when the walker's paths cross. (Image: "Light Pendulum," Tony Martin. Radio Festival NYC 2009)

Upcoming installments of Giant Ear))) feature a dispatch from Eric Leonardson of MSAE and the World Listening Project (August), Back to School sounds curated and produced by NYSAE member Mikhail Iliatov (September), and October and November Giant Ear))) shows to be produced by Hunter College Interdisciplinary Media Arts masters students as part of their Sound Environments course. Listen to Giant Ear))) every Sunday night from 7-9pm Eastern time at free103point9.org. A new show runs the last Sunday of every month. And if you haven't done so yet, please get your copy of Giant Ear))) Webradio Inside/Out NYC.

Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology

The Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology supports the Gropius in Chicago Coalition (GCC), a local citizens' group who is attempting to the Save Michael Reese Hospital campus. This 37-acre site was purchased by the City of Chicago to house a future Olympic Village if selected to host the 2016 Olympic Games. Rather than preserve 28 buildings designed by a team renowned architects, including world famous Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius; this natural and cultural treasure is slated for demolition. Once possessing some of the city's most beautiful landscaping designed by Hideo Sasaki and Lester Collins; tragically, it is now destroyed. GCC is continuing to campaign preserving what remains. For more information visit the MSAE website and Gropius in Chicago Coalition.

MSAE member Dan godston started the month of August off with a pair of soundwalks at Chicago's in East Garfield Park neighborhood, one at the Chicago Center for Green Technology and another at the Garfield Park Conservatory. Soundwalks are planned in September and October, conducted in partnership with local organizations, the Nelson Algren Committee and the Gropius in Chicago Coalition. Some will happen in the Fourth Annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival, happening October 1-11, 2009. More info: Chicago Calling.

Report: Japanese Association for Sound Ecology (JASE). Submitted by Masami Raker YUKI. Reflecting (or, perhaps, in spite of?) the fact that not many universities in Japan offer undergraduate or graduate courses on soudnscape, the Soundscape Association of Japan has been increasingly receiving requests from SAJ student members to provide them with a mentoring program. As a result, on August 1, 2009, SAJ held its first meeting/mentoring program for student members at Tokyo University of the Arts. After three lectures by SAJ members (on soundscape and architecture by TSUCHIDA Yoshio, on soundscape and arts by KAWASAKI Yoshihiro, and on soundscape study by NAGAHATA Koji), four student members gave presentations and attended a mentoring session afterwards. It was a truly intimate and rewarding meeting and many SAJ members have expressed the wish to continue having these kinds of opportunities.

Since we missed the chance to include the SAJ annual symposium in the last issue of the WFAE newsletter, here is a brief report. The SAJ 2009 annual symposium was held in Kyoto on May 23, 2009. Under the theme of “Soundscape as Human Rights,” there were three presentations: “Noise Pollution was Sensory Pollution” by HIRAMATSU Kozo (Kyoto University), “A Campaign for Less-Noisy Town” by UENO Masaaki (Osaka University), and “Theorizing Conflict in Soundscape Design” by DAIMON Shinya (Hosei University). The presentations were followed by lively discussions with the audience and concluded with comments by sociologist and guest commentator FUNAHASHI Harutoshi (Hosei University)

Finally, there is a change of JASE representative from TORIGOE Keiko to Masami R. YUKI. JASE would like to express our deep gratitude and thanks to Keiko for her many-year hard work.

Up-coming event: 23 November 2009
SAJ Research Presentations
B-nest Shizuoka, Japan
~~~An annual gathering for research presentations hosted by Soundscape Association of Japan. For more information: http://www.saj.gr.jp/events/kenkyu2009.html

SOUND BITES:

Central Park Sound Tunnel. (NYC Parks and Recreation) This summer, avant–garde composer John Morton's sonic collage, Central Park Sound Tunnel, will be installed in one of Central Park's iconic pedestrian tunnels between the Central Park Zoo and the Tisch Children’s Zoo at 65th Street. Beginning every half–hour with the ringing of the Delacorte chimes, this 20–minute, 6–speaker sound installation incorporates field recordings made in Central Park over the last year. Experience: 8:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m through September 10th. Read More and listen to sound samples.

Mapping New Orleans By Sound. (NPR) You can identify New Orleans neighborhoods by their architecture, like the Greek Revival verandas along St. Charles Avenue, or by their smells, like the scent of beignets wafting out of Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter.
And the Crescent City also has plenty of sounds that you'd hear only along its streets.
Independent producers Jacob Brancasi and Heather Booth are mapping the city by sound for Open Sound New Orleans, an interactive audio project. Brancasi and Booth have asked New Orleanians to record what they hear in their neighborhoods, and then upload the audio to OpenSoundNewOrleans.com. Read More.

Western Soundscape Archive. (Scout Report) You can get a good sense of the American West by reading authors as diverse as Sherman Alexie, Mark Twain, John McPhee, but can they really accurately describe the sounds of a resting short-eared owl? Perhaps, but if you're looking to listen to the natural world of the Western states, you should probably click on over to the Western Soundscape Archive website. This aural database is housed at the University of Utah's J. Willard Marriott Library and features recordings contributed by state and federal agencies, conservation groups, and dedicated volunteers. Visit Site.

Murmurations. (ORION Magazine) The starling, like its cousin the mynah bird, improvises a pastiche of motifs drawn from life. An adult starling may collect sixty or more songs from which to pick and choose. These snippets are altered, rearranged, and spliced into an explosive sequence. We can discern in them what absorbs the starling’s attention: predators, rivals, and anomalies. These echoes are not only expressive but also exploratory. To discover what a sound means, the mimic essays it on the air, gauging the effect of each stolen phrase on its fellow creatures. Read More.

When The Fog Horns Blow. (SF Gate) On June 18 around 9:30 a.m., Golden Gate Bridge electrical foreman Jim McKnight was driving south on the span when he looked west and saw that it was clear and sunny. Fifteen minutes later, McKnight walked out onto the span for a second look, and the fog was so thick you could see it in your hand.
"The fog is on the water," he said as he went into the power house, near the toll plaza, and got on the microphone: "Electrical shop to all bridge personnel. We're going to energize the foghorns."
Thirty seconds later, McKnight pulled a toggle switch, and two seconds after that, the low moan of a foghorn could be heard for the first time since May 28. Read more.

Acoustic Environments In Change Publication Now Available. The long-awaited Finnish publication, Acoustic Environments in Change, and the reprint of the 1978 Five Village Soundscapes document is now a reality, and the result is an impressive 430 page book with 4 CD's (2 from the 1978 material, the other 2 from the Finnish research). Available from Granum.

Sonorous City. Zai Tang's Sonorous City is an immersive surround-sound installation exploring the relationship between the soundscape and our perception of the urban environment.
A series of soundwalks stemming from the River Thames form the basis of the work, which reveals an experience of London lead by the ear.
Sonorous City is the result of a 2 year MA research project in Digital Arts and part of the Camberwell College of Arts MA final degree show 2009. Learn More.

Walks around the World by Five International Writers. (Orion Magazine) A good walk is a conversation between the walker and the environment, and here we present five "walk" pieces in translation, fiction and nonfiction, by Tomas Espedal, Manik Datar, Homero Aridjis, Sait Faik Abas?yan?k, and Yuri Rytkheu, published in collaboration with the online magazine for international literature Words without Borders. Read.

Granby bans 'excessive noise' on Sundays (Global Quebec). The City of Granby, 70 kilometres east of Montreal, wants residents to enjoy their quietude on Sundays and has passed a bylaw to prohibit excessive noise on that day.
Residents of the Quebec community will still be allowed to mow their lawns or to chop wood on Sundays, but they won't be able to use such devices as chainsaws. Read More

RESOURCES:

James Wyness - figure and ground. A listening environment for loudspeakers and headphones, designed to energise and activate the listening space. All sounds are taken from a digital sound archive of field recordings which documents key sonic features of the Scottish Borders and North Northumberland. Visit Web Site.

Acoustic Environ-ments in Change & Five Village Sound scapes (reprint) By Järviluoma Helmi & Kytö Meri & Truax Barry & Uimonen Heikki & Vikman Noora.
In 1975, the Canadian World Soundscape Project research group visited five European villages. The villages, located in Sweden, Germany, Italy, France and Scotland were re-visited by the Finnish Acoustic Environments In Change project group, in the years 2000-2004, in order to study the changes in village soundscapes and undertake new approaches on the subject. In addition, the village of Nauvo in Finland was studied. Read More.

430 p. + 4 CD
2009
ISBN:978-952-5264-78-4
Language: eng
Publisher:
Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu

Soundscape of Modernity: Archi-tectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933 by Emily Thompson.

In this history of aural culture in early-twentieth-century America, Emily Thompson charts dramatic transformations in what people heard and how they listened. What they heard was a new kind of sound that was the product of modern technology. They listened as newly critical consumers of aural commodities. By examining the technologies that produced this sound, as well as the culture that enthusiastically consumed it, Thompson recovers a lost dimension of the Machine Age and deepens our understanding of the experience of change that characterized the era. Read More.

Publisher: MIT Press
Pub. Date: October 2004
ISBN-13: 9780262701068
Sales Rank: 172,145
510pp

Save Our Sounds I & II. By Trevor Cox (BBC) In this BBC Discovery programme, acoustician Trevor Cox joins a soundwalk in central London and explores the world of acoustic ecology. Trevor meets artists and city planners to discuss how sound influences our lives and affects our well being. Are cities getting noisier or is it just that we're losing the quieter places we once had – the back streets and urban squares where citizens can go for a respite from the wall of noise? How has the soundscape in London changed and what sounds are in danger of being lost in the future?
In a second Program Cox continues his exploration of the urban soundscape as part of the BBC’s Save our Sounds project.
Trevor meets scientists from the Positive Soundscape Project attempting to influence the future sounds of our cities; and he travels to Hong Kong to meet artists campaigning to save the acoustic heritage of old neighbourhoods, under threat from for commercial redevelopment. Click Here To Access Broadcasts.

Web Site Features Dound of London. The mission of the London Sound is to present a neutral and recognisable account of the capital's sounds. It meets this objective with recordings of incidental sounds from around London, plus more purposeful sounds courtesy of street market traders, demonstrations, hustlers, buskers, football fans and more. There are about 250 recordings in all and growing slowly but steadily.

The site is divided into sections including: Sound Actions (sounds designed to have an effect on people); Sound Maps (Recordings of background atmospheres and incidental noises); Historical Sounds (references to sounds prior to recording technology).

RESEARCH and PROJECTS

Anthropological Phenomenon Of The Siren. In this essay, student Katherine Shera explores "the anthropological phenomenon of the siren, from its eighteenth century genesis as a scientific instrument to its contemporary manifestation as a ubiquitous form of public warning and address.
   The siren plays a vocal role in cultural patterns so deeply embedded that they almost seem second nature—excellent motivation, from an anthropological standpoint, for taking of the measure of the phenomenon.
   The anthropologist Clifford Geertz says, “Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to be those webs” (Geertz 5). How is the sound of the siren part of this web? R. Murray Schafer and Steven Feld, in their examinations of auditory culture The Soundscape and A Rainforest Acoustemology, have helped us to understand the way that sound, at least as much as other forms of human engagement, is deeply expressive and reflective of culture.
   What exactly is it that makes a siren “a sound that matters”? How does the sound of siren affect human behavior? How can we understand the rich symbolism the sound has accumulated for us?" Read Complete Paper. March 5, 2008

British Library Provides Research Assistance. The British Library is developing its collection of soundscapes to support research. 'Soundscape' is an overarching term used to define sounds that are location specific and pertain to an acoustic identity of place. The Library's website includes several sections including: Collection Overview; Example Collections; Natural Soundscapes; and information on Accessing the Collection that includes a Sound Archive Catalogue and Listening and Viewing Services at the Library.

The library includes:

Environmental recordings
Vanishing sounds
Recreational events
Soundscape research, also referred to as 'acoustic ecology', crosses many disciplines, ranging across social, cultural and ecological aspects of the acoustic environment.

The library also includes an online Archival Sound Recording section related to Soundscapes. The soundscapes on this site comprise six separate sound packages: Soundscapes of Canada; The Sounds of Harris and Lewis; Sounds of Dartmoor, Fog Warning Signals; Wildlife Soundscapes and Industrial Mechanical Sounds Preserved.

OPPORTUNITIES: EVENTS

Deadline: September 11, 2009
Call for Papers: FILM MUSIC CONFERENCE
School of Music, University of Leeds - Friday 6 November 2009
~~~ The conference is intended to be wide ranging, and paper proposals dealing with all aspects of film music scholarship will be considered. Proposals with a brief abstracts (c. 150 words) for papers of 20 minutes' duration should be sent by email to Ian Sapiro (i.p.sapiro@leeds.ac.uk ) by Friday 11 September 2009. For further details contact Ian Sapiro (i.p.sapiro@leeds.ac.uk), or see the Conference website: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/music/filmmusic

September 14-18, 2009
XXII IBAC Conference
Lisbon, Portugal
~~~ The 22nd International Conference of the International Bioacoustics Council (IBAC) will be held from 14-18 September 2009 at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal. Following the tradition established over 35 years ago, the IBAC meeting fosters interactions among scientists interested in the factors that regulate sound production in animals. Moreover, IBAC meetings aim to bring together, in informal settings, biologists from different specialists (ethnologists, physiologists, taxonomists, etc) with engineers, sound archivists and amateur sound recordists, to foster discussion and exchange of ideas.
The scientific program will be composed of sessions of invited speakers integrated with contributed short talks and poster presentations. Please visit the conference website.

Deadline: Setpember 15, 2009
Soundwave ((4)): Call for Proposals:
GREEN SOUND
Summer 2010, San Francisco USA
~~~ The next season of Soundwave will explore our sonic connections to the environment. For GREEN SOUND, Soundwave seeks artists, composers and musicians to investigate the wonder of natural world, and examine environmental responsibility and sustainability through sound.
Soundwave seeks experience-driven performances that interpret the connections between sound and environment through its instrumentation, concept, visual collaboration, installation, audience interaction, or production by local and international sound artists, designers, musicians, and composers. Details online.

Deadline: September 30, 2009
International Open Call for Art Projects
Nodar Artist Residency Center, Portugal
~~~ Binauralmedia and Nodar Artist Residency Center announce: PAIVASCAPES #1 STRUCTURE, PROCESS AND PERCEPTION OF A RIVER, an International Open Call for Art Projects. The process will include the selection of 12 art projects to be developed during several 2-week residency modules to take place between February and October 2010 at the Nodar Artist Residency Center in Portugal. For full details visit the call online.

Deadline: October 15, 2009
Call for works - Phonurgia Nova awards 2009
~~~ Among the awarded prizes for acoustic creation, the Phonurgia Nova competition has, since 1986, occupied a special place by virtue of its recognition of artists whose work exploits sound as a medium for expressing the real and the imaginary. In 2008, 289 productions and projects from 20 different countries entered the competition. The winners were Andréas Bick (Germany) and Bernadette Johnson (Switzerland), Erik Bullot (France), Alessandro Bosetti (Germany) and
Nicole Marmet (France).
This year's contest will once again distinguish authors whose work manifests a keen sense of sound and listening as means of expression, in two areas : A) Radio Arts, will privilige all forms of inventive radiophonic creation : feature, new documentary, fiction, essay, radio mix, hörspiel, soundscapes, phonographies, etc... B) New Media awards will go both to "sound installations" and to sonic works which are specially created for "new media" or a new combination of media,
and which bring new sound experiences to listeners.
The Jury is chaired by the French sound director Daniel Deshays. The preselection of the candidates will be communicated at the beginning of December. The jury will deliberate the 12th and 13th of December in the Reattu Museum - Arles (France) - during two days of listening and discussion open to all applicants. To get more information go to http://www.phonurgia.org.

Deadline: November 30, 2009
Call for contributions for edited collection on Noise, Audition, Aurality: Histories of the Sonic World(s) of Europe, circa 1500-1945

Contributions are invited for a proposed collection of essays exploring the soundscapes of Europe from c.1500 to 1945. The collection seeks to develop existing and open up new areas of interdisciplinary scholarship from a range of fields including (but not limited to) musicology, urban geography, history, the history of architecture, literary studies, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, psychology and anthropology, and will build on existing work in acoustic ecology, the sociology of noise and histories and historiographies of noise, audition and aurality. We will favour contributions that deal with historically- informed topics in the following areas (although this is by no means an exclusive list):

The noise-sound-music nexus
Urban/rural soundscapes
Public/private soundscapes
The acoustic ecology of communities
Legal histories of noise
Noise, music and the body
Listening and the erotic
Political economies of noise
Noise, music and landscape
Theories of hearing and listening
Historical acousmêtres
Historiographies of noise, audition and aurality
Technologies of sound reproduction and their histories

Prospective contributors should send a 250-word abstract and a short biography to Ian Biddle (i.d.biddle@ncl.ac.uk) by no later than November 30, 2009.

If your contribution is chosen, we will require your finished chapter by April 19,2010.

If you have any queries please also contact Dr Ian Biddle and Dr Kirsten Gibson (both Newcastle University, UK). at the email address above.

Call For Sounds: Sound Is Art
~~~ Margaret Noble has started a new ezine that in some ways functions as a museum of unique sound recordings. It is called, 'Sound Is Art!'. It is currently hosted on her website as a blog but her plan is to get a more appropriate domain name soon. She is interested in sound submissions from those who would like to contribute. Visit site: http://margaretnoble.net/blog/

Call For Papers
"Ideologies and Ethics in the Uses and Abuses of Sound"
International Conference of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, Koli, Finland June 16-19, 2010
~~~ The 2010 WFAE conference will be held at Koli in Eastern Finland. Koli is a plausible site for reflecting upon ideologies, ethics and soundscapes, since it was amongst the key places of the national romantic artist pilgrims in the late 19th century Finland. The Finnish Society for Acoustic Ecology (FSAE) invites researchers and artists from all disciplines to join this forum of discussion. Learn More.

Call For Work: Submissions for Letters on Sounds, Luvsound's new Journal
~~~ Luvsound is now accepting submissions of new writing on sound for a forthcoming online (and possibly short-run print) journal called Letters on Sounds.
     We're interested especially in writing on the practice of making, listening, and living with sound from artists who work primarily with sound. Please do not submit album reviews or other similar work.
     Letters on Sounds hopes to be a platform for people working in new ways with sound, especially as that might relate to a particular community, to share their approaches and experiences with others of a like mind.
     To submit, please send a short email to erik@luvsound.org with a two to ten sentence description of your piece, as well as a brief biographical statement. Luvsound is a arts co-op and record label based in New Orleans and Brooklyn.

Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities. The HICAH conference will be held from January 13 (Wednesday) to January 16 (Saturday), 2010 at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa and the Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii. The conference will provide many opportunities for academicians and professionals from arts and humanities related fields to interact with members inside and outside their own particular disciplines. Web Site.