Autumn leaves : field recording and soundscape compilation

Autumn Leaves is an audio compilation that emerges out of a collaboration between Gruenrekorder and Angus Carlyle. The inspiration for the compilation derived from the book "Autumn Leaves: Sound and the Environment in Artistic Practice" - published by Double Entendre - which Angus Carlyle edited and Gruenrekorder contributed to. The compilation presents an extremely wide-ranging exploration of the theme of sound and environment. You can hear everything from carefully crafted spoken word pieces, through compelling electro-acoustic compositions, to the purest forms of unedited and unsequenced phonography. To immerse yourself in this compilation is to hear how others have heard the world and is a chance, perhaps, for you to hear your world in different ways

Dropping Down Low: Online Soundmaps, Critique, Genealogies, Alternatives

The chapter argues that existing conceptualisations of the research methodology known as soundmapping are attributed with an excessively narrow historical lineage, are definitionally circumscribed and conceptually problematic – issues that are as evidenced by the chapter through citing the methodology’s Wikipedia definition, the discourse generated by creative and academic applications of soundmaps, and journal articles from sound studies, geography and sensory studies. The proposed novel genealogy for the soundmap encompasses work from acoustic science and public policy, such as noise maps, and acoustic ecology, such as the World Soundscape Project, but extends these to incorporate manifestations from Victorian Science which predate by 50 years what Valerieo Signorelli, in Urban Design and Representation (2017), identifies as the original date for this methodology. This genealogy also addresses visual artworks as contextualising historical exemplars, including two works a century apart - Marinetti’s “parole i liberta” and Christian Marclay’s Surround Sounds. The unusual strategy of identifying visual material as a soundmap is enabled by the chapter’s redefining of the concept in more expansive terms, to accommodate the “textual and graphic,” the “desterilised” and the “compositional,” each of which is illustrated by analysis of specific practices, several not previously addressed in this context (or indeed in academic writing). This redefinition is presented alongside a critique of the persistent dependence of what is conventionally understood as soundmapping on technologies that rely on a militarised and capitalised spatiality, that ignore the persistent economic inequalities of access and appear indifferent to the politics of data privacy, “souveillance” and surveillance. Additional inspiration for this chapter derives from reflexive experiences of twelve years of my own creative practice, which is framed in a 750 word introductory section of the chapter, and includes references to academic citations of that creative practice

And Listened To The Whistlings and Patterings Outside: Hearing The Wild As Sound

The Oxford Handbook of Sound Art, in keeping with other titles in the series, is designed to “offer authoritative and up-to-date surveys of original research in a particular subject area;” the chapters are commissioned from “leading figures in the discipline”. My contribution is distinguished by a number of elements which have not previously been explored within sound arts discourses or in sound studies and one element which constitutes a development within a wider definition of aesthetics. The concept of the wild animates the creative enterprise of field recording as much as it is the focus of many examples of bio-acoustics and soundscape ecology. However, the concept tends to be mobilized in contrast to corollary terms such as cultivation, culture or forms of settlement. This chapter deploys a notion of a hybridized wild that is beginning to become more familiar from contemporary anthropologists such as Anna L. Tsing, recent posthuman approaches like those of Rosi Braidotti, and critical sociology of the kind practiced by Laura Ogden. The chapter deploys a range of creative sound practices that would not normally be located within the same constellation, critically connecting work from different generations, at different levels of prominence within the field, and motivated by different purposes, according to an organizing thematic. Furthermore, it seeks to extend the consideration of viable sound practices outside of their expected cultural locations, identifying the literary genre of nature writing as a modality which can express an attunement to the sonorous that exemplifies Tsing’s “listening practice.” The intervention into aesthetics derives from what I believe to be the first occasion where the notion of the sublime, in its eighteenth century formulation that still exerts considerable influence, is analysed in terms of the both concepts of the wild and of the sonorous

Dissonant Dopplegangers: Performing the Post-Natural Through Modulated Foley Techniques

This mixed media journal article investigates the multiple modes of inscription possible within a practice-based investigation of the Sonic Anthropocene. Drawing upon critical contexts from Geology, Geography and Anthropology, and the relations between writing, bodies and earthly matters, the authors suggest a re-writing occurs in mediated acts such as field recording (phonography). Microphonic translations from the field not only re-inscribe sites, plural; they reveal sound’s itinerant nature to be full of duplicitous and fictive potential. Operating such possibility through the practice of Foley, the post production art of material based sound effects, the authors pivot discussions around their soundwork Decoys (2018) and its attempt to address the urgency of anthropogenic change through a latticing of source and signal, site and studio, subject and observer, human and more-than-human. The research is published in a special issue of the journal Cadernos de Arte e Antropologia dedicated to "Antropoceno Sónico". The article includes documentation of research, an image of a score related to the project and a soundfile. Keywords: decoys, environmental fiction, foley, inscription, sonic anthropocen

Sound::Gender::Feminism::Activism (SGFA)

Publication and online zine or catalogue This SGFA zine celebrates a growing network of people working within, through and beyond the fields of sound, feminism and gender who have contributed to the SGFA events of 2012 and 2014. Sound::Gender::Feminism::Activism was initially established as a research event focusing on the role of gender in sound-based arts and experimental musics, following on from the Her Noise: Feminisms and the Sonic symposium at London’s Tate Modern in May 2012. The aim was, and still is, to develop and expand upon dialogues and discourses related to feminism and sound as well as to form an international network of researchers, artists and practitioners working in these areas. Contributions by; Alison Ballance, Amy Cunningham, Anat Ben-David, Andra McCartney & Sandra Gabriele, Ann Antidote, Annie Goh, Bonnie Jones, Christopher DeLaurenti, Claudia Firth & Lucia Farinati, Claudia Wegener, Freya Johnson Ross, Gayathri Khemadasa, INVASORIX, Iris Garrelfs, Jane Dickson, Johnny Pavlatos, Kersten Schroedinger, Laura Seddon, Marie Thompson, Mark Harris, Melanie Chilianis, Mindy Abovitz, Norah Lorway, Philip Cornett, Sarah Hardie, Sharon Gal, Siri Landgren, Tara Rodgers, Tripta Chandola, Victoria Gray and Virginia Kennard & Emi Pogoni

Noise pollution in hospitals

Noise in hospitals is a common grievance among patients, families, and staff.1 In the US, “quietness of hospital environment” is among the lowest scoring items on patient surveys.2 In the UK, 40% of hospital patients are bothered by noise at night, a consistent finding of the NHS Inpatient Survey.1 Hospital noise is a steadily worsening problem, with levels regularly exceeding international recommendations.3 4 Noise levels over 100 dB have been measured in intensive care units,4 the equivalent of loud music through headphones and the point beyond which damage to hair cells in the ear can occur. This is an article published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) based on an interdisciplinary project entitled HPNoSS, Hospital Project on Noise and Sleep in Hospitals

Perception of soundscapes : an interdisciplinary approach

This paper takes an overall view of findings from the Positive Soundscape Project, a large inter-disciplinary soundscapes study. Qualitative fieldwork (soundwalks and focus groups) have found that soundscape perception is influenced by cognitive effects such as the meaning of a soundscape and its components, and how information is conveyed by a soundscape, for example on the behaviour of people within the soundscape. Three significant clusters were found in the language people use to describe soundscapes: sound sources, sound descriptors and soundscape descriptors. Results from listening tests and soundwalks have been integrated to show that the two principal dimensions of soundscape emotional response seem to be calmness and vibrancy. Further, vibrancy seems to have two aspects: organisation of sounds and changes over time. The possible application of the results to soundscape assessment and design are briefly discussed

Functional Genomic and Proteomic Analysis Reveals Disruption of Myelin-Related Genes and Translation in a Mouse Model of Early Life Neglect

Early life neglect is an important public health problem which can lead to lasting psychological dysfunction. Good animal models are necessary to understand the mechanisms responsible for the behavioral and anatomical pathology that results. We recently described a novel model of early life neglect, maternal separation with early weaning (MSEW), that produces behavioral changes in the mouse that persist into adulthood. To begin to understand the mechanism by which MSEW leads to these changes we applied cDNA microarray, next-generation RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq), label-free proteomics, multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) proteomics, and methylation analysis to tissue samples obtained from medial prefrontal cortex to determine the molecular changes induced by MSEW that persist into adulthood. The results show that MSEW leads to dysregulation of markers of mature oligodendrocytes and genes involved in protein translation and other categories, an apparent downward biasing of translation, and methylation changes in the promoter regions of selected dysregulated genes. These findings are likely to prove useful in understanding the mechanism by which early life neglect affects brain structure, cognition, and behavior

Air Pressure Blog

A 'live' research blog detailing the different phases of the "Air Pressure" project as it moves towards completion. The initial emphasis has been on the two periods of field work, then the focus will turn to preparation of material and then to the installation of the exhibition and production of CD / booklet

Becoming Second Nature: Dan Holdsworth and the Sublime

'Becoming Second Nature: Dan Holdsworth and the Sublime' is a 4000-word chapter commissioned by Photoworks, and is the first monograph dedicated to the work of UK photographer Dan Holdsworth. The monograph was jointly published by Photoworks and Steidl (UK and Germany) in January 2006. Becoming Second Nature represents the first extended analysis of the oeuvre of this photographer (whose images are in the permanent collection of the Tate Modern, Tate Britain, National Portrait Gallery and elsewhere). The chapter seeks to determine the extent to which the aesthetic category of the sublime retains value as an interpretative device for artistic practices in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century. The article provides a condensed approach to the notion of the sublime, tracing its roots from Longinus, through Burke and Kant and seeks to apply nuanced versions of the sublime to a body of photographic practice. In addition, it engages with debates in contemporary photographic criticism around questions of representation (Scruton) and the instantaneous view (Fluss)