I have been invited to speak about the World Listening Project at the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology (CASE)’s 4th International Soundscape Retreat & Symposium: Negotiating Space/Place In the Changing Soundscape. It happens on Gabriola Island, British Columbia from June 12-14. Hildegard Westerkamp, Barry Truax, Charlie Fox, and Eric Powell are also speaking. I will also play my work in the soundscape concert to be held on Saturday, June 13.

For full details please visit www.acousticecology.ca.

The World Listening Project has built a public sound installation for the Synesthetic Plan of Chicago, co-curated by Annie Heckman and Daniel Godston, in the Visitor Information Center, at the Chicago Cultural Center (77 E. Randolph Street).  My Flickr photostream shows the construction of the WLP’s installation entitled the “Acoustic Mirror of the World.”

For the installation we have built a platform with stereo low frequency transducers underneath. Visitors will be invited to touch and stand on it to feel the recorded soundscapes the WLP has collected from various places around the world.

This idea is inspired, in part, by Ricardo Huisman’s “Super Sonic Sound Scape Shoes.” This blog post on Beat Portal describes his piece. Here is Ricardo’s photo of me standing inside it, taken at last year’s Deep Wireless/Radio without Boundaries conference in Toronto.

Nightclubs also use low-frequency or bass transducers to vibrate their dancefloor. One such club is Fabric in London. They employ 400 transducers and call it a “bodysonic” dancefloor. UK sound artist Kaffe Matthews has used bass transducer to make a “sonic bed,” and at the 2006 RadioREVOLTEN festival for the future of radio a different sound bed was activated by placing the transducers directly on whoever laid on it.

(more…)

On Wednesday the May-June issue of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology’s online newsletter was published with my report about the Sound Megalopolis conference in Mexico City.

The announcement (re-posted)

The May-June WFAE Newsletter
Now online: http://www.wfae.net/newsletter/

The bimonthly WFAE Newsletter is now online for May-June, 2009. This publication is a supplement to the annual Soundscape: The Journal of Acoustic Ecology. Its mission is to make available in a timely manner, news, events, and announcements from the WFAE Board, WFAE Affiliates, and other sources.

Newsletter includes:

• Mexico Conference Reports
• Events Calendar: Updates on current world-wide events in acoustic-ecology.
• Opportunities: Call for papers and projects
• News Clips and Sound Bites: Headlines from the world press related to sound issues.
• Site Visit: A featured web site related to acoustic-ecology.
• Resources: Books, video, web, and other media.

The WFAE Newsletter is a commercial free publication of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology.

About the WFAE

The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE), founded in 1993, is an international association of affiliated organizations and individuals, who share a common concern with the state of the world’s soundscapes. Our members represent a multi-disciplinary spectrum of individuals engaged in the study of the social, cultural and ecological aspects of the sonic environment.

The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology encourages your participation in the growth and development of regional affiliate groups around the world. Learn more about becoming a member by visiting the WFAE web site: http://www.wfae.net

WFAE members receive the annual publication Soundscape: The Journal of Acoustic Ecology.

6:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 15

I will be participating in a panel discussion with the founders of the World Listening Project—Brett Balogh, Chad Clark, Daniel Godston, and Jesse Seay—in the Art + Design Lecture Series, hosted by Columbia College’s Art + Design Department.

Topics include local soundscape recording and mapping projects such as Favorite
Chicago Sounds and Chicago Phonography, radiophonic space as it relates to natural environments, and the work of the World Listening Project and the newly founded Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology.

Next week I will join members of the World Listening Project in the Listening To Our Planet events, 10 a.m.–6 p.m. on Monday, April 20 at the Conaway Center, 11 S. Wabash Ave., 1st floor, Columbia College, Chicago, IL  60605.

Here is my brief report from Sound Megalopolis: Sonidos en peligro de extinción conference organized by the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE) and the recently founded Mexican Forum for Acoustic Ecology. The conference began on March 23rd at the gorgeous Fonoteca Nacional in the beautiful Coyoacán neighborhood of Mexico City, and concludes on March 27th.

On Monday morning the national media were massed for the conference’s inaugural ceremony. Here is a slide show from the proceedings at the Fonoteca: www.fonotecanacional.gob.mx/flashgallery/flashgallery.html

Following the inaugural ceremony, Hildegard Westerkamp led a large group of us on a sound walk through the huge park nearby, the Viveros de Coyoacán.

My Flickr site includes photos taken at the Fonoteca Nacional and the INSIDEOUT sound installation show at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda, with Simo Alitalo, Dr. Nigel Helyer, and Jesse Seay.

At the conference Derrick de Kerckhove gave the keynote on Monday morning. On Tuesday Barry Blesser gave his keynote, and R. Murray Schafer gave his keynote this morning. Sabine Breitsameter will be the keynote speaker this Thursday morning.

The numerous talks and diverse perspectives of the speakers are too numerous for me to describe in a few words and still hope to convey a sense of the breath and depth of the ideas and information. I’ll mention a few here.

Andrea Polli spoke on her recent sonification work in Antarctica. Luz Maria Sanchez spoke on sound maps, Carla Teixeira spoke of fences in Australia (reference to Hollis Taylor’s and Jon Rose’s “Great Fences of Australia Project”, Constantinos Stratoudakis discussed his research in reconstructing soundscapes in virtual space based on the data mapping of actual soundscapes. Andreas Mniestris spoke on similar effort in Greece, on the island of Corfu. Andreas also informed us of the surprisigly large amount of activity in the field of acoustic ecology  (61 members in their local WFAE chapter, the Hellenic Society for Acoustic Ecology).

You can read all the abstracts online of the above presentation and more in English at http://ponencias.pizzadeveloper.com/?cat=18  and in Spanish http://ponencias.pizzadeveloper.com/index.php?cat=18

As a new board member of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology I have been meeting with fellow board members to make plans for the future of the WFAE. This is a rare opportunity to meet face to face with the individuals from the international affiliates of the WFAE. [Currently, there are nine affiliates. The chair of the WFAE, Nigel Frayne published a report on the history and outlook of the WFAE in the Fall/Winter 2007 of the Soundscape Journal. This and other back issues can be freely downloaded at http://interact.uoregon.edu/MediaLit/WFAE/journal/]

An interesting factoid: Lidia Comancho, Director General of the Fonoteca Nacional, informed us that the Fonteca is at the former home of the famous Mexican poet Octavio Paz (1914-1998). Coyoacán is also where Leon Trotsky lived and died in exile, and where his friends, the modernist painters Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo lived.

Listen to an audio clip from Mexico City: organ_grinder_audio_clip

My photos of last Sunday’s Chicago Phonography performance in Exquisite City are now on my Flickr photostream. (more…)

[This is an edited version of the July 28th blog post on my MySpace Music profile, and a follow-up to the July 9th post here.]

On July 1st I began work on new project called the World Listening Project. It was formed by small group of musicians and sonic artists with the initial goal of collecting field recordings from every country in the world and then presenting them on a web-based sound map for the Chicago Calling Festival (October 1–11, 2008). The festival director, Dan Godston cited R. Murray Schafer’s ideas and the World Soundscape Project as inspiration, as well as the work of Bernie Krausse of Wild Sanctuary. We’re excited have Bernie and Katherine  providing their ideas and support to the World Listening Project as we begin.

On the left is a proposed logo for the WLP, designed by Noé Cuellar.

Many sound mapping sites and interfaces exist on the web, among those I’ve noted often are SoundTransit, Locus Sonus Audio Streaming Project Map, and the recent Mississauga Sound Map. With this in mind our initial mission, as stated above, is now under discussion. Rather than being solely a field recording and sound map website, a broader range of practices, areas of investigation, and modes of presentation are being considered. The discussion on revising the WLP’s mission is public. Your participation may help if you subscribe to the World Listening Project’s (Yahoo! Group) listserv.

Among the ideas for project may include research and initiating geo-tagged audio projects, such as on Freesound.org. The WLP can promote investigations into the meaning, methods, and relations of information gathering through sound. We are also registering a non-profit organization to support this effort. Happily, we have many noteworthy artists and thinkers participating in this discussion. And, the membership of the listserv continues to grow.

I can mention many more fields of knowledge and practice that the World Listening Project can encompass, but I’d like to keep this post brief. Your participation can play a important role influencing the future of practices involving sound and listening in and of the world. If you wish to learn more about the discussion, or even join the worldlistening Yahoo! Group, please visit this link: http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/worldlistening/

I’m working on a new project initiated by Dan Godston called the World Listening Project. What is it?

The goals of the World Listening Project are to collect field recordings from every country on earth, to create a sonic map of the world, and to archive those recordings on a website. Many of the recordings for WLP have already been recorded, but many more will be recorded and archived. The WLP website is a work in progress, and it will be part of the Third Annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival (October 1–12, 2008). It will continue to be developed into the future.

The Chicago Calling festival was started by Dan Godston. A Yahoo! Group called worldlisteningproject is where a large and growing number of people are joining together on the Internet to realize the World Listening Project. Among the group’s esteemed members we have the natural soundscape researcher and recordist, Bernie Krausse. He is a musician, ecologist, and author who has been working in the field of natural soundscape recording since 1968. Bernie is author of several books, the latest is Wild Soundscapes: Discovering the Voice of Natural Soundscapes (Wilderness Press, 2002). Visit his website Wild Sanctuary to learn more about his work and media company. Bernie has a sound map here: http://earth.wildsanctuary.com/

In addition to the worldlisteningproject Yahoo! Group, Dan Godston has started a World Listening Project blog: http://worldlisteningproject.blogspot.com/

Use this link to join the Yahoo! Group:

Visit this link for an update on the World Listening Project.

Here is a download link to a 6-minute, 19-second excerpt from my binaural recording of this year’s unofficial 4th of July fireworks displays happening all around my home on the west side of Chicago (64 MB WAV file): https://download.yousendit.com/RXNoeFVRcG9Fc0xIRGc9PQ

I recorded this on my old Sony TCD-D7 DAT “Walkman” with my new in-ear binaural mics from Sound Professionals. Last year I recorded the fireworks with an AT-822 placed in a stationary position on the front porch. This year my partner and I went for a walk
around the block, past the Conservatory, into to Garfield Park and back.

The excerpt I selected to upload for you is fairly rich with activity. Aside from the near and distant sounds of fireworks all around, you’ll hear:

• cars passing
• several overly excited little children with toy horns
• interesting echoes of the fireworks bursts that bounce off the
  railroad viaduct to create unusual “chirping” sounds

As we walk underneath the viaduct you can hear the acoustics change from
open air to a steel and stone passage way and out while the children
play ahead of us, cars pass at our side, and the freight train rumbles
overhead.

This link has limited number of downloads, available on YouSendIt.com until July 20 (unless I move it to another site).

Rarebit

by Steve Barsotti and Eric Leonardson

Transparency CD0125

Performed and recorded with Steve Barsotti at Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago. From 1994 until 1999 we performed as a duo, and with other local and internationally known artists, including Dan Burke (Illusion of Safety), Carol Genetti, Fergus Kelly, Tatsu Aoki, Chris Heenan, Yuko Nexus6, Yasuhiro Otani, Satoru Wono, Claude Wiley, and many more.

Description:

Rarebit is the culmination of a four-year project in electroacoustic music by sound artists and instrument inventors Steve Barsotti and Eric Leonardson. Their self-built instruments produce remarkable sounds that belie their humble origin. Barsotti and Leonardson’s sense of musical form arises from their deep attention to the individual essences of sounds, rather than the conventional grid of harmony and meter. What results is abstract sound composition that possesses a communicative style. Rarebit will draw comparisons to the sound palettes and ethereal soundscapes of such intrepid purveyors of “left field” and exploratory music as Hal Rammel, Hugh Davies, and Bob Rutman. Nine tracks. Running time 72 minutes.

Rarebit can be purchased from Transparency for $15 ($12 plus $3 postage) to meridianavenue@yahoo.com via PayPal.