In January I am honored to be an artist-in-residence at Ragdale, a non-profit artists’ community in Lake Forest, Illinois. The estate includes live-in studios and a 50-acre prairie. My 25-day residency will provide time for many interests. This includes studio work, writing, class preparation, tour planning, and acoustic ecology. I will lead a public soundwalk for the World Listening Project and Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology at the Brushwood Center in Ryerson Woods on Sunday, January 25.
In addition to the soundwalk, Chicago Phonography will perform. We are a loose collective of field recordists who, since 2008 perform real time, improvised mixes of our recorded sounds from the environs of Chicago. On that same weekend, I will announce the winners of the Mixage Fou 80-Second Sound Competition during Festival •REC at Gaîté Lyrique, in Paris. My classes are Instrument construction and Field Recording/Phonography, for undergraduate and graduate students in the Department of Sound at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. My writing includes completion of three different articles for publication in the Journal of Radio and Audio Media, the Conrad Grebel Review, and the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies.
My initial tour plans for the month of June include confirmed performances in Hamburg, Vienna, and Ljubljana. Stay tuned for updates, and please do contact me if you are interested in having me perform or give a talk in your town’s gallery, club, bunker, arts center, or festival. My
Related to my teaching and activity in acoustic ecology, I will prepare for my presentations in the Balance-Unbalance 2015 conference on water, climate, and “re-imagining environments.” The conference happens in late-March at Arizona State University.There, Andrea Polli and I have co-organized a panel with Leah Barclay, Lindsey French, Christopher Preissing, Linda Keane, and Meredith Hoy entitled “Eco-sensing in Higher Education Curriculum.” I will also present a version of my paper, “Our Sonic Playground: A Model For Active Engagement in Urban Soundscape Awareness.”
Following my return from Invisible Places | Sounding Cities in July, I enjoyed a four days of rehearsing, planning, and work-shopping with Articular Facet.
I hope support for my Ragdale residency and my travel and participation in Balance-Unbalance will be provided through a Professional Development grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.