Spatzenhirn

Call for Papers: M/C Journal of Media & Culture - theme of Ecology

2012-02-15T16:49:00.000+10:30

THEME 'ECOLOGY' for M/C Journal of Media and Culture

"Contemporary interest in the environment is based on highly mediated representation of its most appealing aspects and today's symbolism is drawn from popular culture" (Bagust).

Ecology is not only a field of study, but a way of thinking, a conceptual mode that emphasises connectivity and conviviality. Donna Haraway has observed that "the world is a knot in motion", and never has this been clearer than the present moment - a time when impending ecological crisis has forced the uncomfortable awareness of our dependence on an unstable environment and climate, possibly undermining the viability of human life. This uncertain ecological future has prompted the emergence of an array of inter-disciplines, new political, intellectual and cultural alignments that seek an understanding of the whole "organism-and-its-environment" (Rose & Robin). Ecology, at heart, is the study of life, and the interactions that sustain and enrich it [my emphasis].

This issue of M/C Journal calls for interdisciplinary and accessible discussions on the topic of 'ecology' from a natural sciences or humanities frame. Papers could engage with the emerging inter-disciplines of the 'ecological humanities', 'ecocinema' or 'ecomedia'. Alternatively, papers may discuss Neil Postman's notion of 'media ecology'. Adopting a scientific framework, this term denotes the study of media as dynamic environments whereby, "new communications technologies may not wipe out earlier ones" as John Naugton argues, but alter the ecosystem so the old ones that do survive are those that are able to adapt. As a result, changes in the communications environment bring about cultural change.

We also welcome discussions on the question of what ecology means for the disciplines of media and cultural studies; papers that seek to perform the inter-connected "tasks of [re]situating humans in ecological terms and non-humans in ethical terms" (Plumwood) and attempt to highlight, as Val Plumwood does in her landmark Environmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis of Reason, how "anthropocentric perspectives and culture ... make us insensitive to our ecological place in the world" (Wright, 2012).

Details:

Article deadline: 27 April 2012
Release date: 27 June 2012
Editors: Catherine Simpson and Kate Wright

Submission of articles is through the M/C Journal website.

Send any enquiries to: ecology[at]journal[dot]media-culture[dot]org[dot]au

REFERENCES

Wright, Katherine. 2012. "[csaa-forum] Call for papers M/C Journal - theme of Ecology." Email correspondence with author. 15 February.

A Call for Sound Art ...

2012-02-07T16:57:00.000+10:30

Received via the Acoustic-Ecology Listserve:

"Hello WFAE list,

I produce My Audio Universe – a literary magazine of sound. The show is mostly comprised of short stories adapted to audio, but 4:00 minutes of every 59:00 minute edition are dedicated to what we call ‘sound art.’ I take a broad, very broad view of what sound art might be, and if you are interested in contributing a piece, please write me at brian@myaudiouniverse.com to discuss further.

Best,

Brian BahouthReno, NV" (Leonardson, 2012).

Go here to submit.

REFERENCES

Leonardson, Eric. 2012. "A Call for Sound Art." Email correspondence with author. 7 February.

Muldoon, Amy. "Yesterday I Burned Things." My Audio Universe. 22 December 2012. http://www.myaudiouniverse.com/listendownload/ (7 February 2012).

Winter 2011(release date 12-22-11)

I Heart Kimbra

2012-02-05T03:51:00.001+10:30

My current (most) favourite female vocalist, New Zealand-born Kimbra, performing Settle Down at the Melbourne Big Day Out, 2012.

N.B. I have a high quality version (569MB) for anyone who would like a copy : )

On a separate note:

Q. What kind of artist has the gall to save an as yet unperformed (and unrecorded) song for the end of their set?

A. Only one whose star is without question, on the rise.

International Workshop: For An Anthropology of Sound Milieux

2012-01-30T17:00:00.000+10:30

POUR UNE ANTHROPOLOGIE DES MILIEUX** SONORES II
Journées d'études internationales
16 et 17 février 2012
~organisées par le collectif MILSON, avec le soutien de la Fondation Fyssen

For an Anthropology of Sound Milieux** International Workshop,
February 16th-17th 2012
~organised by the research team MILSON with the support of the Fyssen Foundation

"MILSON is a research team dedicated to the discussion of the problematics and methods used in different disciplines (architecture, social sciences, arts, acoustic etc.) to study or experiment sound environments. Our first meeting took place in May 2011.

In this second edition, we will continue to explore the questions at stake in the anthropological study of ambient sounds. Based on ethnographic cases, and taking into account the perspectives of different disciplines, the workshop will give a deeper insight of sensory environments in different cultural contexts (India, Portugal, Italy, Ethiopia, Romania, Scotland, Egypt, France and Japan).

Presentations will focus on the shapes and dynamics of these environments (neighborhoods, markets, countrysides, temples, stations, places etc.). Researchers and artists will discuss the cognitive aspects of sound milieux in relation to their social settings in terms of meaning, categorisation, efficiency and normalisation"(Guillebaud, 2012).

Avec

Tripta Chandola
Anne Damon
Christine Guillebaud
Pierre Manea
Vincent Battesti
Victor A. Stoichita
Jean-Charles Depaule
Vincent Rioux
Heikki Uimonen
Olivier Féraud
Iñigo Sánchez
Claire Guiu

Being familiar with/interested in the development of the work of Heikki Uimonen (via the recently published text Acoustic Environments in Change), I plan on following up with her the possibility of obtaining a copy of her presentation paper. Will report back in time.

For further information regarding Foundation Fyssen, go here.

**A person's social environment.

REFERENCES

Guillebaud, Christine et al. "For An Anthropology of Sound Environments." MILSON. January 2012. http://milson.fr/wordpress/ (30 January 2012).

Debussy celebration a highlight of Happening festival

2012-01-25T17:04:00.000+10:30

Des Pas Sur La Neige (Miclaus, 2011)

"Debussy was said to actually suppress a landscape while walking across that landscape. He used to turn nature into sound harmonies and emotions. Perhaps more frequently than in other arts, in music the landscape is in fact a certain feeling..." (Miclaus, 2011).

"...Think the “soundsurround” effect in movie theatres. Or a kind of moving soundscape. For Hildegard Westerkamp, a freelance Vancouver composer, lecturer and sound ecologist, the festival offers a forum for making people more aware of their aural environment, the world of sounds around them — and noise pollution. Westerkamp’s focus as a creative artist was inspired by the hugely influential and multi-faceted Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer’s World Soundscape Project work, which flourished for a decade beginning in the late 1960s.Westerkamp, then a music student in her early 20s, played an active role in the important project for a year during that period. Where are we now in the awareness of how we are affected by the sounds in our environment?“It’s absolutely amazing, but it’s still a very unknown field, even though since the ’70s, and I would say, in the last 10 years, the awareness has risen quite significantly,” Westerkamp says.“Students can now take courses in various parts of the world in this field (acoustic ecology), but in terms of the environmental movement, it certainly is not a priority to think about noise.”For Westerkamp, it’s as important for people to open their ears to “the voices of the soundscape, which actually tell us what’s going on,” as to use their eyes.Such a deeper way of listening in everyday life also means that people “connect to their place in a very new way,” Westerkamp says.“Suddenly, through another sense, there’s a new knowledge about the place — and there’s pleasure in that.”And then there’s the whole issue of the anaesthetizing, wallpapering presence of music in our daily lives, Westerkamp adds, referring especially to the “presence of the Muzak Corporation and the power of the corporations to influence us in our moods and actions through music" (Clark, 2012).

REFERENCES

Clark, B. "Debussy Celebration a Highlight of Happening Festival." Calgary Herald. 25 January 2012. http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Debussy+celebration+highlight+Happening+festival/6052233/story.html (25 March 2012).

Miclaus, Claudia. "Music, Language and Dance – Three Means of Expressing Emotions." Buzzle.com: Intelligent Life on the Web. 13 September 2011. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/music-language-and-dance-three-means-of-expressing-emotions.html (25 March 2012).

Yuyu Ladybird, Yiota. "Footprints on Snow." Four Seasons of My Soul. 2 December 2011. http://soulseasons-yiota143.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/footprints-on-snow.html (25 March 2012).

NEFAE, A New Chapter

2012-01-23T17:08:00.000+10:30

NEFAE (Greenlee, 2012)

"The New England Forum for Acoustic Ecology (NEFAE) is a regional chapter of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology (ASAE).The ASAE is a membership organization dedicated to exploring the role of sound in natural habitats and human societies and promoting public dialogue concerning the identification, preservation, and restoration of natural and cultural sound environments.

The first Forum of the New England Forum for Acoustic Ecology will be a salon featuring three speakers on sonic topics. Attendance is free.The Forum will begin at 4PM on Sunday January 29, 2012; and be held at Mobius55 Norfolk Street, Cambridge, MA 02139.

Presentations by:

Ed Osborn – Albedo ProspectMatthew Azevedo – How quiet is quiet enough? Background sounds in performance spaces
Matthew Azevedo – How quiet is quiet enough? Background sounds in performance spaces
Sophia Roosth – Screaming Yeast: Sonocytology, Cytoplasmic Milieus, and Cellular Subjectivities

Acoustic ecology is a field of inquiry into the interrelationships between living beings and our environment, as mediated through sound.The New England Forum for Acoustic Ecology intends to provide a forum in which to engage on issues of sound and sonic environments from a multiplicity of perspectives and approaches.

This forum, broadly conceived, will take the form of concerts, salons, discussions, place-centered actions, and other events throughout the New England area.NEFAE was founded as a chapter of the American Society of Acoustic Ecology (ASAE).

ASAE logo (Anon)

For more information about the ASAE click here. We welcome composers, artists, researchers, performers, and others interested in acoustic ecology to join in" (Greenlee, 2012).

REFERENCES

Greenlee, Sean. "New England Forum for Acoustic Ecology." NEFAE.org. 18 January 2012. http://acousticecology.us/2012/01/asae-welcomes-two-new-regional-chapters/ (23 January 2012).

Leonardson, Eric. "asae12.png." American Society for Acoustic Ecology. January 2012. http://acousticecology.us/2012/01/asae-welcomes-two-new-regional-chapters/ (23 January 2012).

Call for Scientific and Artistic Contributions: The Global Composition

2012-01-09T17:11:00.000+10:30

The Global Composition Conference on Sound, Media & the Environment
July 25-28, 2012
Darmstadt/Media Campus, Dieburg Germany

"Proposals are invited for roundtable discussions, workshops, papers/posters, applied and artistic contributions, relating, but not limited to the conference’s main focus. The conference’s official language will be English.Providing a specially positioned “Next Generation”-thread, the conference is very interested, to create a forum for young scholars, scientists, artists as well as for students, and encourages them to send in their proposals. Please send abstracts for roundtable discussions, papers/posters, workshops and proposals for compositions or other artistic contributions by March 1, 2012. As keynote presenters we expect Bill Fontana, R. Murray Schafer [and] Hildegard Westerkamp et al.

Please note, that our venue is situated not far from Frankfurt airport in beautiful historic surroundings, providing not only the productive frame for an interesting conference, but also attractive landscapes, very good wine, culinary highlights, therefore good conditions for exchange and conviviality. All this makes, too, a central starting point for your summer break, be it locally, nationally or internationally.We hope to welcome you in summer on our Media Campus Dieburg of Hochschule Darmstadt.

The conference is supported by the “Understanding Canada”-programme/Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Embassy of Canada Berlin, in collaboration with Darmstädter Ferienkurse/Darmstadt Summer Course, Cork Institute of Technology/School of Music, Ireland and endorsed by the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology" (Breitsameter et al, 2012).

"Suggested topics are:

the idea of a collaborative and sustainable macro-soundscape or global composition;
sound design/soundscape design/soundscape creation;
influencing environmental sound – environmental sounds’ influences;
methods of perceiving/analyzing/creating/reconstructing soundscapes;
the role of technology and media in enhancing/obstructing sound(scape) awareness and critical listening;
(media) ecological approaches as the basis for listening cultures;
pedagogical aspects of listening;
media aesthetic/media cultural education; and
recent research on environmental sound, acoustic ecology and related issues" (Rudolph, 2012).

Project Direction:

Sabine Breitsameter, Professor for Sound and Media CultureMedia Arts and Sciences
Claudia Soeller-Eckert, Professor for Basics of Media Design& Interactive Media Design

Deadline for submission: March 1, 2012

Notification: April 20, 2012

Postal address:
Hochschule Darmstadt
Faculty of Media
Haardtring, 10064295

DarmstadtVisitors’ address:
Mediencampus
Max-Planck-Str. 2
Dieburg, D-64807

For further information, contact: fabienne[dot]rudolph[at]stud[dot]h-da[dot]de

REFERENCES

Breitsameter, Sabine and Claudia Soeller-Eckert. "International Conference Call for Scientific and Artistic and Scientific Submissions." 9 January 2012. http://www.the-global-composition-2012.org/call.html (9 January 2012).

Rudolph, Fabienne. "Call for Scientific, Scholarly and Artistic and Scientific Submissions." The Global Composition. 9 January 2012. http://www.the-global-composition-2012.org/call.html (9 January 2012).

Student Opportunities (N.B. For Canadians)

2012-01-08T17:29:00.000+10:30

Acoustic Ecology,Application Deadline - 2012/1/16
For this winter semester (BIO 399 or 498)

"Become part of a team working on the effects of noise and the ability to detect calling behaviours of amphibians, birds and bats.Automated digital recorders have been used to collect hourly recordings from 10 sites that differ in riparian vegetation and distance to nearest road. Compare the effect of road noise, and vegetation cover on the calling behaviour of amphibians or song birds.

Several opportunities (more than one project) exist for interested students. One may choose one of 3 amphibian species present at study locations; or 1 of numerous bird species and compare responses across different locations, time periods at one or more ponds or some other combination of factors (i.e. compare species responses).Research is part of an ABMI, ACA and NSERC funded research that looks at the response of amphibians and birds to changes in climate and functionality of automated acoustic recorders" (Department of Biological Sciences, 2012).

...only in Alberta, Western Canada.

*sigh*

REFERENCES

Department of Biological Sciences. "Employment > Student Opportunities." Faculty of Science: Department of Biological Sciences. January 2012. http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/news_events/employment/student/index.php?PositionID=696 (8 January 2012).

AFAE, The Australian Chapter

2012-01-06T18:12:00.000+10:30

I've finally joined the forum and, come Monday, will attend my first meeting.

Of course now I wonder why the h*ll it ever took me so long to sign up. Is it the case that I subconsciously enjoy working in virtual isolation??

REFERENCES

AFAE: Australian Forum for Acoustic Ecology. 2009. http://acousticecologyaustralia.org/ (6 January 2012).

Montréal Is Pleasant to View, And to Listen To

2012-01-01T19:02:00.000+10:30

Montréal Sound Map (Stein, 2011).

"Montréal - Everyone can picture Montréal’s famous sights: the view of glittering skyscrapers from the Champlain Bridge, milling crowds on St. Catherine St., skaters at Beaver Lake and the orange glow of a wood-fired bagel oven.But what of its sounds? The rat-tat-tat of the drill at a downtown construction site. Chiming bells at a Villeray church. Waves lapping against a pier in Lachine. The song of a red-winged blackbird in Jean Drapeau Park.That sonic landscape is there to discover at montrealsoundmap.com, an interactive map of Montréal sound bites that is winning international kudos.

The pioneering project is the brainchild of two electro-acoustic music students at Concordia University, Max and Julian Stein, who started recording and posting sounds of the city three years ago.Since then, the Pennsylvania-born twins have been commissioned to create sound maps of Stockholm, Brussels, Nunavik and Angola.The concept of capturing and mapping urban sounds is catching on among artists and academics from Amsterdam to Sao Paulo.At Berlin-based Radio Aporee (aporee.org), you can browse through thousands of ambient sound recordings of the German capital. In 2009, a “Wall of Sound” project to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall offered a sound map of the former dividing line between East and West.In London, Ian Rawes, a sound archive technician at the British Library, has recorded, collected and posted more than 900 recordings at soundsurvey.org.uk. Sounds on the three-year-old site include street vendors hawking fruits and vegetables in a market; rioters looting a store in Peckham; and what it sounds like inside Big Ben when the clock chimes.You can even travel back in time to hear London sewer workers singing in the underground city and a grammar-school Latin class, thanks to sound clips from the BBC.


	Designed by Max Stein, sonographic Map of Montréal, 2008-2011

In New York, where a local chapter of the American Society for Acoustic Ecology chronicles urban sounds (nysoundmap.org), artists have incorporated sound maps of suburban trains into conceptual artworks.The Montréal site, which currently features 284 sound bites, was a personal project, said Max Stein, 22. The brothers recently completed BAs in music and are working as research assistants under Sandeep Bhagwati, Canada Research Chair for Inter-X Art.Even though the brothers, then 19, created the site outside of class work, Concordia spotlighted it as one of the university’s leading research projects at its President’s Conference Series last year – a rare mark of distinction for undergraduate research, Bhagwati said.“It’s very powerful and can be very evocative,” he said of the sound map.“It can create an acoustic history of the city. You can say, this is what this street corner sounded like in 2011,” he added.Stein said one of his favourite recordings is of a woman making bubble tea in Chinatown with electronic music playing in the background, seemingly in time with the sounds of the shop.“It was one moment in time,” said Stein, who has held music performances in an underpass in Mile End and in métro stations. He said that he goes out to record with no fixed goal in mind and captures long stretches of ambient sound, which he then edits down to short bites of less than a minute.

The trend traces its origins to a project in the late 1960s headed by Vancouver composer R. Murray Schafer, who coined the word soundscape, meaning sounds that provide a sense of place to inhabitants. The project, which mapped sounds like tugboats in the Vancouver harbour, combined environmental concerns with a growing interest in the acoustic environment. Advertising, elevator music and mechanical noise were creating a synthetic sound environment where silence and the sounds of nature were being drowned out, Schafer warned.In London, Rawes has scoured through historical accounts like the Diary of Samuel Pepys to learn more about the sound environment of previous eras. Life was so much quieter before industrialization that a battle many miles from London was audible to people living on the city’s outskirts, he said.Now, digitally interactive maps like Google Maps have provided a vehicle to make sound mapping available to a much wider audience, Bhagwati said.“This community was very quick to notice that this was perfectly aligned with their goals,” he said.The sound-mapping movement straddles the line between art and social-sciences research, he said.“What the Stein brothers did that was really interesting was they really used the power of social media, saying everybody can record sounds with their iPhones or more sophisticated equipment and then you can upload it,” Bhagwati said" (Scott, 2011).

REFERENCES

Scott, Marian. "Montréal is Pleasant to View, And to Listen To." The Gazette. 29 December 2011. http://www.montrealgazette.com/Montreal+pleasant+view+listen/5920641/story.html#ixzz1m3hEEXtg. 1 January 2012.

Stein, Max and Julian Stein. Montréal Sound Map. 2011. http://www.montrealsoundmap.com/ (1 January 2012).

URGENT: Publication of a Special Issue on Soundscape and its Applications

2011-12-13T16:41:00.000+10:30

An important thread begun on the WFAE listerv:

Dear reader, friend, and colleague,

I am writing to inform you of an important challenge and opportunity regarding the definition one of acoustic ecology’s fundamental ideas, the Soundscape (my emphasis). The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) is seeking papers for publication in a few weeks. I have attached the Call for Papers on Soundscape from the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America PDF file. What is at stake is the possibility that our way of defining, experiencing, addressing the acoustic environment may be distorted by a larger, more influential group that has no investment in the nearly 40 years of discovery that began in the World Soundscape Project.

Deadline: January 15, 2011
Papers should be submitted in the usual manner for JASA via the Peer X-Press site: http://asa.aip.org/jasa.html
….Papers should be submitted before January 15, 2011.
The intent is that all papers accepted on or before May 1, 2012 will be passed-on to the production department for publication as a special issue
…Guest Editors are Brigitte Schulte-Fortkamp and Jian Kang.

The challenge and opportunity:As the word “soundscape” gains currency in our increasingly sound-conscious culture, I am aware that it attracts the attention of professionals in a diverse range of cultures and disciplines. The pressure to “colonize” the lesser-known fields of knowledge gets ratcheted up. Therefore, it is my hope that the voice of acoustic ecology be heard, and continue to express its interdisciplinary and holistic approach toward the exploration of soundscapes; their definition and the manifold application of its exploration. It would not be helpful to have the term “soundscape” reduced to a mere variant of “noise pollution” or “cacophony,” nor packaged into simple metrics for the ISO. My personal preference is for a world in which engineers grasp the entire, polyvalent connection of the environment with the physical world and its psychic and biological subject. It is not a dream. I think physicists can grasp the poetry of matter, and if artists can grasp what scientists can teach, there can be a real growth of exciting breakthroughs in the fields of health, cognition, and culture.I hope you, as a member of our field of acoustic ecology, will consider the challenge and opportunity, and forward this message to your friends and colleagues.

Contact me with any questions, please.I apologize if you have received this message more than once.

Sincerely,

Eric-- Eric Leonardson
E-mail: eric[at]ericleonardson[dot]org
Mobile: 773-342-5012
Skype: worldlisteninghttp://ericleonardson.org/whatsnew/http://www.worldlisteningproject.org/http://mwsae.org/http://www.chicagophonography.org/http://twitter.com/eleonahttp://www.facebook.com/eric.leonardson

14 December 2011 00:04

Hi Eric,

Good to hear of this call – and surely one of the challenges we need to embrace and be pleased about is the opportunity to integrate parallel thinking, and foster a truly interdisciplinary approach to sound and environment.

To me the description I read under 'general topics' in this call was really encouraging – open to a variety of approaches. And it will be great if acoustic ecology is represented and involved as part of it. The growth of interest in sound and environment is something to celebrate, isn't it?

Very best,

Katharine Ph.D

14 December 2011 01:29

I will echo Katharine's optimistic take on this call. I agree that it would be great if acoustic ecology is represented in this publication, but I don't think there is much risk of the term "soundscape" being reduced to a synonym for "noise pollution" or other negatively charged descriptor. A term like "schizophonia" is prone to negative construction in Western culture because of its association with schizophrenia, but the term "soundscape" carries no such baggage with it. I can't imagine someone saying, "I'm sick and tired of all this soundscape in the city; I'm off to the country where it's quieter!" Just doesn't seem to make linguistic sense. But more to the point, I think there is tremendous value in opening the term up to other disciplines. In fact, the term is already in wide usage outside the frame of acoustic ecology proper, with interesting results.

As an opposite example of the negative co-option that Eric fears, consider the term's usage in film studies: here we have been using the term pretty much verbatim in reference to elements of film soundtracks that evoke environmental sound. And in David Sonnenschein's guide to film sound production, he uses the term to prompt sound designers into an awareness of the relationship between sonic environment and narrative, effectively extending the goal of acoustic ecology through to an artistic field (in much the same way as soundscape composers have been doing since the 1970s). So in the world of film, at least, the spirit of the term survives in translation to another discipline. Yet I actually find this literal transposition of the term a bit stifling, and have argued that the idea of "soundscape" needs to be rethought a bit when applying it to the work that film sound designers do.

Cover Image: Three Sounds (1926), by Vasily Kandinsky

And as far as the world of acousticians goes, one need look no further than Emily Thompson's groundbreaking book "The Soundscape of Modernity" to find a productive use of the term within the fields of both acoustics and history. Her study of architectural acoustics enriches the program of acoustic ecology in aiding our awareness of the complex social, cultural, political and industrial systems that intersect in the auditory spaces of the built environments that we inhabit. Thompson is hardly an acoustic ecologist, but her exploration of the work of acousticians is, in my opinion, one of the most important contributions to the field of acoustic ecology yet made.

So, I see no reason to assume that the term "soundscape" will become irrevocably co-opted just because JASA appeals to the engineering set. I look forward to further articulations of the concept to see what interdisciplinary expansion of the term might bring. And I hope to read the work of some acoustic ecologists alongside the work of acousticians and others in this publication.

All the best,

Randolph Ph.D

In response to the message from Randolph Jordan, 14/12/2011

I am also optimistic about this call for submissions, since I am also a member of the international Working Group 54 which is part of the International Standards Organization (ISO) that is developing a working definition for the term soundscape as well as methods for its evaluation. I suspect that this call is an offshoot of that group's discussions. And for the record, I can report that there is absolutely no chance of the term soundscape being equated with noise pollution etc. in these circles.In fact, I have been quite heartened by the direction being taken by WG54 which is to insist on the term soundscape as referring to how the acoustic environment is perceived and understood (just as it was in the original definition in the Handbook for Acoustic Ecology). This is a major step forward for acousticians, for instance, who have traditionally treated sound in an objective manner, something to be measured, etc.

As has already been noted, the Europeans are particularly keen on developing this approach, and seem willing to tackle new methodologies for dealing with this more subjective definition.There will be an acoustics conference in France next year, to which I've been invited, to deal with such issues, also a workshop on methodology. I've even suggested including a concert of soundscape compositions and they are trying to work out the logistics of that. My students and I have also presented papers at various Canadian Acoustics conferences with a good reception. And I already announced to this list the theme issue of the scientific journal Landscape Ecology devoted to soundscape ecology.

So, just as the WSP and WFAE have always stressed the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to this field, I think we should all be encouraged by the current interest that is coming from the sciences as well as the social sciences and elsewhere. We need the skills and expertise of all of these professionals, in addition to those who are already involved. I say let's work together.

Barry

On 12/13/11 9:41 AM, Nick P. Miller wrote:

Greetings,

I have been involved in noise and acoustics since 1970, and a member of the ASA since about 1973. It would be unfortunate to get into some kind of battle over who owns the approach to "soundscape." It is becoming a widely used term, but with the widest imaginable range of approaches from subjective aesthetic to quantitative engineering. It seems to me there is room for all, but only if everyone understands the other approaches, methods and goals. There is plenty of interest in soundscapes within the engineering community, though mostly from Europe, and I believe it is informed by the concept of quality and subjective judgment. If you search enough, I think you'll find lots of papers on the topic from the engineering side.

I'm attaching the conclusion section from a fairly recent article in the Noise Control Engineering Journal.** Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Nick Miller Ph.D
Nicholas P. MillerSenior Vice PresidentHarris Miller Miller Hanson Inc. 　 77 South Bedford Street, Burlington, MA 01803 T 781.229.0707 ext. 3151F 781.229.7939 nmiller[at]hmmh[dot]com

19 December 2011 14:28

Thank you, Nick for responding, and for attaching the conclusion from Noise Control Engineering Journal. I have to confess that this is the first time I've heard of the journal. I suppose that's due to my focus in media arts and music. The ideas expressed in “Soundscapes and environmental noise management” article, that an either/or approach but rather a complementary one, makes good sense. Let's hope this intelligent and inclusive approach becomes the norm.

A quick look at the website for INCE-USA and Harris Miller Miller Hanson Inc., reveal numerous links to resources, while likely familiar to my colleagues in acoustic engineering, that are new to me.

All the best,

Eric

20 December 2011 01:36

Eric (and all),

I'm pleased you did a bit of research on my field. Enormous amounts of resources have been spent over the past almost 40 years attempting to understand, quantify and limit noise (and vibration). True, the approach has been focused on reducing noise rather than on improving the quality of the soundscape (and there are historical / political reasons for this) but work with and by the National Park Service in the U.S. and by others in Europe and Asia has begun to combine technical, quantitative expertise with the notion of preservation/ restoration of quality. Two articles I published contain some initial thoughts for bridging this quantitative/ qualitative divide for national park environments (see here and here). and the attached.

We have focused on transportation noise for many reasons, and the range of noticeable transportation noise is significant (see my article here).It is certainly still all a work in progress that could benefit from all the thought put into soundscapes by those of you engaged in developing the acoustic ecology approach.

Best wishes,

Nick Miller.

20 December 2011 01:57

Hi all,

FYI - there's also an extensive interview with Nick [Miller] in Vol. 7 of Soundscape.

Best,

Steven.

**N.B. Update (26/02/12): I've ordered a copy of this article from my library but am yet to address the Thompson book.

REFERENCES

Leonardson, Eric et al. 2011. "RE: URGENT: Publication of a Special Issue on Soundscape and its Applications." Email correspondence with author/s. 13 December.

Thompson, Emily Ann. "The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933." The MIT Press. 2012. http://mitpress.mit.edu/images/products/books/9780262701068-f30.jpg (13 December 2011).

“The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon’s Last Uncontacted Tribes,” by Scott Wallace

2011-12-10T19:22:00.000+10:30

(Monacchi, 2011)

"It sounds like the beginning of a pulp adventure novel. A journalist gets a phone call from a magazine editor offering a tantalizing assignment: Go to the Amazon and catch up with an expedition bent on making contact with a tribe so remote and self-contained that it knows virtually nothing of modern civilization. Scott Wallace got such a call from National Geographic. Despite some misgivings (among other things, he already felt guilty about how little time he spent with his sons), he took the assignment, and his new book, “The Unconquered,” is the result of his travels and consultations with experts. Among Wallace’s reasons for going to northwestern Brazil was his admiration for the head of the expedition, activist Sydney Possuelo, who considered the Arrow People a kind of test case for his policy that the best thing to do with isolated indigeneous groups was to leave them to their own devices. If Possuelo was right, they would find a “thriving” people who were “far better off [in isolation] than they’d be under any scheme to integrate them into mainstream modern society.”

In the Amazon rainforest, Sydney Possuelo, left,
talks with Scott Wallace. A guide looks on (Wallace, 2011).

Wallace’s sensitivity to his Amazonian surroundings was enhanced by the experts he consulted in the course of this project, among them composer David Monacchi, who “shared his brilliance and expertise in acoustic ecology and the sounds of the rainforest” (the indigenous people rely heavily on their sense of hearing to make the best use of the jungle). In the end, Wallace argues, “the idea wasn’t to cordon the Indians off forever from the outside world; it was to allow them to choose if and when they wanted contact”" (Drabelle, 2011).

REFERENCES

Drabelle, Dennis. "The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes." The Washington Post: Entertainment. 10 December 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-unconquered-in-search-of-the-amazons-last-uncontacted-tribes-by-scott-wallace/2011/10/12/gIQAU66ViO_story.html (15 December, 2011).

Monacchi, David. David Monacchi: Sound Design. 2011. http://www.davidmonacchi.it/http://www.davidmonacchi.it/indiceen.html (15 December 2011).

Wallace, Scott. "Can You Study a Tribe Without Contacting It?" Slate. 7 November 2011. http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2011/11/07/the_arrow_people_of_brazil_scott_wallace_s_unconquered_.html (15 December 2011).

What If Sound Matters Too?: Revisiting the Potential for Healthy Soundscape

2011-11-23T19:54:00.000+10:30

"Burlington VT, RSG Group" (Berstein, 2011: 98).

"Scott Bernstein’s lecture was given at the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology meeting on Wednesday, September 21, hosted by the Columbia College Department of Audio Arts and Acoustics.

See the compelling data and conclusions of his talk correlating CO2 emissions and transportation (public and private) to home ownership, health (physical, social, and economic), soundscape, and overall environment. The data cited in Scott Bernstein’s lecture was drawn from a range of local and international studies. Displayed in the form of charts and graphs, his slideshow may serve as a useful tool to understand, to advocate, and suggest better choices in the planning of urban environments.Bernstein’s goal is summed up in four tasks, to:

Review some history of how our cites came to be built as they are now;
Review recent knowledge and tools used to help re-plan existing urban environments;
Explore ways in which both noise control and soundscapes can be seen as essential; and
Suggest some next steps for exploring a useful synthesis of research and action here in Chicago.

Scott Bernstein is co-founder and President of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a 33 year-old Chicago-based national innovations center that promotes healthy and productive communities" (Leonardson, 2011).

"Start Mapping Noise Levels and Provide a Good Portal for Comparison... " (Bernstein, 2011: 85).

Go here (73MB) to listen to the lecture.

Clickhere to download a copy of the lecture's PowerPoint (46 MB/.pdf format).

REFERENCES

Bernstein, Scott. "Burlington VT, RSG Group." Columbia College Lecture Sept 21 2011. Chicago: CNT, 2011.

Bernstein, Scott. "Start Mapping Noise Levels and Provide a Good Portal for Comparison - EU Requires Samples from Amsterdam and Birmingham." Columbia College Lecture Sept 21 2011. Chicago: CNT, 2011.

Leonardson, Eric. "Listen and Watch, Scott Bernstein’s “Revisiting the Potential for Healthy Soundscape”." Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology. 28 September 2011. http://mwsae.org/?p=1739 (22 November 2011).

Leonardson, Eric. 2011. "What if Sound Matters Too?: Revisiting the Potential for a Healthy Soundscape." Email Correspondence with author. 22 November.

Study of the Day: 1 in 5 Americans Suffer From Severe Hearing Loss

2011-11-18T21:13:00.000+10:30

Problem:

Previous estimates of hearing loss in the United States have relied too much on samples from specific locales and age groups, so it's unclear just how rampant this problem is in America.

Methodology:

To uncover the real scope of this issue, Johns Hopkins researchers led by Frank Lin used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They analyzed reports involving 7,490 participants age 12 and over whose hearing was tested from 2001 to 2008. The sample includes men and women of all races and ages from cities scattered across the country.

Results:

Using the World Health Organization's definition for hearing loss (not being able to hear sounds of 25 decibels or less in the speech frequencies), the scientists found that about 48 million people, or 20.3 percent of the U.S. population, have hearing loss in at least one ear and that around 30 million have trouble with both ears. These numbers far surpass previous estimates of about 25 million. Interestingly, hearing loss prevalence also nearly doubled with every age decade, and women and blacks are significantly less likely to have hearing loss at any age.

Conclusion:

About a fifth of all Americans 12 years or older have hearing loss so severe that it hinders communication.

N.B. For a more extensive overview of the above study, click here.

REFERENCES

Villarica, Hans. "Hearing Loss Prevalence in the United States." Archives of Internal Medicine. 15 November 2011. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/11/study-of-the-day-1-in-5-americans-suffer-from-severe-hearing-loss/248361/#.TsKoaoibIus.email (18 November 2011).

Interview: Annea Lockwood and Acoustic Ecology

2011-11-18T21:00:00.000+10:30

Annea Lockwood (2010)

"In this informal interview with sound excerpts, Annea Lockwood touches on her views about field recording and sound mapping. She is well known for her recording of environmental soundscapes. Her 'A Sound Map of the Hudson River and the more recent 'A Sound Map of the Danube' are considered as classics of the genre.

This interview was part of Session 5 Soundwalks, Acoustic Spaces and Field Recordings included in Sonic Acts XIII, 2010, Amsterdam"(Soundscape Explorations, 2011).

REFERENCES

Sonic Acts. "Annea Lockwood (Interview by Arie Altena) (Sonic Acts XIII, 2010)." Vimeo.org. 19 June 2010. http://vimeo.com/12692600 (18 November 2011).

Soundscape Explorations. "Interview - Annea Lockwood and Acoustic Ecology." Sound Explorations.blogspot.com. 17 November 2011. http://soundexplorations.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/interview-annea-lockwood-and-acoustic.html (18 November 2011).

Soundbytes 10

2011-11-06T10:23:00.002+10:30

Happening at Melbourne's Wah Wah Bar, Saturday 25th November 2011.

For further information regarding the event, click here.

Nervous?

Sounding Brighton

2011-10-28T15:12:00.000+10:30

...Innovative Sonic Experiments at Brighton and Hove’s White Night

'SOUNDING BRIGHTON, supported by the European funded COST Action, is a co-commission with the Noise Abatement Society for Brighton and Hove White Night. A series of sonic artworks, produced especially for the occasion, will challenge notions of sound in public spaces. The works will extend the Noise Abatement Society’s pioneering initiative, Sounding Brighton: they will provoke debate and initiate innovative explorations to help solve noise disturbance in urban environments. This project is part of White Night’s commitment to ‘new work’ and ‘new approaches’.

The artists and experts who have been chosen for the White Night project all have a gift for public engagement and an accessible message/medium through which to communicate it. The work created for White Night will be of particular interest to sound artists, designers and acoustic ecologists – as well as the participating public.

CONTEXT

In modern life, we are continually bombarded by noises, and listening has, for many of us, become a Cinderella sense. However, we can develop new ways of listening – and take more control of our listening.

Those in charge of the design, management and use of cities must take more responsibility for the sonic implications of their actions. We need to take as much care of our soundscapes as of townscapes and landscapes. Practical approaches towards better soundscapes can be explored by engaging audiences in new ways of experiencing the richness and creative power of sound – and demonstrating how it can be viewed as a valuable ‘resource’.

Within the White Night Festival’s theme of Utopia, SOUNDING BRIGHTON will present innovative, participatory installations aimed at encouraging members of the community to expand their creative engagement with sound. It will raise awareness of new possibilities for quality soundscapes through
immersive sonic experiences, using artistic and musical interpretations. There will also be a programme of interactive lectures.' (Drever, 2011)

For more details click here.

REFERENCES

Drever, John Levack. 2011. "RE: SOUNDING BRIGHTON Innovative Sonic Experiments at Brighton and Hove's White Night." Email correspondence with author. 27 October.

A Sound Map of River Paiva

2011-10-13T16:05:00.001+10:30

Sound Map of River Paiva

A good example of how to share the results of a Sound Map.

Sound Embracing Context - (German Composer) Marc Behrens on the River Paiva

2011-10-13T15:56:00.002+10:30

SOUND EMBRACING CONTEXT-MARC BEHRENS from FUTURE PLACES FESTIVAL on Vimeo.

The Paiva River in Janarde: photo by SOS rio Paiva
'There is another case - something that I'm actually working on right now and will work in the future, here in Portugual actually - it's in a rural area along the River Paiva, which is southeast of Porto in the Douro area. I spent 10-days before the festival there to record sounds, mostly of people doing their daily activities. I will arrange these recordings, construct this composition and then I will construct these floating elements with water-poof speakers to put into the river; they will float in the river, they will be anchored within an area but they will float, and the sounds will be played back on the speakers. So I'm basically giving back sounds of living beings, communities living there produced by these communities who are there in the first place because of the existence of the river. I will give this back to the river itself. And there are two aspects to think about the river - it is never the same river because the water is changing - the flow of the water is changing; yet the river is of course the same river because you can identify the river. And then the river of course will make sound - this sound, the sound of water, is the sound of information in the very, very archaic sense. This sound will actually mask the sound that I will play back on these speakers, so possibly (or even hopefully) sometimes drowning out the sounds that I am giving back to the river.' (Behrens, 1:42-3:29)

REFERENCES

Future Places Festival and Marc Behrens. "Sound Embracing Context - Marc Behrens." Future Places. July 2011. http://vimeo.com/24312034 (12 October 2011).

Saturday Come Slow

2011-10-09T17:03:00.000+10:30

Features an easy to understand explanation of sound pollution and beautiful video excerpts of sound realised in the physical.

Sounds From the Weave, Part 4

2011-09-06T15:38:00.004+09:30

Dear Sound Weavers,

I wanted to let you know that "A Complex Weave - Women and Identity in Contemporary Art" - which you participated in through "Sounds From the Weave" - will be exhibited at the Robeson Gallery at Penn State University between Sept 27 - Dec 4. Penn State is interested in the sound and music installation as well. I don't have particulars at the moment, but I imagine this will be an identical type of installation to the one that ran at Rutgers in the fall of 2009.

So, I'm writing to:

a) inform you that the exhibition is traveling, and
b) to make sure that we have permission to use your piece if the gallery wants to run the installation

Please let me know as soon as possible that you received this email, and whether there are any objections or not to the continued use of your music for the exhibition.

As soon as I have details I will forward them. I'm also informed that after Penn State, the exhibition is scheduled to travel to Carleton College in Minnesota, and then to the University of Southern California later in 2012-3. I don't have any music commitments for those exhibitions yet, but I anticipate that they will be forthcoming.

Best,

MZ

REFERENCES

Zaki, Mark. 2011. "RE: Sounds From the Weave at Penn State." Email correspondence with author. 1 September.

A Violent Reaction

2011-07-02T23:23:00.003+09:30

..can be a good thing.

Teacher: The Bhagavad-gītā is an ancient text, 182 verses long. In it the Goddess Parvati is asking the Shiva (or God) for the secrets of fulfillment. It's said to have transforming qualities.

Liz: I would just like to take a risk here and say: me and Guru Gita, we just do not get along.

Teacher: What is it you have trouble with?

Liz: Everything. It's long, it's tedious, I can't keep up, and I get these insane anxieties about everything in my life and I've lost my place.

Teacher: Sounds like it has a positive effect on you if you're having such strong emotions and physical reactions...keep trying.

(Ryan, 1:06:02 - 1:06:49)

Watching the Director's Cut of Eat Pray Love for the first time tonight, I uncovered an as yet unwatched scene within the movie wherein the central character "Liz" is expressing her reaction to her reading of the teachings of the Guru Gita. I instantly recall my futile attempts during 2009 to read Schafer's Tuning of the World in full (one subsequent discussion with an ex-Supervisor had me pin my reaction – nausea – on the chemicals in the printing ink). Tonight, having had the opportunity to view this experience through a different lens – that of "Liz's" experiences with Guru Gita's spiritual teachings – I'm drawn to reconsider my own violent reaction to Schafer's writings on Acoustic Ecology as something positive; I was back then at least fully immersed in my research. Henceforth, I should look forward to the return of my nausea, not so much a sign of impending spiritual enlightenment, but greater cognizance, and in turn (one would hope), a clearer implementation of, the principles of Acoustic Ecology.

REFERENCES

Eat Pray Love: The Director's Cut. Dir. Ryan Murphy. DVD. US: Columbia Pictures Industries Inc. 2010. 140 min.

World Listening Day

2011-06-29T14:38:00.025+09:30

"The World Listening Project (WLP) and Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology (MSAE) invite you to participate in the 2011 World Listening Day on Monday, July 18. World Listening Day events will continue during the week of July 17-23, 2011. Regional coordinators are tracking events in their respective their continents" (Leonardson, 2011).

A little bit about WLD:

"The first WLD, which happened on July 18, 2010, was a great success. Several dozen organizations and several hundred people from six continents participated in the 2010 World Listening Day. World Listening Day happens annually on July 18th, the birth date of R. Murray Schafer, a Canadian composer who established the World Soundscape Project. Its research laid the foundations for what became known as Soundscape Studies and Acoustic Ecology. The purposes of World Listening Day are:

to celebrate different ways we can focus on our soundscape (sonic environment);
to raise awareness about the acoustic ecology movement, including ideas regarding how noise pollution can be reduced; and
to introduce new educational initiatives and community events related to listening and acoustic ecology.

Participation in the 2011 World Listening Day will focus on the aforementioned goals, which could include listening parties, listening to one’s soundscape in private, private or public soundwalks, public forums about acoustic ecology, and more" (Anon, 2011).

For further information and to download a copy of this year's participation form, click here.

REFERENCES

Anon. "World Listening Day." The World Listening Project. 2011. http://www.worldlisteningproject.org/?p=1037 (27 June 2011).

Leonardson, Eric. 2011. "2011 World Listening Day, July 18." Email correspondence with author. 27 June.

'Turbocharge Your Writing' Workshop

2011-06-27T18:00:00.189+09:30

Task 1: Know what is the next most important thing BEFORE you sit down at the desk:

Channel your supervisor/s, better yet ask your supervisor;
Finish the work closest to being finished first (e.g. a chapter, abstract, journal article etc.);
It's always going to be difficult to keep the end goal in sight when one has multiple things on the go, the lesson here is to not have too many tasks on the go at any one time;
Pick something to work on (N.B. you can change your mind whether or not continue working on this at a later point in time, but NOT whilst still seated at your desk); and
Hone in on something specific, e.g. (in my case):

"Pre-Kantian aesthetics as it relates to the atmosphere of a [South Australian] riverine environment."; or
Population of the words in the title of my Research Proposal.

... so work on one of these now! Write it up, work it into the Proposal... Sheesh!

Myth 1: I'll write when I feel ready and I don't feel ready yet.

You may never feel ready;
You have to write before you feel ready;
Don't wait to be inspired, it's never too early to start writing;
'Readitis' (researchers disease): "Reading one more article, running one more data test will solve all my research problems";
Get clarity through what you've already found/know/read before moving on to the next article/topic/task etc.

Myth 2: I'll get it clear in my head first, and then I'll write it down.

Writing is not an act of recording;
Writing is a creative process;
Writing is rigorous thinking; and
Writing helps to clarify one's thinking.

Myth 3: Writing should be easy, it should just flow

A sore brain is a good sign, it indicates the brain is growing;
Writing is not like in the movies – note to self re SATC;
Writing is often hard work;
You have to show up to the desk, even if your muse doesn't;
Don't bother to read if you're not writing [around the topic/article/task at hand]; and
Note-taking is not writing, you need to write around a topic/article/task in order to clarify its relevancy to the Research.

How much should I write?

Write little, write often;
Binge write, "snack write" – around 30-45 min. per day (academics) or 1-2hrs per day (PhDc), 5 days a week; and
"Park on the hill" – stop writing at the 42 min. mark and proceed with dot points from here until the 45 min. mark (provides a clear starting point from which to continue during the next sitting).

When should I write?

Write first thing in the morning (i.e. prior to coffee, food and dressing), when the mind is at its most lucid;
Allay distractions or make writing your first priority after [feeding the dog, for example];
Schedule any meetings for after midday;
Schedule a set writing time, e.g. 7am every day (5 days a week); and
Remember: "70% of success is just turning up" (Woody Allan).

What is Writing?

New words;
Not editing, formatting, polishing, referencing, emails, blogging etc.;
Write and then read (write > read > write > read).

Note to self: I should not be too concerned if I don't publish my writing during my candidature. In fact, I imagine that to do so could potentially diminish my confidence in my own work. Best to go back underneath my favourite rock for the time being.

Don't Get Distracted!

Leave the Internet turned off while writing;
Don't check references;
Set aside tangents and good ideas for another time;
Nail your feet to the floor (metaphorically speaking);
Try working with a pen and paper (or in white font) instead of on a laptop/desktop; and
Write "in a silo" – "head down, bum up" (thanks Mom).

The Thought of Writing: "But what if I'm not motivated?"

Initiate 10-15 min. of action (i.e. snack writing), motivation should kick in after this time;
Add rewards for goals attained, work completed etc. (e.g. Internet access, raisin toast(!)) to strengthen the motivation to actually write;
If a writing routine doesn't kick in after five goes at snack writing, speak to a counsellor or colleague ASAP.

Focus on the Facts

I could probably improve somewhat.
It is highly unlikely my work is fundamentally flawed.
OK is OK.
Once the dust has settled, controversial or unpopular ideas are generally inspirational to others.
Whatever flaws one has are most likely already known to colleagues, peers, supervisors, academic field, etc.
Family and friends generally don't care that one is doing a PhD – it's not just my own family.
Doing a PhD does not make one more human.

Feedback

Feedback is a way to deal with problems;
Feedback is free advice;
Assists in making one's work the best, the most rigorous, the most honest, it can be;
Ask specific questions of your supervisors etc, don't ask for opinions;
No feedback from a supervisor = a lazy supervisor (not a flaw in the PhDc's being); and
Showing written work to your supervisor is more rigorous than simply having meetings to discuss your work and/or update them the progress of your research.

For more information on ithinkwell presentations and coaching, click here.

REFERENCES

Adams, Scott. "The Motivation Fairy." Dilbert. January 11 2001. http://search.dilbert

Gardener, Maria. 2011. "Turbocharge Your Writing." Lecture presentation at Flinders University, Adelaide. 27 June.

Jones, Toni. "Motivation Fairy Came to Visit Me." Keeping Up With the Jones. 17August 2008. http://mamabonetones.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html (27 June 2011).

Wright, Elsie. "Francis Griffiths with Fairies." The Cottingly Fairies Hoax. 2011. http://www.infobarrel.com/The_Cottingley_Fairies_Hoax (27 June 2011).

'7 Secrets to Academic Success' Workshop

2011-06-22T15:00:00.192+09:30

How to make doing a PhD as difficult as possible (a list of suggestions):

Choose a broad topic (e.g. 'Global Warming')
Get a full-time job
Get married
Have a baby
Choose a supervisor you dislike
Choose a supervisor who is unfamiliar with your topic (i.e. make it a DIY PhD)**
Ensure the data is expensive to collect and/or difficult to obtain
Pick a topic that is culturally sensitive (and potentially traumatic)
Change your methodological expertise, i.e. switch Schools and/or Universities

...well, I think I've got that one covered.

**N.B. I always thought this was the norm and during this workshop learned that it is definitely not (and in fact a potential impediment to completing a PhD successfully and in good time). Previous conversations with supervisors found me being labelled "the expert" and informed that subsequently "I would be educating them" around my topic. In hindsight I realise that what was going on here was confidence-building. While this is all good and well, having a supervisor on board who is already somewhat familiar with your topic will, at the very least, help to cut down on time spent locating relevant/pertinent literature (and in turn, the likelihood of "catching" the dreaded sickness that is the feeling of being overwhelmed by the literature per se!).

***

SECRET 1: CARE AND MAINTENANCE OF YOUR SUPERVISOR

Key Quote: "All models are wrong but some are useful."

It's my PhD. The bad news is I am responsible for "fixing" what isn't working (including my dysfunctional relationship with my supervisor/s);

Bear in mind that supervisor's are happy just to have and express their thoughts around [the problem], they don't necessarily expect you to either act on or integrate their ideas into your research;

It is more important to keep meetings with supervisor/s regular versus frequent;

Meet with your supervisor/s even if you've done nothing – for chances are you've done something, even if it was to merely deliberate over a particular term/turn of phrase for the previous 14-days;

Email your supervisor/s both before (include: date, time, agenda) and after (include: thanks, questions/queries, confirmation of next meeting date) each meeting – I choose to blog my meeting notes. It helps to me to consolidate any new points that have been raised, gives me a better sense of my progress, and henceforth means my notes are always at hand and legible!;

Learning is aided through discussion around the particular concept (it can reiterate, augment, inform etc. current thinking), this is where supervisors come in handy; and

Bear in mind JimJams, that for each meeting missed, you can expect the length of your candidature to increase by a minimum of half the amount of time between the previous meeting and the one just "missed."Oh dear.

PREFERENCE TYPES (APPLICABLE TO STUDENTS and SUPERVISORS)

Thinkers: Ponder holistically, take pleasure in simply thinking.

Do'ers: "Just do it", without too much thinking beforehand.

Reflectors: An extreme Thinker, thinks for the sake of it and typically will refrain from doing wherever possible (any mistake is a "knife to the heart").

Activists: An extreme Do'er, learns experientially.

Theorist: Another extreme Thinker, makes models/attend conferences – "university is day-care for theorists."

Pragmatist: Another type of Do'er, considers "all sides of the argument" (asks why something is so) before doing.

...I think I'm a mix of all six.

SECRET 2: WRITE AND SHOW AS YOU GO
...easy to remember 'cause it rhymes

Write before you are ready;

Write even if you don't feel like it; and

"Show and Tell", all feedback is useful, even the hurtful stuff – my mother: "what doesn't kill you it will make you stronger." Okay, Mom.

PERFECTIONISM

Key Quote: "Academia is a culture that eats its young."

The PhD is (in most cases) not a cure for cancer, it merely demonstrates that you know how to do original research;

'Imposter Syndrome' is common in high performers and is something fuelled by academic culture. It's a syndrome that doesn't get better the more one achieves, so don't expect it to magically disappear following completion of a PhD and uptake of a postdoc. All you can do is acknowledge that you have it and keep working, eventually its symptoms will start to lessen; and

In academia the point is to criticise (i.e. "look for holes"), so brace yourself for impending insults, criticism, petty judgment, and the backlash resulting from having trodden on some forgotten theoretician's toes.** – after 17-years of education aren't you used to being judged by now???

**N.B. And apparently, in particular, from white paper reviewers.

BEING REALISTIC

Key Quote: "The Best is the evidence of the Good."

Try it out – just do it; and

Don't mistake feelings for facts (e.g. regarding your most recent draft, creative work, theory etc.), just because you feel bad doesn't mean that it is bad. If you still can't move on, get evidence from supervisors.

SECRET 3: SAY NO TO DISTRACTIONS (EVEN THE FUN ONES)

Write first thing in the morning, before anything else.

Bear in mind that multitasking reduces cognitive functioning by 20% – where do you want to be 4-years from now? In admin. or in academia???

Displacement Activities (a list of suggestions):

Tutoring, marking.
Grant/conference applications, tangential projects
EndNote, formatting/editing
Emails, online Social Networks, Solitaire
Housework
Gardening
Sport
Playing with the dog/cat/fish
Formatting the PC
Colourise everything

...hmm...

SECRET 4: IT'S A JOB – THAT MEANS WORKING 9-5, FIVE DAYS A WEEK

If you know when to work, you know when not to work;

Set specific times to research, you will get more done;

"Give us the answer" – in 3 years;

Be prepared to undertake a minimum of two hours of new writing per day (this amount will eventually increase).

SECRET 5: GET HELP (YOU'RE NOT AN OWNER-OPERATOR BUSINESS)
...assuming you can afford to do so.

Pay someone to do your editing (i.e. following completion of the thesis/exegesis);

Hire a stats. consultant;

Hire someone to assist with transcription and/or the collection and editing of data;

Utilise available funding; and

Hire home help.

SECRET 6: YOU CAN DO IT!
Key Quote: "A PhD is 90% persistence, 10% intelligence."

Australia-wide, less than 1% of final submissions fail.

Australia-wide, 7% of submissions require a major re-write.

Australia-wide, 35% of those who take up a PhD don't end up submitting (i.e. drop out).

Failing a PhD is not the issue, intense fluctuation of motivational levels around doing the PhD is.

To pass a PhD, in 99% of cases all you have to do is actually submit.

What am I going to change??
Write first thing on waking;
Check emails later on in the day;
Address the dog's needs after writing; and
Acknowledge my 'Imposter Syndrome'

REFERENCES

Gardner, Maria. 2011. "7 Secrets of Academic Success." Lecture presented at the Flinders University, Adelaide. 21 June.

WFAE 2011: Crossing Listening Paths

2011-06-18T20:00:00.005+09:30

Keynote Speakers: R. Murray Schafer, Hildegard Westerkamp, Katharine Norman, Christopher W. Clark, Allen S. Weiss

CALL FOR SCIENTIFIC AND ARTISTIC CONTRIBUTIONS

Soundscapes are seldom simple; on the contrary, they tend to be complex sounding systems continuously changing in time, which no art or science can approach in depth on its own. Listening is the ‘corner stone’ for the appreciation, participation and study of the sonic environment that surrounds and includes us. As Westerkamp (2002) remarks, it is the ecological balance of our planet that becomes audible “to those who care to listen.”

We might consider listening in two ways: as the actual activity of focusing (in innumerable ways) our attention to the soundings, and in a metaphorical manner; listening as a metaphor. A research or a compositional approach to the sonic environment, for example, can be thought of as a listening path. One alone cannot listen to everything that is simultaneously sounding in the soundscape; similarly the meanings transmitted through soundings cannot be fully uncovered by a single discipline. The multidisciplinary approach in the research of the sonic environment has been highlighted from the very beginnings of Acoustic Ecology. These different aesthetic and scientific approaches to the soundscape are considered here metaphorically as crossing listening paths, which in their ‘conjunctions’ and interactions might create a better understanding of the whole.

‘Crossing listening paths’ is the main theme of the Conference of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, which will take place at the Department of Music of the Ionian University in Corfu, Greece from 3-7 of October 2011. The conference will be endorsed by the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology and the Hellenic Society for Acoustic Ecology, will be organized and co-sponsored by the Department of Music of the Ionian University and the Electroacoustic Music Research and Applications Laboratory (EPHMEE) of the Ionian University, and will be supported by the Computer Music Laboratory of the Department of Music Technology and Acoustics of the Technological and Educational Institute of Crete.

Proposals are invited for roundtable discussions, workshops, papers/posters, compositions/artistic contributions, relating to, but not limited to the main theme. A small number of the submitted papers will be selected for inclusion in the forthcoming issue of the Soundscape Journal, which will share the conference theme. The official language of the conference will be English. Please send abstracts for roundtable discussions, papers/posters, workshops, (max. 400 words) & proposals for compositions or other artistic contributions by June 15, 2011 as an email attachment to: wfae2011@akouse.gr

The abstracts/proposals will be reviewed, and the participants whose papers and sonic art works will be chosen for presentation will be notified by July 15, 2011.

Information about the conference program will be forthcoming.

So many activities, so little time : (

A Couple of Upcoming Workshops for HDR Students

2011-06-13T21:11:00.001+09:30

..the details of which were kindly forwarded to me by one of the coordinators, Maria Gardener.

1. The 7 Secrets of highly successful Research Higher Degree students

When: Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Time: 9:30am - 12:30pm
Where: North Lecture Theatre 2, Humanities Building, Flinders University
Who: Maria Gardiner and Hugh Kearns

What do research higher degree students do to not only finish on time and overcome isolation, doubt and writer’s block, but to enjoy the process?
How do they spend guilt-free time with their family and friends and perhaps even have holidays?

This workshop describes the key habits that our research and experience with thousands of students shows will make a difference to how quickly and easily you complete your RHD. Just as importantly, these habits can greatly reduce the stress and increase the pleasure involved in completing a Research Higher Degree.

2. Turbocharge Your Writing

When: Monday, 27 June 2011
Time: 9:30am to 12:30pm
Where: North Lecture Theatre 2, Humanities Building, Flinders University
Who: Maria Gardiner and Hugh Kearns

Would you like to know the secret to high output, low stress scholarly writing? In academia it is often assumed that writing comes naturally. However, an overwhelming body of research shows that there are very clear and practical strategies that can greatly increase your writing productivity.

This workshop will help you to understand:

Why it’s hard to get started
How we deliberately use distractions to slow down writing
The principles of quick starting
How to deal with destructive internal beliefs
How to set a writing plan and stick to it
How to set achievable goals by writing in a silo
How to greatly increase the number of actual words you produce
How to clarify your thinking, and improve the quality of your work

Minutes: 12th June

2011-06-13T18:23:00.086+09:30

To Do:

Submit Abstract (in-progress Research Proposal) to EAS HDR Forum (due 23 June, 2011)

"The Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences, in conjunction with the Hawke Research Institute, is holding the 2011 Higher Degree by Research Forum on Friday evening, 5 August 2011 and Saturday, 6 August 2011 at the University of South Australia, Magill Campus. This Forum is open to HDR and Honours students at all stages of their candidature and is a wonderful opportunity to gain valuable presentation skills in a nurturing and non-threatening environment. The 15-20 minute presentations might be a summary of work so far, a part of your research, a summary of results, or a discussion of methodological issues that you have confronted. It is also a fantastic opportunity to become involved in the research culture at UniSA and to meet other researchers, exchange ideas and share new knowledge. The Forum program is still being finalised but there will be a number of keynote speakers on Friday evening and the final of the EAS Three Minute Thesis competition, this will be followed by dinner (free of charge), with the presentations being given on Saturday.

We would like to invite all Higher Degree by Research students, Honours students and academic staff members studying at other universities, to submit an abstract. Abstracts will be internally peer reviewed and successful applicants will be invited to present at the Forum. A "double-blind" evaluation method will be used. The abstract should provide an overall focus on the purpose of the paper, a brief overview of the research methods utilised, the theorists being drawn on and a sense of the findings or work in progress towards key findings. Please attach a list of up to six key references to your abstract and up to six keywords which best describe the content of the paper. I have attached a template of the marker’s review sheet to give you some indication of what the reviewers are assessing (Payne, 2011)."

Start to prepare my EAS HDR Forum PowerPoint presentation – utilise text, images (i.e. photographs) and recorded sound examples; "speak" to the key words (i.e. those in the title^^) – remember: the exegesis and the artefact are more important than my ability to orate (VC); pick something out of the Abstract as it currently stands that I want to start to talk about (e.g. Gernot Böhme's 'Aesthetics of Atmospheres'), and round up the presentation from here.**

Keep thinking around the concept of "the gap" in literature. In the context of my Research, VC describes this as work that hasn't been done in Australia; [and to note that] it exists because of a series of things/actions in the past, i.e. that have happened. I'm thinking Ralph Waldo Emmerson's essay 'Nature' (which I chanced upon whilst browsing Flinders Uni's Unibooks this afternoon) might have something to say in response to this last comment of VC's. See also Thoreau's 'Walden' – "Henry David Thoreau...read "Nature" as a senior at Harvard College... It eventually became an essential influence for Thoreau's later writings, including his seminal Walden" (Anon, Wikipedia) TBC.

Regarding my search for an understanding of "critical reading"/criticism & critiquing (in an academic context!), download and read Judith Butler's article What is Critique? An Essay on Foucault's Virtue. VC says that if I only read one article on the subject it should be this one (she also agrees with me that I'm already "reading critically"...I'm just a Cultural Theory Neophyte).

VC has asked that I begin to "populate" the words in my Research title^^ (i.e. who has theorised this term, what are its metaphors, who said what and when). Sounds like the beginnings of a lit. review to me. Assuming I'm content to leave the title as it currently stands, I can draw from work undertaken during my Masters Minor Review.

Begin to think about the "central thesis" of the research – it is necessary to show how ideas are so, not simply that they are so. This feels like a massive task, one that might take the majority of one's candidature.

Start to follow up on the concept of "Situated Knowledges" as introduced to me in Andra McCartney's article in Soundscape Journal, 1/2 – see Donna Harraway, Suzanne Keller. VC informs me she is also well versed in the subject and subsequently asked me to consider how Situated Knowledges "might create a track into the Australian Indigenous people's relationship to the land." Having spent a fair amount of time in remote areas of Australia, both on my own and for work within several indigenous media organisations, I have (more than) an inkling as to the answer to this question, however, it's something I'd prefer not to articulate until more au faix with the ethics (read: potential ramifications) of doing so. Along with this, VC says that I should be considering an ethic/aesthetic" in my writing/conceptualising that is "okay with Indigenous world views." I can't say I exactly understand what VC means by this – will have to readdress during our next meeting.

Start to develop a strategy for dealing with feedback (i.e. from future journal/conference paper reviewers). VC suggests that at this early stage in my research career I should hold off on responding to any review for at least 2 weeks – "put it in a drawer where it is out of sight"; a lesser amount of time could well damage my receptivity. I'm attending a couple of workshops late June which I'm anticipating will ability to better rationalise a reviewer's comments, and hopefully strengthen my resolve to deal with my most recent review.

**N.B. At this stage I'm imagining a modified version of my Major Review will suffice... in any case, I'll upload the completed presentation at a later date.

REFERENCES

Anon. "Nature - Essay." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 20 June, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_%28essay%29. 13 June.

Payne, Margaret. 2011. "Re: EAS HDR Forum - Call for Abstracts." Email correspondence with author. 3 June.

The "Gratitude Theory"

2011-06-13T17:15:00.005+09:30

Something easily adapted to most situations, such as the undertaking of a research degree.

Read it, write it, learn it.

'Sometimes the deadlines get crazy. Sometimes, I want to pay attention to the rest of my life. Sometimes I do not want to write at all. When that feeling of stress – trapped by work; cut off from pleasure – becomes too overwhelming, I let loose the gratitude theory.

It goes something like this.

I am grateful for the talent to write.
I am grateful that people pay me to write.
I am grateful that I have the ability to write, after losing it in depression.
I am grateful that something that gives me so much pleasure also gives me the ability to earn a living.
I am grateful that people are sufficiently interested in what I have to say to publish it.
I am grateful that I can take my work anywhere and do it everywhere; up a mountain, in the middle of the night.

By the time I have finished, I am generally able to settle down happily to work. I use it in other ways too. Every night, before sleep, I run through a gratitude list in my head. The trick is to stay with the details; otherwise the great temptation is to scurry past the more obvious objects of gratitude ... Remembering small acts of kindness puts the world in a finer, sweeter order.' (Brampton 2009:306-7)

REFERENCES

Brampton, Sally. Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression. 2nd ed. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009.

Today

2011-06-11T20:44:00.023+09:30

A couple of tiny *sparks* today – sometimes that's all one needs.

1. Walking the dog around Victoria Park this morning I looked up in the direction of the eastern Adelaide hills, realising it (or at least, a section of it), as my new "office." Most likely, this realisation occurred because of the old Queen Victoria Hospital building which foregrounds this particular stretch of hills – I was reminded of the Schultz Building which did not so much loom up from behind the North Adelaide Parklands and opposite side of the river, as draw me in on my walk towards the city (and the EMU studios/my office) each morning. Needless to say, I felt somewhat overwhelmed by this realisation – consider the large scale and density of matter within my new office space.

2. "Who are you writing for?" This is question which has been posed to me a number of times already since commencing my PhD back in April. I'd been want to take it on board, knowing how creating/framing one's work with a viewer/reader in mind can put a stopper in the [creative] flow. Blogging tonight, for the first time in a long time, I found myself wondering: "who am I writing for?". While feeling unnerved, I thought that perhaps this was merely [the blogging part of] my brain's response to my physical self having taken so long to "get to the page" again. Having continued to work on the post for a while and moved through any initial disconcertion, I wondered if perhaps the concept of "readership" is something that I could work into future thinking when writing the exegesis.... TBC

3. I believe I may be abnormal. From what I can gather, by my age most women are either married with children or openly gay. I am currently neither. I'm not kidding myself that I'm anything "special", but after the conclusion of yet another relationship, I find myself once again faced with that prospect of having to "marry my [books]" and "give birth to a [PhD]". Predictably, I turn to SATC, of which any avid follower would know that there are many scenes which speak to "my" current situation. One in particular – "Plus One is the Loneliest Number" (season 5, episode 5) – gives me strength in this time, as well as the courage to not spit on these little tropes that have obviously arisen from the collective mind of female researchers.

Narrator: Enid and I ran out of Vogue stuff to talk about mid-way through our salads.
Carrie: Do you live in the neighborhood?
Enid: No.
Carrie: (nods)
Enid: ...but the man I'm seeing does.
Carrie: Oh, so there's a man!
Enid: Yes, there is a man.
Carrie: Well that's great. You have a wildly successful career and a relationship. I was worried we - you know, women - only get one or the other, but you have it all!
Uncomfortable pause
Carrie: Enid, you've got to give me something here, I'm working my ass off.
Enid: Alright. To speak in magazine copy, yes, "I have it all"...on the east side. He has someone else on the west side. Luckily, the park provides a buffer.
Carrie: So, you're okay with that?
Enid: Yes. I don't have time for a full-time man, I have a full-time job. That's the key to having it all, stop expecting it to look like what you thought it was going to look like. That's true of the fall lines, and it's true of relationships.

(Chupack, 11:32-12:45)

REFERENCES

Chupack, Cindy. "Plus One is the Loneliest Number." Sex and the City. Dir. Michael Patrick King. DVD. 2008.

Seminar on Feminist Methodology

2011-06-09T13:00:00.001+09:30

The Research Centre for Gender Studies

Invites you to a seminar on Feminist Methodology

With Professor Mary Margaret Fonow, Arizona State University

Professor Mary Margaret Fonow is Director of women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University. Before joining the Arizona State University faculty she was an Associate Professor of Women's Studies at the Ohio State University. Her co-edited book (with Judith A Cook) Feminist methodology: Feminist scholarship as lived research (Indiana University Press 1991) has been widely cited. Professor Fonow is a member of the UNESCO Women and Gender Research Network and has served on the editorial boards of Gender & Society, NWSA Journal, Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies, and the Australian Journal of Sociology.

When: Tuesday, 12 July 2011, 9.30am – 1.30pm
Where: Amy Wheaton Building H2-18, Magill Campus
RSVP: valerie.adams@unisa.edu.au

While undecided this early on in as to which methodological framework I'll be applying within my exegesis, I predict this upcoming seminar on Feminist Methodology will ultimately prove worth my Research Project's while. My experience of feminist methodology is limited to a brief encounter with the French feminist/post-structuralist authors, Luce Irigary and Hélène Cisoux. Since recommencing my PhD's literature review in April, I find myself once again in touch with the works of Irigaray and Cisoux -- there is for me in their writings, an underlying acknowledgment and acceptance of the thing which is difficult and perhaps even impossible to verbalise -- my affinity and "attachment" to fresh water, rivers and river mouths springs to mind. However, I am eager also to move beyond, and a recent email from my Principal Supervisor revealed some interesting options (and in addition to these, a timely reminder for one disposed towards long bouts of self-imposed loneliness):

'Okay, to the reading, thinking/feel for your work. I am just wondering if you might like Leela Gandhi's book, 'Affective Communities' (she is young and a new generation of scholar). It is quirky but may have something that speaks to you. It is a bit of a secret favourite of mine as well as a public favourite. I guess too, you could take a peek at Michèle Le Doeuff ('Operative Philosophy and Imaginary Practice', Max Deutscher (ed.) (2001) if you want to go French and a bit to the side of Luce Irigaray and Helene Cixous - though they are clearly an obvious port of call. Deborah Britzman is neither French nor quirky, but she is a fine thinker in the tradition of the French feminist/psycho analytics. I have not read much of any of these French feminist or psychoanalytic thinkers but I am happy to think about their work if it helps you. .... Also, at this stage it is trying out authors, reading a bit and discarding... so don't worry that you haven't found your companions yet! ... Try the Gandhi book just as a kind of side read - she might just take you somewhere where you think - ok... I want to do this, and set you on your way... .' (Crowley 2011)

REFERENCES

Crowley, Vicki. 2011. "Re: Meeting." Email correspondence with author. 28 April.

Minutes: 6th June

2011-06-08T18:09:00.003+09:30

Theory: "a system of metaphors."

Trope: "the notion of a 'fragment', e.g. a journey, the direction of travel etc."– questions to consider: how did mapping of a river occur in the past, what kind of map will I be producing, will I be following the river from source to mouth (or vice versa)? Guthrie says to "write around the trope after making a decision about the context of the mapping project."

Criticism: "the writing about art. Also known as 'theory' – think of the science model (i.e. a Hypothesis followed by the Testing of the Hypothesis)."

Thesis layout (proposed):

Intro – what it is I'm doing.**
Literature Review – discussion/description of territory I'm working in.
Body of Thesis – description of work (elaborate) – "lab results"; "mine" my first-person writings and reflections collected throughout duration of research, interlace with quotes (backup, theory etc.).
Appendix – CD and/or DVD.

**N.B. Ahead of the abstract, in the form of a note to the reader regarding the viewing/hearing of the artefact (e.g. before, after and/or during their reading of thesis/exegesis).

Methodology:

i.e. Reading of 'landscape' (vs. 'soundscape')

Paul Rodaway's Sensuous Geographies
Lucy Lippard
Acoustic Mapping/landscape-perception
Paul Carter(?)
'Aesthetics of Atmosphere'** concept (Böhme)
"Watery-ness" – provides a critical framework (i.e. a concept with which to frame) at which to look at the river. The expression itself suggests fluidity...and the action of water/a river.
Reflective Writing (genre)/the Reflective Practitioner (myself)

**N.B. "Why a river"? I need to defend this in a critical sense wherein a subjective evaluation is okay. The thesis is a reflection on, not a defence of, the work!

REFERENCES

Guthrie, Adrian. 2011. Personal communication with author. Adelaide. 8 June.

ACMC 2011: Organic Sounds in Live Electroacoustic Music, pt.3

2011-06-06T22:07:00.080+09:30

Today I was informed that my proposed Artist Talk (6.6MB) has also been accepted for presentation at this year's ACMC:

'Congratulations, your submission Acoustic Ecology and the Documentation of Environments through 'Found Soundscape' Composition has been accepted for presentation at The Australasian Computer Music Conference which is being held 2011-07-06 at Auckland.' (Coulter 2011)

The reviewer's comments, charingly honest as always, were this time around something I was interested in following up:

'A worthy and rich project, but it is not at all clear from the abstract what exactly will be discussed in your presentation. Given the constraints of the presentation, either a statement of intent could be made (which is really just an expanded version of your abstract) or a particular topic mentioned in the abstract could be explored. I would suggest that a critical reading of the very notion of the "found soundscape" would be a good starting point, not least of all given the tendency for soundscape studies and acoustic ecology to operate rather dogmatically in intellectual terms (despite the huge value of these projects). Also, I'm not at all sure that you can rightfully claim that "This research project... will produce the first major soundscape-related documentation and composition in Australia." In fact there is an abundance of such work in Australia, both within and outside of academic contexts.' (Anon 2011)

What initially stopped me short, was the use of the term "critical reading." While I suspect I already do this (and am simply unfamiliar with the term), reading it as a part of an ACMC's reviewer's comments set my mind spinning -- affiliating myself with a new school (i.e the School of Communication) is obviously one thing, learning the language of "cultural theory" is another. The second point of note was the suggestion that 'Found Soundscapes' have already being heavily researched in this country...which leads me to think that I must be a terrible researcher! Apart from a couple of examples of creative works (and excluding Sound Sculpture, Site-Specific Sound Installations, Ecoacoustics, and Bioacoustics research per se), I am unable at present, to cite the names of any Australian-based academics and/or artists who have undertaken long-term projects specifically in the area of Found Soundscapes. Naturally, Coulter was unable to forward me the reviewer's details so that I might follow this issue up, suggesting instead that I use it as "a question for the conference (in [my] question and answer period)" (Coulter, 2011).

Right now (and in combination with my department's capacity to supply funding in retrospect only), I'm inclined to withdraw my Artist Talk, for I cannot see the point in presenting around a topic I assumed to be at the forefront of a particular area of research in Australia, only to be told that it potentially is not. In my defence, I'm not in the habit of making grand claims where the groundwork hasn't been painstakingly performed.

REFERENCES

Coulter, John. 2011. "RE: [acmc] Editorial Decision on Paper." Email correspondence with author. 7 June.

Electrofringe 2011 Program

2011-06-01T23:11:00.018+09:30

Thank you for your proposal for Electrofringe’s 2011 program.

We received a large number of applications this year, and the standard of projects submitted was exceptionally high. We would like very much for you and [Poppi] to be part of the festival this year. We would like you both to perform, do presentations on your individual and collaborative works, and be part of a 5 days Arts Lab where you will have a chance to collaborate with other artists.

So apparently we're in.** This was, as per usual, a long time coming -- not that I'm complaining, it simply feels like a lifetime ago that I hitched to Newcastle in order to attend my first Electrofringe. I was then an easily excitable self-taught musician, with nothing but a loaned Sony handycam and 6-months worth of study in Music Technology to protect me. In 2011 I'll be traveling to Newcastle a somewhat jaded interdisciplinarian (an insufficient euphemism for "generalist"??), with much study and practice in all things Music Technology-related behind me and the Fibromyalgia to prove it. (But appreciative of the impending honorarium and a quiet place to rest in between).

**I say "apparently", because in the acceptance email the author listed Sebastian's partner's name (Lauren) and not my own -- I'm still waiting on the Directors for clarification!

++ Prior to our acceptance, little-scale I made an agreement that should our application to perform at Electrofringe in 2011 be successful, we would need to write some new music...

*deep breath*

ACMC 2011: Organic Sounds in Live Electroacoustic Music, pt.2

2011-05-16T22:26:00.005+09:30

Two creative works I submitted for presentation at this year's Australasian Computer Music Conference have been accepted:

"The Australasian Computer Music Conference ACMC11 Concert Committee has now convened, and we are delighted to extend the invitation to you to present your creative work Dione, and The Mountain Is On Fire! at the following major event associated with ACMC11:

The Listening Room
8:00am-6:00pm Wednesday 6 and Saturday 9 July

The Listening Room is a custom designed 8-channel sound studio and performance space (designed for small audiences). An advertised programme of selected works will 'loop' throughout the day, and over the 4-day period of the conference - allowing delegates the opportunity to self-select intimate and repeated listening experiences from the list of stereo, multichannel and audiovisual repertoire available. The space will be supervised and managed by the ACMC11 technical team" (Coulter, 2011).

The notification came as a surprise (such is the state of things in my head at the moment), inspiring in me the desire to create new works this year -- what a fabulous idea!

REFERENCES

Coulter, John. 2011. "ACMC11: Letter of Acceptance." Email correspondence with author. 18 May.

True Chip Til Death: 2011 Awards Gala

2011-05-04T13:40:00.002+09:30

Antia has been nominated!

...thanks for letting me know, Seb :)

For more info, click here.

Autumn Research Seminar Series: Time Management for HDR and HonoursStudents

2011-04-14T15:31:00.268+09:30

Presented by the Thinkwell Group

I recently attended a 2-hr seminar around "time management" and hints for keeping on track with one's research. While admittedly many of the issues raised and tips suggested are things I've considered since studying at undergraduate level (such is the life of a mature-age student attempting to make up for lost time), I figured my notes from the workshop were interesting enough to make a post, if at least to remind myself: read it, write it, learn it.

Finding Time vs Making Time

A full-time PhD is not a life sentence, but 3-4 years long. As such, the writing of the [thesis/exegesis] needs to happen from the moment of commencement of a PhD. Research (and in particular, the writing component), takes time. Where will his time come from? Considering that there are only 168 hours in a week, it is important to address exactly to what and to whom one allots their time, i.e.:

Family (according to Thinkwell, is less important);
Interests (again, according to Thinkwell, are less important);
PhD (all important! If one expects to finish it, and in a timely manner, it needs to be in the top 3 priorities); and
Paid work (you decide).

Finding the Motivation

Key point: Action precedes motivation

First things first, initiate the routine. It will become a (good) habit within 2-3 days;

Try working in short bursts, i.e. 45 min. on, 10 min. off. If you find yourself procrastinating too much, work in smaller increments of 10-15 min. at a time. Gradually extend this;

Spend your "downtime" with other hardworking individuals -- surround yourself with "the best";

Don't forget to reward yourself following the completion of a task;

Form an Action Plan: What will I do/change? Write it on a sticky note and tack to your wall;

Feeling down? Look up. I forget the reference, but my yoga teacher recently told our class that it's impossible to feel blue when the arms are raised, armpits facing outwards. Go figure.;

Ask yourself, "Does everything need to be perfect, all the time?" In light of emails, drafts etc., consider the 'Pareto Principle' (also known as 'Pareto Efficiency')**:

"The value of the Pareto Principle...is that it reminds you to focus on the 20 percent that matters. Of the things you do during your day, only 20 percent really matter. Those 20 percent produce 80 percent of your results. Identify and focus on those things. When the fire drills of the day begin to sap your time, remind yourself of the 20 percent you need to focus on. If something in the schedule has to slip, if something isn't going to get done, make sure it's not part of that 20 percent" (F. John Reh).

**N.B. Truth be told, your Supervisor won't be able to tell the difference between 80% version and a perfected draft.

Finding the Motivation to Write

Instead of writing across big chunks of time (i.e. hours in a day/night), try "snack writing" = 30-45 min. of writing, three times per day (N.B. This way of working may also be applied to the artefact);

Conclude each session's writing with dot points from which to continue working during the next sitting;

Aim for a maximum of 2-hrs per day of either new or substantial rewriting (not editing, referencing, etc.);

Write before reading;

Make writing the first task of the day -- the trick is to address the PhD before you do anything else, including checking emails;

Discover which hours during a 24-hour period that you work best (i.e. morning, noon or night); and

Replace email checking with writing. Just a thought.

Saying "No"

Buy yourself time to think, give people alternatives;
Learn how to not say "yes", even to the fun stuff;
Ask myself, "Is [x] better than working on my exegesis/artefact?";
Don't be afraid to ask for "timeout"/the space to work;
Ask myself, "Do I really need to do this now?" - learn to prioritise;
Learn to delegate (e.g. to supervisor to aid in checking drafts); and
Don't take on anything new unless I am prepared to let something already in place slip(!)

Other

Emails

...are addictive, distracting and, akin to "surfing the internet", sap energy and motivation to do the real work. Set specific, limited times during which to check emails, and keep responses brief (but friendly :).

Paperwork

...research has shown that "paper shuffling" (locating files/articles, quotes etc.), can waste up to 1.5 hours to day. If you find yourself with an [article] in hand, don't put it down until you have either:

Dealt with it,
Delegated it, or
Ditched it!**

**N.B. The same strategy may be applied to an email.

To download some "personal writing strategies identified by HDR students" (426 KB), click here.

To download an article on procrastination (246 KB), click here.

***See also my subsequent post on the "Gratitude Theory."

REFERENCES

Gardener, Maria. 2011. "Time Management for HDR and Honours Students." Lecture presented by the ThinkWell Group. Adelaide, 14 April.

Reh, F. John. "The Pareto Principle - the 80/20 Rule." About.com. April 2011. http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/Pareto081202.htm (14 April, 2011).

8th Annual ACM Conference

2011-04-10T21:09:00.000+09:30

This year's theme is 'Creativity & Cognition'.

"We seek to understand human creativity in its many manifestations, to design new interactive techniques and tools to augment and amplify human creativity, and to use computational media technologies to explore new creative processes and artifacts in all human endeavors ranging from the arts to science, from design to education."

Deadline for proposals is 25th April 2011.

...yes, I'll probably submit something pertaining to my Honours project.

Australian Digital Theses Program

2011-04-06T21:03:00.002+09:30

The disestablishment of the ADT (Australasian Digital Theses Program).

"The Australasian Digital Theses Program will cease operation at the end of 2010. The database server will be decomissioned, and the content of that database will be accessible from the National Library of Australia’s Trove service. Each participating university will continue to host their own digital theses and house their own print and other non-digital theses.

An information page has been prepared to provide links to theses-specific searches via Trove. Trove will also provide links to Australian digital theses." (Anon 2009)

Much to my chagrin, particularly given this week's finds (here and here), but there are other options**:

**The legitimacy of any aforementioned site is still to be determined.

REFERENCE

"Finding Australian Theses." CAUL. 2009. http://www.caul.edu.au/caul-programs/australasian-digital-theses/finding-theses (6 April 2011).

Unlocking the Secrets to Academic Success

2011-04-04T20:28:00.112+09:30

Some notes from a couple of workshops I attended out at City West in early April.

Reading

Allocate 4-hours per day to reading. The remaining 4-hours, if not spent writing, will be spent digesting what you have read (or in Crowley's words – the "busy work");
Before reading, ask yourself "why this article?" – reading is determined by the purpose/point of the [article];
Skim read non-peer reviewed literature. Take note of headings, pictures and figures in order to create a basic summary of the article at hand (N.B. Use of non-peer reviewed literature should generally be avoided where possible);
Current literature is considered that which was written no less than 5 years ago (N.B. There are instances where this rule will not apply, for example, where a particular author, artist or theorist is enjoying a renaissance); and
Summarise the article**, including:

Title (in full)
Dewey Decimal no.
Summary
Keywords
Context of the article
Author description
Important quotes
Your response

**N.B. A time-consuming task which will necessitate skim reading of each article beforehand so as to be sure of its relevancy to the Research.

Remembering

Understand the concept first – resort to preliminary texts for further clarification where necessary (e.g. Readers, Critical Theory for Dummies, Introducing James Blah etc.);
Relate your understanding of the concept in the company of friends, family, colleagues etc.;
Map the concept using pictures (if a not "visual person") or text; and
Practise answering questions around the concept (particularly during the lead up to a conference, guest lecture presentation etc.).

While already relatively au fait with the concepts presented during these workshops, my attendance at each was worthwhile simply for the mere fact of gaining motivation to research. Of course it's also important to remember to reconnect with other researchers. A couple of things I hadn't considered (particularly deeply), however, were that:

Highlighting text is typically unproductive as it can give the illusion of having understood what is being read/that what's just being highlighted is actually relevant. 9 times out of 10 it's generally better to stick to making notes in the column as I go;
Given I am a "visual person", I should stick to creating mind maps using text (and not images) so as to prioritise understanding and remembering the information (over the realism of the drawings); and
It's okay to read the text out loud if it will assist me in gaining a better understanding of the concepts being presented.

REFERENCES

Schaffer, Jennifer Ann. 2011. "Unlocking the Secrets to Academic Success." Workshop presented at the University of South Australia, City West. Adelaide. 3 April.

Wahlstrom, Kirsten. 2011. "Mind Mapping." Workshop presented at the University of South Australia, City West. Adelaide. 11 April.

Lady Chatterly

2011-04-03T20:19:00.000+09:30

"A few days ago he brought me an article by Henry Miller on [Luis] Buñuel's film L'Âge d'Or [The Golden Age]. It was as potent as a bomb. It reminded me of D.H. Lawrence's "I am a human bomb."

There is in this piece of writing, savage quality. By contrast with the writers I have been reading, it seems like a jungle. Only a short article, but the words are slung like hatchets, explode with hatred, and it was like hearing wild drums in the midst of Tuileries gardens.

You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe that you are living. Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death.

Some never awaken. They are like the people who go to sleep in the snow and never awaken. But I am not in danger because my home, my beautiful life do not lull me. I am aware of my beautiful prison, from which I can only escape by writing. So I have written a book about D.H. Lawrence out of gratitude, because it was he who awakened me" (Nin 1994, p.7).

REFERENCES

Nin, Anais. The Diary of Anaïs Nin, volume 1931-1934. 4th ed. Santiago: The Swallow Press, 1994.

Jenna Marbles: The Biggest Blogger

2011-04-03T10:04:00.000+09:30

Just in case you were considering not posting today.

Judy-Ann Moule's "Aims & Recreations of Doing a Research Degree"

2011-03-31T14:22:00.000+10:30

"... Whilst, my work is practice-led and often mute, it has been the reflective process of writing the exegesis that has started to put words to the strange and vaguely erotic forms that I make; where pre-language meets language. This process hasn’t been easy however, it has helped to refine my academic questions and establish greater cohesiveness between works. Entitled ‘Forming the Unsayable’ this practice-led MA has been a journey, somewhat indulgent, even painful but rich and enlightening" (Moule, 2011).

In writing/talking about my own creative works (audiovisual and otherwise), I have long struggled to find a balance between inspired but clear description, and analysis. It is thus I appreciate knowing there are others for whom this task has also been a thorny one. It should also be said that it is Moule's particular brand of "alive" writing that reminds me why I took up a research degree in the first instance, i.e. not to repeat or regurgitate, but to coax forth something surprising.

REFERENCES

Moule, Judy Ann. "Aims and Expectations." Practice-led Research Module. 28 March 2011. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/ (31 March 2011).

Understanding the Meaning of a Ph.D.

2011-03-28T21:24:00.003+10:30

1. Finish your Ph.D. as early as possible. Don’t feel that you need to create the greatest work that Western Civilization has ever seen. Five years from now the only thing that will matter is whether you finished. If you don’t finish you are likely to join the ranks of “freeway flyers”, holding multiple part-time teaching jobs.

2. Be humble about your Ph.D. You don't need to flaunt the degree. Everyone has one. Many of your colleagues, both in your institution and outside it, will be put off if you sign everything "Doctor" or "Jane Jones, Ph.D." In fact, the main use of “Doctor” is in making reservations at a restaurant. When you call in and ask for a table for four for Dr. Jones, you will get more respect and often better seating. One of us recently received a letter from “John Smith, Ph.D. (candidate)” Don’t do that.

3. Remember that a Ph.D. is primarily an indication of survivorship. Although the public at large may view your doctorate as a superb intellectual achievement and a reflection of brilliance, you probably know deep in your heart that it is not. It represents a lot of hard work on your part over a long period of time. You probably received help from one or more faculty members to get over rough spots. Your family, be it parents or spouse, stayed with you over the vicissitudes of creating the dissertation. You stuck with it until it was done, unlike the ABD's who bailed out early.

4. A Ph.D. is a certification of research ability based on a sample of 1. The Ph.D. certifies that you are able to do quality research. Unlike the M.D., which requires extensive work with patients, followed by years of internship and residency, it is based on a single sample, your dissertation. The people who sign your dissertation are making a large bet on your ability to do it again and again in the future.

5. A Ph.D. is a license to reproduce and an obligation to maintain the quality of your intellectual descendants. Once you have the Ph.D., it is possible for you (assuming you are working in an academic department that has a Ph.D. program) to create new Ph.D.'s. Even if your department does not have a Ph.D., you can be called upon to sit on Ph.D. examining committees either in your own or in neighboring institutions. This is a serious responsibility because you are creating your intellectual descendants. Recognize that if you vote to pass someone who is marginal or worse they, in turn, have the same privilege. If they are not up to standard, it is likely that some of their descendants will also not be. Unlike humans who have a 20 year inter-generation time, academic intergeneration times are 5 years or less. Furthermore, a single individual may supervise 50 or more Ph.D.'s over a 30-year career.

REFERENCES

Drew, David E. and Paul Gray. "What They Don't Teach You in Graduate School." Insider Higher Ed. 30 November 2005. http://www.insidehighered.com/workplace/2005/11/30/tips (6 April 2009).

Electrofringe 2011: Call For Proposals

2011-03-23T22:21:00.000+10:30

Open now!

Proposal submissions due by the 31st March; and
Electroprojections submissions due by 1st May.

'Electrofringe presents an annual festival and year-round program of experimental electronic arts and culture dedicated to presentation, skills development and artistic exchange. The program focuses on uncovering emergent forms with an emphasis on encouraging interaction between emerging and established artists.

Held over five days over the October long weekend in Newcastle, Australia, the program presents performances, artist and project presentations, exhibitions, workshops, panel discussions, exhibitions, screenings and public interventions' (Electrofringe, 2011).

Click here for further info.

World Water Day 2011

2011-03-19T15:42:00.010+10:30

Occurring Monday 22nd March. Thanks to TMK, Finland for the heads-up!

'International World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.

An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day.

Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater [in 2011 - Water in Cities: Responding to the Urban Challenge]' (UNHABITAT, 2011).

**Click on the logo above to head to the WWD's official website including a list of events happening near you.

Just in case you haven't thought about it for a while, visit this site for a refresher on how to reduce your personal water consumption.

"Some days are diamonds." a photo by Grün Haselnuß on Flickr.

My own list of (non-peer reviewed) suggestions for saving water, including tips for inspiration:

Keep an eye on the Murray Mouth
Live in a water-impoverished country for a while
Live in a monastery or nunnery (e.g. in India) for a while
Shower with your spouse and/or pet
Shower less
Shower for a shorter amount of time
Don't take baths (no, I'm not condoning filthiness)
Eat more "wet" foods - i.e. foods with a high water content
Eat more raw food
Avoid foods high in sugar and/or salt (as above)
Don't leave taps dripping
Install a water-saving shower-head
Don't support soft drink companies
Don't leave the tap on while brushing your teeth
Flush the toilet less (but remember to leave the lid down, if at least to ingratiate yourself with more women)
Wash dirty dishes by hand (no, I would not recommend taking them into the shower with you - think of your guests)
Leave your vehicle out in the rain, hit as many puddles as possible when out driving, and/or enjoy the filthiness of your vehicle by revisiting finger-painting
Plant natives and/or water-saving plants in your garden
Watch Flannery's Two Men & a Tinnie
Opt for water sports that utilise man/woman power versus horsepower
Hand water plants
Fix a timer to your tap for use with a sprinkler
Swim at a Melbourne beach
Learn to appreciate the desert
Learn to appreciate desert culture and/or teach yourself the art of water divination
Get drunk less
Use a Miele (and utilise the shortest cycles available)
Use mulch on your front and back garden
Install a water tank/lobby your local government for 1 x free water tank per household
Wait until you have a full load of clothes or dishes before using the white goods
Refrain from hosing down your driveway (and in turn being considered dimwitted by me, your neighbour)
Plant (more) trees endemic to your area
Install a drip system
Utilise gray water on the backyard
Talk to a (local) hydrologist
Ask yourself "why?" that koala ended up your backyard (when the nearest park is at least a couple of kilometres away)
Shave your head
Recycle, recycle, recycle
Become a "breatharian"
Don't take it all so personally
...??

..educate me.

REFERENCES

UNHABITAT. World Water day 2011. March 2011. http://www.unwater.org/worldwaterday/index.html (5 March 2011).

True Chip Til Death: Tsunami Fundraiser

2011-03-17T13:47:00.002+10:30

Alternative cover by Crashfaster

Support the work of the Red Cross in Japan in 2011.

For a small (or large) donation you can download a compilation of tracks submitted by chip musicians from across the globe.

Update (21/3): v2.0 now available - contains a total of 90 tracks (see below for details).

Minutes: 15th March

2011-03-17T13:28:00.004+10:30

Notes from my first meeting with my Principal Supervisor.

~ it was always going to be odd, given I'm no longer in a music department rubbing elbows with creatives and music scholars on a daily basis, but instead having the scheduled encounter with specialists in "cultural theory"/with words per se.

SUBMISSION:

Exegesis (max. 50,000 words/50 % weighting) and Artefact (TBD/50% weighting)**

Aims (other)...

• Publications in at least three journals by end of candidature (including one 'A' level Journal); and
• Attendance and presentation of a white paper at an international conference.

**N.B. The 50/50 weighting is standard, apparently. Note also the University's substitution of the term "artefact" for creative work.

To (possibly) Review:

'Hot Cultures' Research Group: "...a research group within the School of Communication, International Studies and beyond which brings together staff and postgraduate students undertaking cultural studies research" (Luckman, 2011);
Blogging, i.e. "the history of..." -- Crowley thinks it possible (and possibly a good idea), to include work undertaken within the blog as part of my final submission. Given the amount of time I have in the past spent using my Blog in a less academically rigorous/more personal manner (i.e. as a space in which to vent as wells as make it known to others I'm still alive!), I'm yet to decide how I feel about this. It would basically mean a complete overhaul of its format and (future) product;
Creative Quarterly: The Journal of Art and Design; and
TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses - articles on & around/using creative approaches to writing.

To (definitely) Review:

ERA (Excellence in Research Australia) list of academic journals and conferences and individual rankings (i.e. A*, A, B or C). Into what category do those I plan to attend or write for (e.g. Organised Sound (A), Journal of WFAE (no ranking), ACMC (C) and ICMC (A)), fall?^^;

Research Proposal (due September, 2011) - to include potential outcomes, including the anticipated format of the artefact, i.e. installation, DVD etc.;
Current academic writing style - "good, but need to rework to PhD level"; and
Ethics Application - my desire to reference the South Australian Indigenous relationship to the River Torrens necessitates, in the first instance, a wider review of literature published by Indigenous academics (groan); and in the second, the University's Indigenous subcommittee's approval. I don't have an issue with this, what does concern me is the turnaround time, up to 12-months in some cases. And that's assuming it's going to be approved(!)

To Address Now...

• Statement of Agreement (due April, 2011) - digital copy okay; and
• 2011 Australasian Computer Music Conference (ACMC) submission/s (due 5 April, 2011)

^^N.B. Update (June, 2011): As it goes, while waiting in line for my coffee the other morning I came across an article in Wednesday's Higher Education section of the Australian, regarding an end to ERA's long-standing system of Journal ranking (outcome: the Ranked Journal List I downloaded from their website back in early April is now obsolete). Academic and researcher Dr Anna Poletti commented that, "Journal rankings were being instrumentalised, being taken into our performance management assessments, and you have to cite your journal rankings in grant applications to the ARC. If you have three articles in C-ranked journals it is automatically considered not to be research of the same quality as if they were in A-ranked journals and that has career implications" (Poletti, 2011).

In an article published in the Australian two days earlier, Innovation Minister Bob Carr stated,

"There is clear and consistent evidence that the rankings were being deployed inappropriately within some quarters of the sector, in ways that could produce harmful outcomes, and based on a poor understanding of the actual role of the rankings... . One common example was the setting of targets for publication in A and A* journals by institutional research managers... . In light of these two factors - that ERA could work perfectly well without the rankings, and that their existence was focussing ill-informed undesirable behaviour in the management of research - I have made the decision to remove the rankings, based on the ARC's expert advice" (Carr, 2011).

Whilst I can see how an end to Journal ranking will be of a benefit to those working across disciplines and/or within less established fields (particularly the creative kind) further, the difficulties in ensuring (honest) management of such a system, I'm inclined to agree with these kinds of "quality checks" (not least because I've grown used to being graded and scored throughout my many years of receiving an education). A potential spin off could be the tertiary education system losing a little bit more respect as the quantity of journals and articles in circulation begins to supersede the quality of material being published...but perhaps I'm overreacting. My comments are, after all, based on the assumption that an end to Journal Ranking will potentially be accompanied by a decline in the number of "A-level" reviewers. And there are, I know, those who feel it was precisely ERA's suspected inability to "to quantify quality" (Rowbotham, 2011) that began to undermine its Journal ranking system in the first place.

REFERENCES

Hare, Julie. "Dumping ERA the Right Call." The Australian. 1 June 2011. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/opinion-analysis/dumping-era-the-right-call/story-e6frgcko-1226066724958 (5 June 2011).

Luckman, Susan. "Hot Cultures Research Grouping." University of South Australia, Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences: School of Communication, International Studies and Languages. 2011. http://www.unisa.edu.au/cil/research/hotcultures.asp (5 March, 2011).

Rowbotham, Jill. "End of an Era: Journal Rankings Dropped." The Australian. 30 May 2011. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/end-of-an-era-journal-rankings-dropped/story-e6frgcjx-1226065864847 (5 June 2011).

Rowbotham, Jill. "Kim Carr Bows to Rank Rebellion Over Journal Ranking." The Australian. 1 June, 2011. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/kim-carr-bows-to-rank-rebellion/story-e6frgcjx-1226066727078 (5 June 2011).

on 'Beauty'

2011-03-13T20:13:00.000+10:30

"Those who seek beauty find beauty." (Cunningham 2010, after Matthew 7:7)

"The wider world that perceives fashion as a frivolity that should be done away with, the point is that fashion is the armor to survive the reality of everyday life; I don't think you could do away with it. It would be like doing away with civilisation." (Cunningham 2010)

"You are beautiful" a photo by Grün Haselnuß on Flickr.

REFERENCES

Bill Cunningham: New York. Dir. Richard Press. Motion Picture. New York: Zeitgeist Films. 2010. 84 min.

ACMC 2011: Organic Sounds in Live Electroacoustic Music

2011-03-10T14:09:00.002+10:30

Deadline 31st March!

Click here to peruse the conference website and/or submit.

The Hangwoman

2011-03-08T20:15:00.000+10:30

"When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on" (Franklin D. Roosevelt).

Baggage

2011-03-05T01:00:00.001+10:30

Anyway who knows me well, knows I adore contemporary dance, and in particular, the kind that pushes boundaries both physical and conceptual.

REFERENCES

Life in Movement. Dir. Bryan Mason. Motion Picture. South Australia: Closer Productions. 2011. 80 min.

paivascapes #1 – Paiva River Sound Festival

2011-03-01T15:57:00.002+10:30

Vila Nova de Paiva, Castro Daire, São Pedro do Sul, Arouca, Castelo de Paiva (PT)

March 4th – 8th, 2011

Many aspects and perceptions can be associated with river landscapes, which together form the strength and the manifold importance of rivers. Firstly, river landscapes supply an energy potential (the energy of water and sediments that flow down the course of the river) and also a surface, a space on which both vegetation and human constructions settle. A lively river is one that maintains these two elements, which form its natural capital, present and active, as it can take centuries to recover from the loss of productivity of a river caused by pollution or errors in agricultural, urban or energy planning, etc.. On the other end, each river has its own personality given by the inscription of a historical mark associated with the multiple uses and perceptions throughout time, superimposed layers of practical, cultural, symbolic and spiritual values that form the human capital of a river.

Right in the heart of one of the cleanest rivers in Europe, the Paiva River (Portugal), Paivascapes #1 – River Paiva Sound Festival is a five-day celebration of cultural innovation and creativity in a rural region known for its rich and ancient traditions. Paivascapes #1, produced by Portuguese sound art organization Binaural/Nodar, is entirely dedicated to the exploration of riverside landscapes and communities through sound and multimedia art.

The festival programme comprises five densely filled days and evenings (from March 4th to 8th, 2011) and will provide an extensive overview of over 20 art works recently developed along the Paiva River – field recording and electroacoustic compositions, multimedia installations, film screenings and sound performances – and includes relevant historical, anthropological and environmental contextualization of the region through a series of conferences by some key experts and investigators and, last but not least, ancient forms of local oral and musical traditions will also be part of the festival, putting in direct contact with each other exploratory and deep-rooted art forms.

Altogether, we present a rich programme that also aims to raise awareness about sustainability issues, on how it is possible to live in a well-balanced interaction with nature: On the one hand, the festival will take the form of an itinerary, following the Paiva River from its source to its mouth, which will allow the audiences have a direct contact with different landscapes and rural communities. On the other hand, during this itinerary, some of the site-specific sound projects will be presented in different locations along the river and a series of environmental walks will take place.

Come and explore the Paiva River with all your senses!

List of participant artists:

Alicja Rogalska (PL), Anna Hints (EE), Charles Stankievech (CA), Craig Dongoski (US), Ignaz Schick (DE), Jez riley French (GB), John Grzinich (US), Katherine Liberovskaya (CA), Lasse-Marc Riek (DE), Luis Costa (PT), Maile Colbert (US), Manuela Barile (IT), Marc Behrens (DE), Marja-Liisa Plats (EE), Martin Clarke (GB), Masayo Kajimura (DE), o.blaat (JP), Patrick McGinley (US), Phill Niblock (US), Rui Costa (PT), Rui Silveira (PT), Sérgio Cruz (PT), Tiago Carvalho (PT), William Lamson (US), Yasuno Miyauchi (JP).

List of key speakers:

Tiago Monteiro-Henriques (PT), Sérgio Caetano (PT), Marcos Medalon (PT), Nuno Martins (PT), Domingos Cruz (PT), Tiago Carvalho (PT).

ABC Pool & The Night Air

2011-02-21T15:52:00.000+10:30

Tonight we're surrounded by rhythm. Finding the music in speech, taking the pulse of our every day activities and opening up to the rhythms of life. From the most intimate bodily cycles to the enormous waves of change that transform our world. (Anon 2011)

The Autonomy Interviews (2005/6) (and my grandmother :) got coverage. Yay!

REFERENCES

Anon. "The Night Air." ABC Radio National. 20 February 2011. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nightair/stories/2011/3134025.htm (21 February 2011).

McLuhan Legacy Network :: Centenary Events

2011-01-20T18:41:00.002+10:30

~Call for Participants from the Global Sound Community

The McLuhan Legacy Network invites electroacoustic artists, acoustic ecologists, electronic/computer musicians, sonic engineers, researchers, scientists, sound media scholars and business professionals to participate in the festivities marking the 100th anniversary of the birthday of Herbert Marshall McLuhan, renowned Canadian explorer of media, technology and culture. In conjunction with the anniversary of Marshall’s birthday on July 20 and with the co-operation of sound/sonic/audio artists and technicians from around the world, the MLN hopes to host an interactive and collaborative global sound event to commemorate this special day.

The MLN also invites the global “sound” community to develop soundscapes, electroacoustic environments, sound sculptures, sonic and audio art productions and performances, as well as studies and analyses which examine and illustrate Marshall’s prophetic ideas and concerns about the new acoustic culture we are creating. Contact Dr. Robert B. Scott (Professor Emeritus, Ryerson University, Toronto), Acoustic Project Lead, for further information.

Antia @ Wheatsheaf, 2010

2011-01-01T17:01:00.000+10:30

A couple of photos from our most recent performance of works from Antia. Shot by Pierre Ebbinghaus at The Wheatsheaf Hotel, Adelaide.

little-scale

Poppi

Antia photos by Pierre Ebbinghaus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The Word 'Torrens'

2010-11-25T13:11:00.008+10:30

Last night, while on a hunt for the origin of the word 'torrentz' (as pertains to illegal downloads), I somewhat unconsciously landed on the etymology of the word 'torrens', i.e. "rushing stream." This in turn, led me to think Colonel Light's Latin swell! There was more meaning behind his decision to name the River Torrens after Chairmen of the Colonisation Committee, Robert Torrens (versus its discoverers' George Kingston and John Morphett), after all.

REFERENCES

Harper, Douglas. "Torrens." Online Etymology Dictionary. November 2010. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=torrens&searchmode=none (24 November 2010).

Good News - Rain Forecast

2010-11-23T16:03:00.000+10:30

...in this particular instance every cloud does have a silver lining.

REFERENCES

Terry, Sam. "Damp End to Adelaide's Sizzle." Weather Zone. http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/damp-end-to-adelaides-sizzle/15413 (23 November 2010).

8th Sound and Music Computing Conference

2010-10-19T11:35:00.017+10:30

6-9th July 2011

Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova
Conservatorio Cesare Pollini, Padova

The SMC Conference is the forum for international exchanges around the core interdisciplinary topics of Sound and Music Computing. SMC 2011 will feature lectures, posters/demos, musical/sonic works, and other satellite events. The SMC Summer School will take place just before the Conference and it will aim at giving an opportunity to young researchers interested in the field to learn about some of the core interdisciplinary topics and to share their own experiences with other young researchers.

SMC 2011 will include paper presentations as both lectures and poster/demos. We invite submissions examining all the core areas of the Sound and Music Computing field. All submissions will be peer-reviewed according to their novelty, technical content, presentation, and contribution to the overall balance of topics represented at the conference. Paper submissions should have a maximum of 8 pages including figures and references, and a length of 6 pages is strongly encouraged. Accepted papers will be designated to be presented either as posters/demos or as lectures.

The topics to be covered at the Conference are all the core ones in Sound and Music Computing research, and can be grouped into:

Processing of sound and music signals

Understanding and modeling sound and music

Interfaces for sound and music

Assisted sound and music creation

Deadlines:

* Submissions of papers and music: Friday 25 March, 2011
* Applications to Summer School: Friday 25 March, 2011
* Submission of camera-ready papers: Friday 20 May, 2011

The Mountain is On Fire!

2010-07-01T14:52:00.005+09:30

'The Mountain is on Fire!' (2009)

Audio by Sebastian Tomczak & Poppi Doser
Video by Nicholas Dallwitz (w/ Poppi Doser)

Antia CD

2010-06-21T15:35:00.005+09:30

Hard copies are finally available for sale through 8Bit People.

See here also for further information and comments.

Thank you to little-scale for forwarding me the links (x2).

"I've been listening to this release a bunch over the last few days. It is becoming apparent to me how important this release is. I honestly feel like I will be talking about chipmusic in pre and post antia terms from now on. Get it."

(T. Gilmore)

2010 NIME Conference Performance: Ningen Dogs

2010-06-17T15:58:00.002+09:30

Ningen Dogs

...my favourite live act *right now*

(98 MB)

Shot on a Sony Cybershot at the Vanguard Hotel, Sydney.

Organised Sound: Call for Submissions

2010-06-17T13:12:00.001+09:30

Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music and Technology

Issue thematic title: Sound, Listening and Place
Date of Publication: December 2011
Publishers: Cambridge University Press
Submission Deadline: 1st March 2011

In his provocative book, Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics, literary ecologist Timothy Morton suggests that much ecocritical nature writing makes the same Romantic assumptions it seeks to critique. He posits that a properly ecological view of the environment must challenge aestheticised views of nature, and be immersed rather than observational. How can, and does, sound-based music rethink environmental aesthetics? How can sound-based music, and writing on it, contribute to the ecocritical debate? What is sonic ecology in art?

This themed issue aims to move forward from the valuable foundations of early Acoustic Ecology and soundscape composition, considering related and different approaches sound-based music as ecological reflection of listening, sound and place.

Topics for investigation might include (as suggestions):

Soundscapes and sonic psychogeography;
Sonic activists, eco-activism in sound art and sound-based music;
Field recording projects that address issues of ecology, environmental stewardship and sustainability in the light of collective, or personal, experience of sound in the world;
Sound-based music as the transliteration of recorded experience an memory of time and place;
Artistic projects arising from phonography communities and online dissemination of both music and materials;
Online soundscape experiences and compositions (interactive sound-based works, curated sound-based music, sound collections, field recording projects, listening projects, virtual environments);
Consciousness-raising, through sound-based music, in relation to listening and place;
Artist statements, personal and subjective, listening in the world; and/or
Critiques and consideration of Acoustic Ecology.

As always, submissions related to the theme are encouraged; however, those that fall outside the scope of this theme are always welcome.

Deadline for submissions is 1st March 2011. Submissions may consist of papers, with optional supporting short compositions or excerpts, audio-visual documentation of performances and/or other aspects related to your submission that can be placed onto a DVD and the CUP website for Organised Sound. Supporting audio and audio-visual material will be presented as part of the journal's annual DVD-ROM which will appear with issue 16/3 as well on the journal's website.

SUBMISSION FORMAT

Notes for Contributors and further details can be obtained from the inside back cover of published issues of Organised Sound or by visiting this website and downloading the .pdf. Properly formatted email submissions and general queries should be sent to: os@dmu.ac.uk.

Hard copy of articles and images (only when requested) and other material (e.g., sound and audio-visual files, etc. normally max. 15 sound files or 8 movie files) should be submitted to:

Prof. Leigh Landy
Organised Sound
Clephan Building
De Montfort University
Leicester LE1 9BH, UK.

What is 'Fluxus'?

2010-04-26T12:38:00.026+09:30

'Fluxus, it means for everybody something different..there is not a unique meaning, and this is the contemporary idea of fluxus: that fluxus can be fluctuating, but, fluxus is life as music. All music is life. Every micro and macro noise of our life and of the world, declared as music.' (Vostell: 3:43-4:20)

'Fluxus is like this moment, you can never catch it, it's a secret. And an exhibition about fluxus is like after dinner...looking at the leftovers. It's not it. It's still nice.' (De Ridder: 6:07-6:23)

Naim June Paik 04
by Nam June Paik

0' 35"

The name Nam June Paik (in the context of early video art) is one I've kept coming across the last seven years. Somehow, however, I've managed to avoid ever actually viewing his work. Today, while researching fluxus and "the everyday", I again came across his name and then his work and subsequently took a few moments to view a few of his videos presented on youtube. I was pleasantly surprised to discover how much my own video works (e.g. Scarification (2003)/I Find Out as I Go Along (2004/5), Deconstructing YouTube: Still Life With Sine (2007), Deconstructing YouTube: Black Noise (2007), and Untitled/Honours Creative Work (2008)), had in common with Paik's Nam June Paik 03 and Nam June Paik 04.

27 Sounds Manufactured in a Kitchen
by John Cage
1' 13"

View a remake of the original Twenty-Seven Sounds Manufactured in a Kitchen (1948) in its entirety here, and a couple of simple but humorous renditions of something similar here, here and here.

N.B. Point 2' 12" of Beat Soufflé – very well executed.

REFERENCES

Cage, John. "Twenty-Seven Sounds Manufactured in a Kitchen." YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGrhL49-YQw&feature=related. (26 April 2010).

De Ridder, Wilhelm In, "What is Fluxus?" Imagine Peace. September 2008. http://imaginepeace.com/archives/4308 (26 April 2010).

Hansell, Wolf. In, "What is Fluxus?" Imagine Peace. September 2008. http://imaginepeace.com/archives/4308 (26 April 2010).

Elektronische Musik

2010-04-23T13:53:00.009+09:30

Over dinner the other night my Father told me a story about how when he was a small boy he one day discovered how to rewire the home stereo system so that it would broadcast sounds from the kitchen (where one speaker was located), into the living room (where the second speaker was located). This of course was done on the sly, and consequently my father had the opportunity of overhearing a whole lot of women's gossip. The consequences of my father's actions aside, his telling this particular story reminded me that it was from my father whom I got my own interest in Music Technology from. I felt proud of my German heritage and also somewhat nostalgic for EMU.

This week I've been in touch with SW** (regarding various contemporary composers associations with "the everyday" and routines), and the nausea has returned full bore. On the flip side, and since signing up for a doctorate from UTS, I'm thoroughly passionate about the different areas of my research and towards the practice of research per se. I also no longer feel beholden to a particular group, which is a good thing.

Routine?? Busoni said "Routine is the enemy of Art!" Enough said.

The term 'everyday' is probably most associated with Cage...who perhaps inherited it from the Romantic tradition -see George Leonard's "Into the Light of Things" - though also Duchamp was an influence, and Zen. From Cage it flows through to Fluxus artist/composers under the general heading of "the merging of art and life" (Alan Kaprow.) From there it spills into various currents of contemporary art and music in which the everyday is a focus.

On the other hand Marjorie Perloff's book Art and the Everyday is about Erik Satie and the French avant-garde of the 1920s... . (Whittington, 2010)

REFERENCES

Whittington, Stephen. "re: Everyday." Email correspondence with author. 22 April 2010.

Martin Creed: Sick Film

2010-04-23T09:57:00.008+09:30

Is my sense of humour "sick"?? I'm quite certain the pun will be lost on some.

I came across these short films when attempting to locate some online .mp3s by the avant-garde trio, owada. Shocking, provocative and unquestionably art, Sick Film, 2006, is relevant to my research only through their being audiovisual works/a combination of sound and moving image.

Note that I did eventually get to hear to some of owada's music. Listening to repetitious beats and words, however indicative of routines and the "everyday", obviously isn't quite as captivating as a car crash...or Scottish artist Martin Creed's Sick Film, 2006.

**Click on the image top right to view a clip.

REFERENCES

Creed, Martin. "Sick Film. Work No. 503." 2006. http://www.martincreed.com/works/workno610.html (25 April 2010).

Creed, Martin. "Sick Film. Work No. 610." 2006. http://www.martincreed.com/works/workno610b.html (25 April 2010).

Back on the Blog Again

2010-04-21T15:56:00.004+09:30

I've just spent virtually an entire day of research updating my Blog (the last 40 minutes of which were devoted to a Profile update).

Blogging: time-waster or educator? You decide, I've given up. And so while I continue to view therapy as "hooey," it will be my web log to which I'll be returning for (further) assistance.

Thanks Dad, for getting me such a good deal on a modem. Thanks Mum, for reminding me how much I "hate writing."

Accablé!

2010-04-18T11:13:00.003+09:30

I'm freaking out, about the slowness of my academic development mostly, particularly as it relates to the realisation of a "theoretical framework." How can I expect to undertake a thorough literature review in such a short amount of time while my ability to spell (and knowledge of words in general), continues to remain crap?

The guaranteed diversity of the everyday and concatenation of practices that is my research routine, i.e. the thorough embedded-ness of "stuff" in my waking life, currently remains my only anchor.

TBC.

NIME++ 2010

2010-03-26T09:05:00.001+10:30

Sebastian and myself have had our performance application to NI ME++ accepted (and more recently, been the recipients of 'part-Scholarships'). Funds permitting, we'll travel to Sydney in mid-June to present works from Antia.

"...I am delighted to inform you that your performance proposal, Antia, has been selected for presentation at a NIME 2010 club night. However, the performance committee has requested that you limit the duration of your performance to 10 minutes. Please understand that this is not a reflection on the quality of your work - it's just that we have limited time available in a busy schedule.

We received 85 proposals for a very limited number of performance slots. We believe the selections we have made represent a wide range of artistically strong and technically interesting works in a variety of genres...". (Johnston 2010)

To view the full conference program, including a list of accepted submissions (paper, performance and installation), click here.

From my application...

...NIME++ presents itself as ideal platform upon which to showcase my most recent series of musical compositions, the outcome of a collaboration with Adelaide-based researcher and chipmusic composer, Sebastian Tomczak (aka little-scale). As it relates to my Ph.D, my attendance at NIME++ will allow me to network in person, specifically, with (creative) researchers such as myself working with and across multiple mediums and texts. It is my belief that in-person meetings and opportunities for discussion are invaluable during the early stages of research.

Error's Escape (2009)

2010-03-06T08:16:00.011+10:30

Director: Andrew J. Clarke
Producer: Alexandra Blue
Sound Design: Poppi Doser

'In a world of sterile conformity and genetically engineered test subjects, Error is a lone glitch in the system - will he be terminated, or can this Error escape?'

Still from Error's Escape (2009)

'Error's Escape is a 5-minute 3d animated film by Andrew J. Clark made in 2009 with a crew of over a dozen talented animators. Error's Escape began life as a student project at Flinders University but became a much larger creature when it received funding from the Media Resource Center and South Australian Film Corporation as part of the Digitopia Animation Initiative 2009.

Made primarily in Maya and Adobe After Effects, the film has a dark and twisted Pixar aesthetic - the grey dark world contrasted by Error's bright green eye and illuminating light bulb. At 6000 frames that each took between 5 and 20 minutes to render, it is a very large short film. Strange and funny in places, dark and twisted in others, it is a film about an Error finding his true purpose in the world.' (Clarke 2009)

Error's Escape was awarded the prize of 'Best Animation' at the 2010 South Australian Screen Awards. Producers Alexandra Blue and Andrew Clark accepted the award and prize of $3000 worth of post production at The Cutting Room.

For further information, click here and here and here.

(31.5MB)

REFERENCES

“Making Of.” Error’s Escape. 2010. http://www.errorsescape.com/making_of.html (10 October 2011).

from Bernie Krause

2010-02-27T14:02:00.023+10:30

Still on the hunt for the perfect equipment kit...a recent dialogue with maestro Bernie Krause.

Dear Bernie,

I'm in the process of developing a research idea around a 365-day recording project and am (very) keen to hear your thoughts regarding a suitable recording package with which to realise recordings on such a frequent basis. I'm a postgraduate student on scholarship and hence don't have a huge amount of money to play around with in terms of setup costs. I'm also curious to know the best way to work with "geophonic" elements such as wind and rain, as it is my intention to import each individual recording into Sonic Visualiser, a piece of freeware which allows for the creation of spectrograms and subsequent analysis of the said (sonic) environment. I trust the above makes the sense but please do let me know if you require further information regarding the details of this research project and/or the proposed outcomes.

Poppi Doser.

Happy to help, Poppi. There are a number of decent long term systems, these days. Can you please tell me more about the study you're planning? That way I can lead you to the right system(s).

Bernie Krause

Hi Bernie,

I thought it easier to forward you a copy of my research proposal. Please note that it's a WIP, but also I would appreciate it if the details of the Project could remain between yourself and I only for the minute.

Thank you!

Poppi

Here's a really worthwhile system, Poppi. Let me know how it works.

Bernie

Thanks Bernie. Have you tried this system out yourself, and do you have any suggestions regarding tricks or tips for obtaining hi-fi recordings when the weather is either windy, raining, etc.?

I have tried it, Poppi. One has to experiment with the variables to see if the system fits your needs once it's in your hands. But it's pretty universally utilised these days.

Bernie

Historical Drift

2010-02-22T10:50:00.008+10:30

Apparently I'd rather fall into the cracks of "the everyday" and disappear than consider myself average. The loss of 530 snapshots hasn't quite hit home yet (I didn't save them elsewhere); maybe it won't ever.

02: You deleted your Flickr account?

Me: Yes, I'm clearing the ground for something new.

It lost its innocence and it hadn't served its original purpose for a long time.

3xperimentia

2010-02-22T09:05:00.005+10:30

I'm attending this show tonight – hooray for freebies, and will most likely report back at some stage about how it went.

Post-script: So, I didn't even make it through the door which I feel rather bad about. What can I say, it was a shitty shitty day topped of by my decision to exit the AGSA courtyard one minute prior to doors-opening after standing around out the front of the venue for twenty minutes.

Nuts.

Half Off

2010-02-21T14:22:00.001+10:30

With the assistance of virtually half a litre of coffee, following what felt like the longest pause ever, but still without a take regarding the "pointlessness of things" (and therefore still a failed existentialist), I thought it was finally time to "open shop." During my 2.5 months away from this web log I have traveled wide (but not necessarily far). I have met with the concept of the philandering blogger who "abandons" their web log after x amount of time, the inspired blogger who writes day after day for no one in particular, and the lionized blogger who blogs about nothing in particular only to one day wind up the author of a successful novel and central character of an American feature film. Which one am I? Unlike my fame-obsessed father I don't kid myself in thinking I'll ever achieve the latter and so, this year at least, it's a tossup between the first two -- truth be told, I remain undecided as to whether to continue to maintain this blog or not (or start an entirely new one where any unsuspecting readers will remain just that). I imagine that ultimately how much spare time I have will be the deciding factor... .

The Joy of Study

2010-02-21T13:38:00.015+10:30

The story begins in December last year when I learned the expression to "max-out" one's credit card (note the hyphen and single 'x'), the direct result of long-term boredom. Subsequently, I put everything currently associated with my life into the largest glass jar I could find, sealed it shut and shook it hard. Four weeks later, the polychromatic snowflakes came floating down around the metaphysical structure at the base of the jar that was in direct proportion to my indecisive self. These included: the opinions of too many others, several offers to take up graduate studies at alternative academic institutions, an opportunity to move interstate and advance in my chosen career, an opportunity to change careers, the manifestation of my Fibromyalgia (the result of continued indecision coupled with an overwhelming amount of sleepiness nights), a long-overdue distaste for cigarettes, the lackadaisical attitudes of those whom I had "outgrown", a broken friendship, my disinterest in Music Technology per se, the death of 'Milkywhite*', the fast approaching due date of my Masters Major Review, and the realisation that I would have to get a regular day job.

Jump ahead another four weeks and it's Sunday 21st February: another quiet morning after another (relatively) quiet Saturday night. What's changed is that as of this coming week I'm officially studying for my Ph.D out of the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building at the University of Technology (UTS) in Sydney (read: no more having to align myself with Music Technologists or classical musicians). Having found no peace in the enthusiasm of others who would have me reconcile the 'Ecology and Art'/'Soundscape and Composition' divide, I took a small leap of faith and cut ties with the University of Adelaide. That's 7 years blowing in the wind for, as far as I can tell, all that I'm leaving behind is a years work into Raymond Schafer and the Noise Pollutants. I'm allowing myself the grace of one month transition time to settle into my new routine of a 60 hour work week (66.6*% study, 33.3*% regular job). What's my topic? In my newly superstitious frame of mind I have decided to refrain from pasting up the "approved" Ph.D Proposal for the time being, but here's a clue: what better way to shed light on the "joy of [postgraduate] study" than to allow oneself the opportunity to fall into the cracks of the everyday.

Ahh, how I love the irony ;-)

What My Grandmother Said...

2010-02-19T21:15:00.001+10:30

..about 'Antia'

"I have listened to [your] new music and found it dramatic, exciting and a great improvement on earlier work. I will give you my personal reaction. To me, thematically it seemed to be about INJUSTICE and reminded me of an aboriginal massacre which occurred in the 1840's and involved new settlers in SA (Rufus River Massacre). I researched it fairly recently. With this in mind I wonder if you might like to consider a reaction on it as a dance piece for Bungarra Aboriginal Group. UTS might be able to give you some advice on this."

REFERENCES

Dally, Gwenda. 2010. "RE: Antia." Email correspondence with author. 17 February.

NIME 2010 PERFORMANCE PROPOSAL

2010-02-17T16:46:00.000+10:30

Submitted: 17th February 2009

Proposed Performance

Hailing from Adelaide, Australia, Sebastian Tomczak aka little-scale has been making exciting chip music and building innovative chip music-related technology for a number of years. little- scale’s music has been described as “a highly intellectual approach to chip sounds that is completely engaging and unintimidating to the uninitiated” (Peter Swimm of FreeMusicArchive.org, 2009). He has performed in major cities across Australia to sell out crowds as well as in New York, and has presented papers and posters on chip music at the Australasian Computer Music Conference as well as the International Computer Music Conference.

A recent project for German label Pixelmod Records saw little-scale collaborate with Adelaide-born electronic music composer and researcher Poppi Doser on an eight track EP (to be released in March of this year). Entitled Antia, the work is best described as ambient and smooth sonic landscapes, interrupted by harsh and rhythmically complex lo-fi beats. Doser's vocals add depth and emotion, whilst her piano parts and organic field recordings create an interesting textural balance.

A work of juxtaposition and contradiction, Antia manages to create a convincing merger of stylistic elements found in popular as well as electroacoustic and electronic music. Of relevance is the fact that Tomczak has developed the technology that has been used to interface with and play music with Sega Mega Drive and Atari 2600, which are the two main instruments heard throughout the work.

The performance will consist of a live rendition of Antia, with a duration of 14 – 18 minutes.

Forgotten Songs (2009)

2010-01-15T18:53:00.013+10:30

"Laneways by George! Hidden Networks is the City of Sydney’s second annual display aimed at highlighting Sydney’s hidden places.

Eight projects were chosen out of 68 submissions. Each focuses on collaboration, sustainability and the changing role of public spaces, and has been created by interdisciplinary teams including artists, architects, urban designers, landscape architects and others such as musicians, poets, a scientist and a lawyer." (Blundell 2009)

Betty and I were headed up George Street towards my hotel, when something caught the corner of my eye. I made a sharp turn down a narrow laneway towards what I would later learn was one of several Sydney CBD-based temporary art installations: Hill et al's audiovisual installation Forgotten Songs (2009), a work "engaging with the beauty, unexpectedness and unfamiliarity of displaced birdsongs, while exploring how Sydney’s fauna has evolved and adapted to coexist with increased urbanisation." (Hill et al 2009).

REFERENCES

Hill, Michael T., Richard Major, David Towey and Richard Wong. "Forgotten Songs." The Fifth Estate. Our Planet. Our Estate. http://www.thefifthestate.com.au/archives/3837 (16 January 2009).

SoundWalk.com

2010-01-15T17:44:00.003+10:30

Finally! An artwork that resonates strongly with my current position in/on life.

AWOL

2009-12-11T10:42:00.004+10:30

It's been a (really) long time since I posted. I don't have a decent excuse for not posting, which is to say, I've been spending too much time on Facebook, a site where taking one's self and thoughts with the proverbial "grain of salt" is encouraged.

I know I'll have to break out of this state of academic introversion sooner or later. For the moment I'm piecing together my thoughts (on paper) around a plausible PhD topic alongside a list of pros and cons regarding the potential upgrade.

Antia: Due for Release

2009-12-10T20:48:00.007+10:30

Physical copies are on their way to being available to the world outside of immediate family and friends. The project is (mostly) in Pixelmod's hands now.

Newsflash: Meanwhile, I got a brief mention on BlipTalk, the 2009 Blip Festival website – thanks Sebastian!

On Teaching...

2009-12-10T13:53:00.000+10:30

"He continues to teach because it provides him with a livelihood; also because it teaches him humility, brings it home to him who he is in the world. The irony does not escape him: that the one who comes to teach learns the keenest of lessons, while those who come to learn learn nothing."

J.M. Coetzee

– I recently watched the film adaption of Coetzee's Disgrace.

Recording Test: Torrens River No.2

2009-12-04T16:14:00.000+10:30

River Torrens (Adelaide CBD)

Having recently settled on "river" as one of the main themes of my research topic, I feel grateful for the river in “my own backyard” at which to conduct my preliminary recording/equipment tests; and extending upon this, for the silent protocol amongst humans that allows me to work in a public space with minimal interruption.

That said, it feels good to simply want to spend this time alone, to feel peaceful enough to just sit for the maximum duration of recording the ZOOM will allow (approx. 48 minutes). And it's lovely how after around 25 minutes even the dragonflies became curious enough to pay the ZOOM and myself closer inspection.

Test no. 2, part 1

Date: 12th April 2009
Location: Torrens River, North
Time: 10:50-11:50am
Temperature: approx. 32˚

Equipment Used:

ZOOM Handy Recorder (w/ foam windscreen**)

Settings

High gain, Vol. 90
Stereo/2-Channel (120˚)

X-Noise Stereo Settings

Notes: The original sound file was normalised by 30% prior to review. The second example of each (1b, 2b) had 'X-Noise Removal' applied and I'll admit that I'm not particularly happy with the results which, somewhat ironically, HURT to listen to(!) For efficiency's sake, over the coming months I'll be focusing on equipment and recording settings only. I'll address things like EQ and noise removal down the track once I've determined my equipment list. Finally, in hindsight the windscreen (probably) wasn't necessary, and may have in fact "hindered" this recording test.

*sigh* .... I still have so much to learn about the basics.

Example 1a: "Wings Beating" (78.7kB)

Click here to listen.

Example 1b: "Wings Beating" w/ noise removal (78.7kB)

Click here to listen.

Example 2a: "Marsh Hen Honking" (1020.0 kB)

Click here to listen.

Example 2b: "Marsh Hen Honking" w/ noise removal (1020.0 kB)

Click here to listen.

Test no. 2, part 2

NT4

Date: 13th April 2009
Location: Torrens River, North
Time: 5:30pm-6:20pm
Temperature: approx. 26˚

Equipment Used:

ZOOM Handy Recorder (w/ Foam windscreen)
Rode NT4 microphone (shown)

Note: A gain increase of 7.8db was applied to each of the following sound files prior to review.

Example 1a: High gain, Vol. 70 (3.5MB)

Click here to listen.

Example 1b: Medium gain, Vol. 70 (765.9b) - low-pass EQ applied

Click here to listen.

Example 2: High gain, Vol. 80 (4.9MB)

Click here to listen.

Example 3: Medium gain, Vol. 90 (8.8MB)

Click here to listen.

Example 4a: Medium gain, Vol. 100 (3.3MB) - mic positioned horizontally

Click here to listen.

Example 4b: Medium gain, Vol. 100 (1.6MB) - mic positioned vertically

Click here to listen.

REFERENCES

"Rode NT4." Brooklyn-Media-Mall. April 2009. http://store.brooklyn-media.com/index.php?cPath=1_25 (12 April 2009).

Nagra News: What really influences a good recording?

2009-12-01T15:43:00.004+10:30

"It should be remembered that sound is generated as an analogue signal and is perceived by the human ear as an analogue signal. Several critical factors such as microphone choice, placement and recording environment are far more important than the word length and sampling frequency or even the recorder chosen. But, assuming these practical factors are well understood, then the last remaining factor, as far as a recorder are concerned, is the audio chain itself in terms of level, frequency response and dynamic range. These factors in themselves have an equally important bearing on the recording, and if misunderstood or misused can produce poor recordings even with the best recording equipment.

Level is probably one of the most difficult points to discuss as there is no "golden rule" or formula for setting it, and the setting will have a bearing on the quality of the recorded sound. It is however, important to remember that unlike the old analogue days when a signal peaking comfortably at +3 or +6dB above maximum level was quite normal, where the gentle progressive distortion introduced, gave warmth and depth to the recording. In the digital world this is impossible as digital chains do not allow this approach and therefore level setting is far more critical than in the past. A digital signal cannot get "louder" than 0 dB or in digital terms "7FFF" for a 16-bit sample, and once this point is reached distortion produced is total. So in principle, one tries to record as close to this point as possible, without going over it to ensure maximum use of the available dynamic range of the digital system. In reality though, as the generally accepted tone reference is -18dB the peaks will be around -10dB at best. This insinuates that the average or mean audio level will probably be some 6 - 8 dB below this i.e. around the -16 to -18 dB point.

Now, as the useable dynamic range in digital terms is calculated at 6 dB per bit, a 16 bit system should have a useable dynamic range of 96 dB (although in reality this equates to about 90 dB), starting from the "0" point, and counting back to -90 dB. If the recording level is peaking at around - 10dB then the maximum available dynamic range is only in fact about 80 dB. In this scenario, with the best will in the world, you are only making a 13-14bit recording.

If we now look at the microphone pre-amplifier stages, a dynamic range of 120 dB can be considered as the best currently available in any audio recorder, and therefore, using this to its absolute maximum ability your digital level is only going to brush the 20 bit mark, so one could argue as to the advantage of using 24 bits, in audio terms is somewhat academic. This being said, if one looks at a microphone preamplifier stage and sees that its dynamic range is limited to say 85 dB, there seems little point in worrying whether the recording is 16, 18, 20 or 24 bit and it will make absolutely no difference to the "quality" of the recording.
A frequent comment is "using external 24/96 converters makes it sound so much better," well in fact this is purely because such external converters are relatively expensive pieces of equipment, and contain high quality analogue stages. Hence the subjective improvement has little to do with the number of bits or sampling frequency.

The sampling frequency and frequency response go hand-in-hand really, and although using the Nyquist theory, 44.1 kHz is sufficient to record perfectly up to 22.05 kHz bandwidth, using higher sampling frequencies does appear to reconstitute the original sound more accurately.

In conclusion, sound recording is a combination of art and science, and many years experience enables the correct choices of equipment to be made for any particular recording, but complicated technical explanations, often imply that better recordings are made using certain technologies. However, the quality and positioning of the microphones, the analogue pre-amplifiers and their useable dynamic range is far more important than the digital word length or sampling frequency. Some manufacturers will encourage the belief that these technical specifications are of critical importance when, in fact, much of the time they are completely irrelevant. This may simply be because it is relatively easy to design circuits using high bit depth converters at high sampling frequencies, rather than designing analogue microphone pre-amplifiers with high gain, wide dynamic range and low distortion. The best way to judge a piece of equipment is to listen to the recording rather than reading the glossy brochures" (Owens 2009).

REFERENCES

Owens, John. "What Really Influences a Good Recording?" Nagra News. 26 : 1 pp. Online. Internet. 1 December 2009.

from Kat Krause

2009-11-30T11:06:00.009+10:30

'In September '09, you requested - and received - information regarding release dates for Wild Sanctuary albums. I was hoping to hear the purpose of your request, and if or in what ways you found of it use in your research. Do give us an update, as we'd be most interested to learn more about your own efforts in soundscape, and look forward to hearing from you.' (Krause 2009)

I'm only one year into my postgraduate research and so without any conclusions as yet. The reason I requested those release dates was for the purposes of my Research Proposal's Bibliography/Discography -- thanks very much to Samuel for assisting me with that matter. To be honest, due to a lack of resources (financial and therefore technological**), my research has been progressing quite (too?) slowly, and hence I am currently considering changing my research topic. I do appreciate your interest in my work, however, and will be sure to contact you again in future should any major developments occur! (Doser 2009)

'Thanks for your recent note. We ARE interested in your work, and current research that's underway in so many varied topics related to this community of bio-acousticians. Even if it is not so easy to follow from here, we encourage the success of many soundscape artists and friends working around the world. Certainly this field is not one where financial and technological resources are at all easily obtainable - but the rewards of exploring the vast and still fairly uncharted territory of possibilities in this field are many and grand (and mostly to found within the journey, though perhaps not so often in ways of 'the purse')! We, too, after all this time, still struggle with financial support and technology. I hope you are able to find creative and academic inspiration that truly helps you in your efforts. If you've not already read it, you might find some useful information in Bernie's book, 'Wild Soundscapes: Discovering the Voice of the Natural World', and you can feel free to write us anytime.' (Krause 2009)

REFERENCES

Krause, Katherine. 2009. "RE: Wild Sanctuary Album Information." Email correspondence with author. 30 November.

What is 'the Perfect Equipment List'?

2009-11-25T12:00:00.004+10:30

Still on the hunt for the "perfect" beginner Field Recordist's portable recording kit...

While wading through equipment reviews I came across some new sites, including that maintained by the Vermont Folklife Centre, UK-based Wildlife Sound Recording Society and Nordic manufacturers of specialist microphones, Telinga. Note that I wasn't wholly impressed with the quality of the recorded material within the latter's Sound Gallery. Also of interest was the website of Milwaukee Professor in Film, Video and Sound, Rob Danielson. While a couple of years out of date, Danielson appears to have conducted a thorough investigation of different portable audio recorders, microphones and other associated products, with links to further reviews + some. Particularly intriguing was the $1000 Recorder Challenge. For best results, listen through headphones (and not using an Acer Aspire notebook).

'This test was encouraged by William Haven of the NatureRecordist list to compare high-gain, low-noise performance of portable stereo field recorders costing under $1000. We were able to build upon recent tests done by Raimund Specht by adding the Nargra Ares-M and the Core Sound Mic2496 preamp coupled with the digital input of a Tascam HD-P2... . The test was conducted in of a lead-walled and acoustically treated narration booth that was located in a windowless interior room of a masonary building. I could not hear traffic in the interior room. The loudest, audible sound that penetrated the booth was a 75Hz mechanical rumble with harmonic overtones that has more presence on the right channel. This rumble was steady enough for me to use as a RMS reference level for matching the playback volumes of the test samples with some adjustments due to differing Hz response of the recorders.' (Danielson 2007)

Of course I also continue to (re)visit Lockwood's Sound Maps, with their outstanding sound quality and virtual absence of any evidence of production. Earlier on in the year I posted a (simplified) list of the equipment used by Lockwood to undertake her 2004 Sound Map of the Danube. Last week I emailed her again with a request for further details regarding this equipment. She wrote back:

'The DAT is probably no longer available, since the little DAT recorders have been superseded by hard disk hand held digital recorders such as the Edirol etc. Similarly the AT822 stereo mic has been replaced by a later model, the AT825. The hydrophone is definitely not available - the people who made it have gone out of business and I haven't even been able to find second hand ones. I borrowed the one I used from a friend. By now I myself have replaced what I used on the Danube by more recent but expensive equipment: a Sound Designs hard disk recorder (about US$1200), the Sennheiser shotgun MKH 416 P48 and a Shure stereo mic VP88. I don't have the mic prices to hand, but you could check the various companies' websites for price information. I buy most of my gear from an American distributor, Sweetwater.com, also on the web... .' (Lockwood 2009)

I should also mention the textbooks The Sound Effects Bible and Practical Recording 5: Surround Sound (published in 2008 and 2004 respectively), copies of each which were recently thrust into my hands by a previous supervisor. The Sound Effects Bible contains an entire chapter devoted to developing a suitable recording package and pertinent list of Ten Recording Commandments: "Thou Shalt Check Thy Levels Often", "Though Shalt Point the Microphone at the Sound", etc.

Last on the list are the Yahoo Groups devoted to "nature recording" I happened upon when taking out a subscription to 'naturerecordists' (not least because of the technical, theoretical support etc. such groups can provide to those researching/working in isolation). These include naturerecordists, Nature_Sounds_Society, Naturerecording and NatureSound.

REFERENCES

Danielson, Rob. "1000 Recorder Challenge." Rob Danielson. 2007. https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/type/www/audio-art-tech-gallery/ (23 November 2009).

Lockwood, Annea. 2009. "RE: Equipment List." Email correspondence with author. 22 November.

Viers, Ric. The Sound Effects Bible. US: McNaughton and Gunn, 2008.

Earpoke 2009: EMU End of Year Recital

2009-11-24T11:38:00.012+10:30

I'm inclined to think that last night's concert was one of the best E.M.U. End of Year Recital's I have ever attended, not least because of a combination of the lack of "ego" present**, and the fact that works presented from Sebastian Tomczak's forthcoming EP Antia were very well received.

The lineup of this year's concert was unique. For example, all 2009 Music Technology Forum Improvisation groups (the individual members of which were preselected by Whittington at the beginning of semester 1) were required to perform, only two sound artists (Masters of Music student Tristan Louth-Robbins and pianist, lecturer and some-time rapper Stephen Whittington) presented solo works**, and the night was opened and closed with performances from postgraduate students.

Many thanks to the Heads and Luke Harrald for organising the event, every aspect of which was incredibly well chosen and executed!

Film by Lauren Tomczak

Romanticising a Dead Ideal?

2009-11-21T23:11:00.000+10:30

Looking West 1/5 (Mundoo Channel, November 2009)
Originally uploaded by milkywhite*

Since arriving home from Sydney I've made two return trips to Hindmarsh Island for the purpose of obtaining field recordings out at Mundoo Channel.** My bounty includes a series of ten photographs and 8-minutes of recorded material, i.e. not very much of use. Needless to say I continue to remain (almost totally) disillusioned with my chosen research topic. I'm a strong believer in synchronicity, of which there appears to be none between myself and the (rural) sound environment.

**Postscript: While this work has obviously arisen as a result of my Masters research topic, it was hoped that one of the recordings would be suitable for its incorporation within Antia, the EP Sebastian Tomczak and myself are currently producing. Currently we are looking at utilising a recording made alongside the River Torrens back in April.

Ecology, What is..?

2009-11-21T09:28:00.015+10:30

So I learned on my travels recently that there are some people who don't believe in the word 'ecology.' The inclination to scoff is undermined by my inevitable quiet, followed by the thought that maybe that persons opinion is informed by their own lack of perceived "interrelationship" and/or (harmonious) interfunctioning amongst our own species.

Weaving amongst various strands of the environmental movement back in 2002, I came away with a strong sense of contemporary society's maladaptation and the resultant dysfunctional behavior(s). Today, having outgrown my tendency to file objects and actions according to their functionality, I note the above as a concept and not a fact, thereupon returning to the question: what if everything had a place? Personal perceptions regarding "functionality" aside and assuming this to be true would denote modern society as functioning as an interrelated whole, and therefore by definition, an ecology.

REFERENCES

"Ecology." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 21 November 2009. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ecology (21 November 2009).

SFU's Wellness Quiz

2009-11-10T17:01:00.006+10:30

Having made a number of changes in my lifestyle the last couple of months I decided to do this quiz again it again perceiving the results would differ to the previous ones from August. I was right but it's clear that I still have some way to go before I achieve that elusive "balance" (particularly when it comes to Financial, Career and "spiritual" matters). Bah!

little-scale & poppi doser

2009-11-09T09:08:00.018+10:30

Litmus
3' 10"

Poppi Doser: Voice, Pianolittle-scale: Atari 2600, Sega Mega Drive

Travel here to listen to the track on 8BC.

It was during my first year of a degree in Music Technology that I decided to forgo the pursuit of a career as a solo acoustic singer-songwriter in favour of focusing on educating myself in the art of electronic and electroacoustic music composition. As [my] fate would have it, however, every year since choosing to set off down this path, I have been approached to contribute my "voice" to a fellow student's/colleague's work; including film and animation soundtracks, electroacoustic music compositions and a multichannel work. This year I was invited by Sebastian Tomczak (aka little-scale) to collaborate on a 7-track EP due for release on small German label Pixelmod Records some time later this year. 'Litmus', the title of our first completed track, has also been submitted to the Australian (and New Zealand) Chipmusic Compilation (Vol. 3).

While admittedly not an expert not in the chipmusic genre, I've been following the work of Trash 80/Tresk for a few years and through my online excursions wandered into the territory of other artists (Nullsleep, for example). It seems evident that vocals and chipmusic are an uncommon combination and hence I'm eager to see how Antia -- Tomczak's EP currently in production -- will be received by the chipmusic populace and beyond. I'll post again regarding Antia's progress in a few weeks. In the interim Tomczak and myself (okay, more myself than Tomczak because I'm the one with topophobia), are contemplating going "live"... . Makes my stomach flip :-0

REFERENCES

"Red Litmus Paper Above; Blue Litmus Paper Below." pH Paper. http://www.uwplatt.edu/chemep/chem/chemscape/LABDOCS/CATOFP/measurea/concentr/phpaper/litmus.htm (7 November 2009)

PsySound3

2009-11-08T11:45:00.005+10:30

As I was reminded this morning when I went to download my free copy of PsySound, "there's no such thing as free lunch." A standalone version of PsySound3 for Mac OSX is still yet to exist and thus I'm required to install Matlab (for Mac) if I want to try out the PsySound sound analysis software. Matlab, however, is neither free nor cheap to purchase which means it's back to the old methods of analysis: by sound and sight and maybe using some sort of program created in MaxMSP. Bah!

TBC

PsySound3 is software for the analysis of sound recordings using physical and psychoacoustical algorithms. It is an easy to use platform that does precise analysis using standard acoustical measurements, as well as implementations of psychoacoustical and musical models (such as loudness, sharpness, roughness, fluctuation strength, pitch, rhythm and running IACC).

The program is written using the Matlab language, and will be available both as Matlab code and as a compiled standalone version. The program is controlled using a graphical user interface and should be relatively straightforward for endusers. We have a large emphasis on future extensibility, which is the main reason for writing the program in Matlab. The extensive graphing facilities built into Matlab are also available, as is flat text file and Matlab export.

The ideas underlying PsySound3 include:

Free to download and use
Easy to use (i.e. it should not require computer programing skills)
Extensible (new analysers can be contributed by users who have computer programing skills)
A framework for multiple models for any given analysis output (e.g. multiple loudness models)
Accurate analysis, including calibration (if analysers are implemented correctly)
Detailed output
Sonification as a means of understanding sound

We are encouraging anyone who has written sound analysis code in Matlab to consider adding it to the PsySound project. The advantages of doing so include:

A user interface is provided, making the software easier for others to use (e.g., by people who want to use the analysis method, as opposed to people who develop new analysis methods)
The results of the analysis can be compared side-by-side to other methods of analysis that are included in the program
Spread the word about your analysis method
If the analyser is used in research, its use (and the underlying publication) should be cited by the researcher
Helping other researchers and students

(Densil et al 2007).

REFERENCES

Densil Cabrera, Sam Ferguson, Emery Schubert and Farhan Rizwi . "What is Psysound3?" 7 February 2008. Psysound3. http://psysound.wikidot.com/ (7 November 2009).

Recording Test: Torrens River No.3

2009-11-05T16:29:00.001+10:30

Location: Northern side of the weir
Time: 4:30-5pm
Date: 10th May 2009
Temperature: approx. 19 degrees

Equipment Used:

Zoom Handy Recorder H2
Rode NTG2 Shotgun Microphone

Settings:

44.1kHz/16bit WAV
Mid Gain (Input Sensitivity)
Volume 80

Torrens Weir

These samples were captured alongside the Torrens Weir (pictured left). It was a Sunday afternoon around 4pm, relatively quiet and away from the city traffic. The railway line was in view hence the sound of trains entering and exiting Adelaide station can be heard within the recording. While a mere trickle, ideally the microphone's capacity to amplify the sound of water running through the weir, would have been greater. Herein lies the reason behind my decision to "produce" the recordings resulting from today's test.

I found both the listening process and the environment amongst which I was nestled today, relatively peaceful.

Low Pass EQ

Click here to listen.

Peak EQ

Click here to listen.

REFERENCES

"Torrens weir gates mishap blamed on software glitch." ABC News. April 2009. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/29/2555772.htm (May 2009).

Lose/Lose

2009-11-05T13:35:00.006+10:30

A colleague sent me a link to a provocative (but potentially annoying) computer game by Zach Gage today. I've downloaded a copy of the game but daren't open it...yet.

Click here to obtain your own. Click here to go direct to the creator's Vimeo page.

Oh, and P.S., I think the score is OK.

Lose/Lose is a video-game with real life consequences. Each alien in the game is created based on a random file on the players computer. If the player kills the alien, the file it is based on is deleted. If the players ship is destroyed, the application itself is deleted. Although touching aliens will cause the player to lose the game, and killing aliens awards points, the aliens will never actually fire at the player. This calls into question the player's mission, which is never explicitly stated, only hinted at through classic game mechanics. Is the player supposed to be an aggressor? Or merely an observer, traversing through a dangerous land? Why do we assume that because we are given a weapon and awarded for using it, that doing so is right?

By way of exploring what it means to kill in a video-game, Lose/Lose broaches bigger questions. As technology grows, our understanding of it diminishes, yet, at the same time, it becomes increasingly important in our lives. At what point does our virtual data become as important to us as physical possessions? If we have reached that point already, what real objects do we value less than our data? What implications does trusting something so important to something we understand so poorly have?

KILLING ALIENS IN LOSE/LOSE WILL DELETE FILES ON YOUR
HARD DRIVE PERMANENTLY

REFERENCES

Gage, Zach. Lose/Lose. 2009. http://www.stfj.net/index2.php (6 November 2009).

Synaesthesia & the Soundscape

2009-11-01T13:57:00.016+10:30

I've been working my way through R. Murray Schafer's 'ear cleaning' exercises (The Thinking Ear, 1986) and in the process of doing so thinking a bit about other author's description of his work on soundscapes as too reliant on visual metaphors and the diagrammatic. It's true that Schafer quotes from and references the work of a couple of famous artists, including Paul Klee and Kandinsky. I think it's interesting to note that both of these men professed an artistic interest in the field of 'synaesthesia', no doubt given the fact they were alive and kicking during synaesthesia's initial heyday around the turn of the last century. This of course lead me to wonder if Schafer himself is a [colour-hearing] synaesthete, and from here, the possibility of environmental sounds to elicit a synaesthetic response in someone with synaesthesia (e.g. a coloured photism for a sound occurring within the external world in someone with the condition of colour-hearing synaesthesia). Does the complexity inherent to any given environmental soundscape (i.e. that constant mobility of expression, dynamic tension, etc.) undermine the potential for this experience to occur? If a soundscape does contain the potential to elicit [coloured images] within a [colour-hearing] synaesthete, is there a particular soundscape and/or sound-emitting object within that soundscape that induces a more dynamic response versus other soundscapes and/or environmental sounds? And what about the shift between different soundscapes, e.g. moving out of a botanical garden and towards a busy city street. Does this induce a unique result or merely confusion in the experience of the [colour-hearing] synaesthete?

Response 1: John Smith**

'For me, I have to have my focus on the sound to some extent I suppose. I've been thinking about what you said, and I think that sounds that are outside of what I expect - thus causing me to focus on them - whether consciously or unconsciously, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. So I guess it's not an environment per se that triggers a response, but particular events in that environment that might not fit in there usually if that makes sense. I'll think about this some more in the coming days.' (Smith 2009)

Response 2: Patricia Duffy

'My type of synesthesia is grapheme-color, lexical color, number-color, and 'time-unit-color' .It is mostly about perceiving alphabet letters, words and numbers, and units of time in color--an also as having a kind of spatial quality--as I experience them as "inner landscapes". I can also experience shadowy shapes for other kinds of random, ambient noises--but their shapes don't have color and are not vivid. From your research you probably know that synesthetes generally prefer quieter environments to busy, noisy ones--and this is probably because their "multi-faceted" experiences can lead to a feeling of over-stimulation. However, in my own case, I am not aware of this causing any confusion in what I see.' (Duffy 2009)

My questions pertain specifically to (non-musical) sounds heard within the environment, i.e. while walking through a national park, down a busy city street, through the suburbs, by the ocean etc. You mention that you "experience shadowy shapes for other kinds of random, ambient noises", I'm wondering if you could perhaps elaborate upon this experience...?

'...if I hear a siren, it has an upward spiral shape, (but it is a shadowy image in my mind's eye). If I hear a car going by, it is a shadowy broad-brush-stroke image going forward horizontally. A clock ticking is a series of shadowy dots. As I mentioned before, the above experiences are not at all as vivid as my synesthetic experiences of alphabet letters/numbers/time).' (Duffy 2009)

**A pseudonym. The author wishes to remain anonymous.

REFERENCES

Duffy, Patricia Lynne. 2009. "Re: Synaesthesia and the Soundscape." Email communication with author. 7 November.

Duffy, Patricia Lynne. 2009. "Re: Masters Research." Email communication with author. 13 November.

Smith, John. 2009. "Re: Synaesthesia and the Soundscape." Email communication with author. 25 October.

2 degrees shy of a full embrace of the new world

2009-11-01T10:00:00.001+10:30

While I like having "choice"... (Eastend Parklands, November 2009)
Originally uploaded by milkywhite*

While I like having "choice", I can't help but feel sorry for the ducks.

Just a thought.

Master of Music: Annual Review

2009-10-31T10:00:00.000+10:30

Submitted: 26th October 2009

During the beginning of October, and as per the requirements of the Annual Review, I met with my two Supervisors (Steven Knopoff and Stephen Whittington) to discuss the progress of my research to date. It became evident early on in our meeting that I need to be revisit my research questions in order reflect upon these and to consider minor changes in light of the theory-related literature that I have reviewed over the past several months. The aim here is to ensure that my remaining literature review can be done most efficiently and—in particular—to avoid being overwhelmed by the large number (3000+) of articles on the emergent interdisciplines of acoustic ecology and soundscape composition which I have tracked via the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) database.

As outlined in the recently submitted CCSP (approved 1st September 2009), the current research questions are as follows:

What is the history and cultural significance of acoustic ecology?
What is the relationship between acoustic ecology and found soundscape composition?

These two questions serve as a catalyst into areas of investigation including:

Found soundscapes as a method of documentation (including issues and aesthetic considerations);
Pioneers and current practitioners in the field of found soundscape composition (including Steven Feld, Chester Schultz, Bernie Krause, Annea Lockwood, Claude Schryer, Luc Ferrari, and founding members of the WSP and WFAE);
Listening/‘clairaudience’ as a method of research; and
The future of acoustic ecology and the found soundscape composition.

During the process of revisiting these questions, having recently perceived both mine and other authors’ misuse of basic terms ‘acoustic ecology’ and ‘soundscape studies’, I emailed soundscape composer and expert in Acoustic Communication Dr Barry Truax for clarification. Truax confirmed my suspicions, stating that the two terms are not synonymous with each other, but are in fact two different approaches to the same field (i.e. the study of the relationship between sound, the individual listener/community, and the environment). He writes:

“Acoustic ecology, at least in relation to the [World Forum for Acoustic Ecology] that adopted this term after the Tuning of the World conference in 1993, evolved from soundscape studies as pioneered by Schafer many years earlier. Each model depends on the author's interpretation and perspective. So, in general, I think that soundscape studies is based on a subjective, qualitative approach, whereas acoustic ecology, according to the definition of ecology, might take other approaches to the study of the relation of individuals (including non-human ones) to their acoustic environment" (Truax 2009).

This new insight suggested a re-evaluation of the original research questions given ‘soundscape studies’ (apparent) lack of representation. Importantly, I am now seeing a need to clarify whether my own research methods, including the practical component/creative outcome of the research, are to be informed by a “subjective, qualitative [and therefore ‘phenomenological’] approach”, or will it take into consideration “the relation of individuals (including non-human ones) to their acoustic environment” (Truax 2004)?

The new questions, albeit provisional, are as follows:

Keywords: acoustic ecology, soundscape, composition, documentation, listening

1. What are soundscape studies’ and acoustic ecology’s respective 'genealogies' (Sarap 1993:59)?

2. What is soundscape composition’s genealogy?

3. What is a ‘found soundscape’ composition?

4. What is the relationship of the aforementioned interdisciplines of to the practice of ‘close listening’, and how is this practice utilised in the context of a found soundscape composition?

The above questions serve as a catalyst into several areas of investigation including:

The found soundscape composition as a method of documentation (including issues and aesthetic considerations);
Pioneers and current practitioners in the field of found soundscape composition (including Steven Feld, Chester Schultz, Bernie Krause, Annea Lockwood, Claude Schryer, Luc Ferrari, and founding members of the WSP and WFAE);
The phenomenological practitioner (i.e. What is?);
The future of acoustic ecology and soundscape studies.

On the Research Methods and Methodologies

Truax’s comments regarding the individual approaches led me back to two (of the three) philosophies I have been exploring intermittently since March in the hope that one might prove a suitable framework with which to support my ideas: specifically, James Gibson’s ‘Theory of Affordances’ (Gibson 1979) and Heideggerian ‘phenomenology.’ A recent article by Redström, which points to Gibson’s ecological approach to perception as a way of reconciling soundscape studies’ ecological-phenomenological divide, led me to consider the Theory of Affordances as an employable model alongside phenomenology. Redström writes:

“Ecology forces acoustic ecology to consider the acoustic environments for all species and not just humans. In order to do this, acoustic ecology has to complement its present phenomenological approach based on personal experience, with something that enables the community to describe and theorise about conditions for interaction between different sorts of agents and their environments... . The property of being a meaningful sound clearly depends on the interaction between agents, activities, and their acoustic environments. However, a complement that would satisfy the new demands of ecology might not have to force us to leave phenomenology. Using a theoretical framework like the theory of affordances...enables us to keep the phenomena while acknowledging the many and complex ways of agent world interaction" (Redström 2007).

Redström’s article is one of only several to which I return to on a regular basis for inspiration and for reference purposes, a fact which denotes my support of his argument, i.e. for acoustic ecology’s consideration of “the acoustic environments for all species and not just humans” (Redström 2007). That said, I continue to remain undecided as to which paradigm (or paradigms) will best serve to contextualise my creative work. The most practical suggestion thus far is that the act of composition is itself a method of research (Whittington 2009); this would include making decisions on what environmental sounds to collect/record and how to record them, and how to produce/arrange and present those individual recordings. Whittington went on to state that my "values" (i.e. my aesthetic preferences and therefore personal philosophy), will be reflected within those sounds collected and chosen to form part of the anthology of environmental sound recordings and, time permitting, found soundscape composition (Whittington 2009; Krause 2004).

Secondly, and issues of semantics aside, Whittington has on several occasions now stressed the need for “doing” (Whittington 2009). Admittedly, up to the present the majority of my research has focused on sourcing published information (i.e. traditional “arm-chair” research) around acoustic ecology and soundscape composition, leaving less time to involve myself in the practical component of the research (e.g. ‘ear-cleaning’ exercises, fieldwork and development of ideas pertaining to the anthology of sound recordings).** How this is relevant is (as Knopoff recently brought to my attention), given that any theoretical paradigm I choose to utilise (whether phenomenology, Theory of Affordances or a combination of the two), will inform both the process and outcome of the practical component of the research. Whittington has stated that the very act of going out into the field will assist me in my choice of research method, and in turn, clarification of the reasons behind my decision to pursue environmental soundscapes and the found soundscape composition as an area of research (Whittington 2009).

**N.B. I have proposed to my Supervisors that beginning in January 2010 the emphasis will be on ‘practice-led’ research.

The Practical Component to the Research and Beyond...

Reviewing my position back in February, it is clear that my research was motivated by a dual interest in the electroacoustic soundscape compositions (specifically, ‘Sound Maps’) of Annea Lockwood, and the realisation of a Sound Map of the River Murray, from its source in the Blue Mountains of NSW, to its mouth in Goolwa, SA. Issues regarding both timeframe and resource requirements saw me pare back the practical component to the research to a Sound Map of the River Torrens—a more local and less lengthy soundscape (i.e. 80KM versus 3000KM of riverine environment). Following the completion and submission of the CCSP I was required to further restructure the proposed research outcomes; these would now include a 35,000 word thesis and accompanying examples of environmental sound recordings. While the current emphasis still resides with the soundscape of the River Torrens, I am considering applying to upgrade to Ph.D. studies. In that context I propose a return to a sound map of the River Murray as a preferred option for the creative component (pending securing of adequate funding), with a sound map of the Torren River comprising a fall-back option.

The proposal to upgrade has been discussed on a number of occasions with my Supervisors, most recently given my application to the DR Stranks Fellowship for the purpose of undertaking a term of research at Simon Fraser University in 2010. Following the joint meeting it was brought to my attention by my Principal Supervisor Steven Knopoff, that Masters Candidates typically propose upgrades after the Major Review. However, there is no late cut-off and there have been instances of upgrades at the point of thesis submission. In exceptional cases there have been approvals prior to the major review, but this is not standard. While Knopoff has recommended I submit a proposal early in 2010, delaying an upgrade would allow me time to refine my ideas and practices, in particular, that pertaining to fieldwork and the philosophy underpinning my chosen field of research. Should my application to upgrade be successful, it is my intention to apply to several organisations (including Australian Federation of University Women, Australia Council and Arts SA) for assistance with the purchasing of equipment and travel-related expenses as relates to fieldwork essential to the realisation of a Sound Map of the River Murray.

Notes:

“Genealogical analysis, then, differs from traditional or historical analysis in several ways. Whereas traditional or ‘total’ history inserts events into grand explanatory systems and linear processes, celebrates great moments and individuals and seeks to document a point of origin, genealogical analysis attempts to establish and preserve the singularity of events, turns away from the spectacular in favour of the discredited, the neglected and a whole range of phenomena which have been denied a history.” In Sarap, Madan. An Introductory Guide to Post-structuralism and Postmodernism. 2nd ed. (Athens : University of Georgia Press, 1993), 59.

Affordances, specifically in the context for which it was devised, refers to what an environment ‘offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes’ that animal. Such offerings or provisions are “unique” or relative to the behaviour of the animal (e.g. the medium of levelled earth/ground is an affordance that affords the human a support on or by which to function; it would not afford a fish support in the same way. Affordances then, are about ‘the complementarities of animal and environment.’ From, Gibson, James J. “The Theory of Affordances.” In The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979.

“The interpretive paradigm recognises that meaning emerges through interaction. Two common qualitative methods employing this paradigm are: phenomenology -- concerned with discovering the essence of experience. Example questions may include, what is it like to have that experience?” In Anne Wilson. 2009. "Qualitative Research Methods." Lecture presented at the University of Adelaide Graduate Centre. 10 June, 2009.

Ecologist and phonographer Bernie Krause states, “what you collect when you venture out to record sound is actually a composition of sorts. Every choice you make in the field is a type of edit... . Every recording contains edits or choices of what goes and what stays. Every natural recording, like other recordings, is a mix—whether or not the recordist and/or the producer had a hand in the necessary ingredients.” In Bernie Krause. Wild Soundscapes: Discovering the Voice of the Natural World. 2nd ed. (Berkley: Wilderness Press, 2004) 87 and 115-116.

REFERENCES

Gallagher, Shaun and Dan Zahavi. The Phenomenological Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Sciences. London: Routledge, 2008.

Gibson, James J. “The Theory of Affordances.” In The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979.

Knopoff, Steven. 2009. Conversation with author. 10th October.

Krause, Bernie. Wild Soundscapes: Discovering the Voice of the Natural World. 2nd ed. Berkley: Wilderness Press, 2004.

Noble, Michael John. “Noise in a Silent Field: Speculative Engagement with Noise in Ecological Contexts.” In Acoustic Ecology: An International Symposium. 2003 : 8 pp. Online. Internet. 10 February 2009.

Redström, Johan. Is Acoustic Ecology About Ecology? February 2007 : 4 pp. Online. Internet. 20 January 2009.

Rogers, Daniel and Poppi Doser. 2009. Interview with author. Digital recording, Adelaide, 30th January.

Sarap, Madan. An Introductory Guide to Post-structuralism and Postmodernism. 2nd ed. Athens : University of Georgia Press, 1993.

Schafer, R. Murray. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. 2nd ed. Rochester, Vermont: Destiny Books, 1994.

Truax, Barry. 2009. “re: Masters Research.” Email correspondence with author. 10 October;

Wagstaff, Gregg. “Utopianism: From Cage to Acoustic Ecology.” In From Awareness to Action. Proceedings from “Stockholm, Hey Listen!” Conference on Acoustic Ecology, Stockholm June 9-13, 1998. Henrik Karlsson, ed. (Stockholm: The Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Partnership with the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE), 1998) 23-29.

Whittington, Stephen. 2009. Conversation with author. 30th June.

Whittington, Stephen and Poppi Doser. “Minutes: 9th June.” Grün Haselnuß. October 2009. http://poppidoser.blogspot.com/2009/06/minutes-9th-april.html (10 October 2009).

Wilson, Anne. "Qualitative Research Methods." Lecture presented at the University of Adelaide Graduate Centre. 10 June, 2009.

'Lo-Fi' Skizophonia

2009-10-30T18:21:00.019+10:30

Pro Tools Audiosuite's (Harmonic) 'Lo-Fi': I love love love this plug-in right now(! (I've never seen such a "messed up" waveform -- see below).

It's interface is very similar to those myself and others created in Max/MSP during second year Music Technology, which leads me to wonder if it his particular one was made locally, more specifically, by either a previous and/or current E.M.U. student... .

Hear an Example: