Acoustic Ecology
Exploring the Aural World
An Acoustic Ecology Reader
We all know pretty well what a landscape is, but what is a soundscape? What are its boundaries, how is it defined and where it can be found? And how can we distinguish soundscape from ecoacoustics, or even just background noise?
Conceived as a collaboration between HISVoice and Agosto Foundation, Acoustic Ecology: Exploring the Aural World brings together important writings on the subject curated by Miloš Vojtěchovský with editorial revisions in the English texts by Lloyd Dunn.
Together with Martin Lauer’s new Czech translation of R. Murray Schafer’s seminal booklet The New Soundscape, we unveil a new media collection dealing with this timely subject. The debut of this new translation also gives us an opportunity to supplement the original with a two additions to the pdf and epub editions: “Ordering of Sounds” by Sabine Breitsameter and a biographical text by Josef Cseres on R. Murray Schafer. (Both the Breisameter and Cseres texts are also reproduced separately in the online collection.)
Further contributions by early actors in this conceptual space come in the form of an excerpt from Voices of Tyranny, Temples of Silence by R. Murray Schafer, and the essay Soundscape Composition as Global Music by Barry Truax.
In addition, the present online collection supplements these ideas with a text on microphones by Marc Peter Wright asking whether microphones serve as active agents and, if so, what the consequences might be. Also featured is a recent interview with the sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard on his installation Testimonium, and the analytical essay Antropocene Out Loud examining conceptions of the relationships between humans and sound by Anna Kvíčalová. We also include, documentation of the International Dawn Chorus project, devoted to early morning bird calls, which was broadcast on Czech Radio in May 2020.
The series is ongoing. Please watch this space for additional material, which will be added as it is collected and edited.
Currently, you can also read the interview with Milos Vojtěchovský (only in Czech) on HISVoice, which discusses in depth his work on the project project sonicity.cz.
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Cartography of (Eco)systems / RurArtMap and Perpedian Map: Black Edition
We are pleased to announce the acceptance of our grant application for Cartography of (Eco)systems / RurArtMap and Perpedian Map: Black Edition has been approved for funding under the programme Culture Call "Capacity building of umbrella associations, networks and platforms”.
The project builds upon the Agosto Foundation Perpedian Map, and joins it with the yo-yo association’s RurArtMap with the aim of offering support to small non-profit and non-governmental art and cultural organisations, communities, initiatives and individuals, who create and contribute to the local contemporary milieux that lie within their immediate reach. On part of the project will consist of online and printed maps, put together in collaboration with representatives of independent cultural centers and communities from rural and peripheral regions.
A special thanks is due to Ewa Jacobsson for mediating our search for the Norwegian partner Harpefoss Hotell Kunstarena. Located in the southern part of Norway in the countryside, Harpefoss Hotell Kunstarena has long operated in the local community, promoting contemporary art, organizing art festivals, concerts and conferences. A former train station hotel from the 1800s, today it is an established cultural center, as well as devoting itself to publications. TILT, a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration in art, design, and architecture, initiates social and eco-art projects that are directly related to the focus of our project.
The project will run from January 2020 to July 2022 and we will be sharing our progress with you on an ongoing basis.
Tamás Sajó
Art Historian in Residence
Dr. Tamás Sajó is an art historian, translator, travel guide and blogger. He specializes in reading and revealing the historical and cultural meaning of situated artworks (icons in churches, the genius loci of architectural ensembles, and the like) and historically-steeped places with a special interest in what has disappeared, or is in the process of being lost. Originally from Budapest, and currently living and working in Berlin, Sajó speaks, reads and translates in fifteen languages. He regularly leads orchestrated tours, which he describes as “peripatetic lectures” throughout the historically rich cities and regions of Eurasia.
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beepblip
Ida Hiršenfelder
Artist in Residence
beepblip (Ida Hiršenfelder) is a sound artist and archivist based in Ljubljana. She makes bleepy, immersive psychogeographical soundscapes through the use of analogue electronics, DIY and modular synths, field recordings and computer manipulations. She is interested in the history of media, archives and their disappearance, media archeology, and the philosophy of temporality. In the context of sound art, Hiršenfelder is specifically interested in bioacoustics and microtonal music. She composes experimental soundscapes by means of of analogue electronics, field recordings, and computer manipulations.
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