If we wish to develop a more sustainable future, we urgently need to reconnect to our environment and restore a more reciprocal relationship with the earth. In the Radio ArtEZ podcast series Sounding Places / Listening Places writer and music journalist Joep Christenhusz and creator of sound works, writer and Deep Listener Sharon Stewart enquire how sound and listening can help us to do so.
In contemporary Western culture we seem to have lost an intimate connection with the land. More often than not we consider our surroundings as a passive backdrop in which humankind can take center stage: controlling the landscape, developing infrastructures, and extracting resources at will. This rather anthropocentric position has become unviable, however, as recent human-driven ecological crises – like climate change, the dramatic loss of biodiversity and large-scale destruction of habitats – are clearly indicating. If we wish to develop a more sustainable future, we urgently need to reconnect to our environment and restore a more reciprocal relationship with the earth.
In this first episode we focus on the natural soundscape with musician and soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause, composer Evelien van den Broek and soundscape composer and Acoustic Communication Researcher Barry Truax.
Shownotes
In the audio examples from Evelien van de Broek’s Biophonica the following field recordings were used:
on track ‘I Rainforest’, we heard recordings by Bernie Krause, PhD.
the field recordings on track ‘III The Last Northern White Rhinoceros’ were provided by Dr. Ivana Cinková of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Palacký University Olomouc.
the field recordings on track ‘IV The Blue Whale’ were retrieved from Freesound.org
Reading and Listening
Krause, Bernie, The Great Animal Orchestra (Back Bay Books, 2013)
LaBelle, Brandon, Background Noise, Perspectives on Sound Art (Bloomsbury, 2006)
Schafer, R Murray, The Soundscape, Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World (Destiny Books, 1994)
Truax, Barry, Acoustic Communication (Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1984)
Van den Broek, Evelien, Endlings (album): evelienvandenbroek.bandcamp.com/album/endlings
World Soundscape Project, The Vancouver Soundscape (album): www.soundohm.com/product/the-vancouver-soundscape
