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"Dr. William W.H. 'Bill' Gunn (1913-1984) was a field recordist, conservationist and early populariser of nature sounds, recording landscapes in the Galapagos Islands, East Africa, Sri Lanka and locations across Canada including its Far North. A key technique in his practice and teaching was sound microscopy-slowing down the playback of his recordings to reveal details unable to be perceived at full speed. This presentation considers Gunn's slowing in relation to a range of contemporaneous practices of slowing (in speech therapy, music composition, etc.) as well as the context of his field and the 'slow violence' of ecological devastation. As listeners, we meditate on the wonder elicited from Gunn's human audience but also the absences, extractions and exclusions entwined with Gunn's exploration of musical microcosms."

"Some say that acoustic ecology places a negative emphasis on noise in urban environments. In fact, it is concerned with improving the quality of the sonic environment, or soundscape, by re-sensitizing aural faculties both on the individual and the social level. This approach was pioneered in the late 1960s by the Canadian composer, educator, and founder of the World Soundscape Project, R. Murray Schafer. He realized that it was better to set aside moralizing about noise pollution in order to objectively study all aspects of the soundscape."

"What are the political potentials of listening? How does sound define the crossing of the territories of contemporaneity, of the differences in race, gender, social belonging? How can we, in the invisible depth of sound, define our belonging to the contemporary world, taking an active position in issues that concern ethics, subjectivity, the principles of collective and individual living?"

"Today a growing group of sonic artists engage with plants as collaborators in their processes and creations. The duo Feral Practice invites audience members to sound walks in forests to reflect on ecological and social issues in the vicinity of trees. Sound artist Mileece senses signals from plants to develop sound-generating algorithms that she combines with field recordings to design immersive sound installations, a technology akin to the one used by Tosca Terán to detect activity in mycorrhizal systems which she converts into musical notes. Cristina Ochoa and Eduardo Vindiola read signalling activity in beets and modulate their rhythmic patterns to perform with them. Leslie Garcia studies plant communication to design prosthetic devices that simulate an abstract voice for plants through a process of biofeedback."