Group items tagged

"Why can't you see in outer space and why can't you hear in a rainforest? A conversation, with sound illustrations, with the composer and sound artist Francisco López in advance of his performance at EMPAC in Troy, New York on April 28, 29, 30, 2011. Touching on his past and future creations and experiments including a 2001 work for the now inaccessible Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage interior and even a recording of our Clocktower clockworks. Plus a a profile of his remarkable new project, SONM (Sound Archive of Experimental Music and Sound Art), in Murcia, Spain."

David Tudor and John Driscoll demonstrating the performance installation, Rainforest IV (1973)

"ATTA (Amplifying the Tropical Ants) is a multimedia research project on ant acoustics in the Brazilian Amazon producing results in bioacoustic anaylsis, sound works, and music composition. I first visited Manaus, Brazil as an artist-in-residence with Labverde in July 2017. On this trip I made preliminary recordings of ant species and their habitats and used these as the basis of several new music compositions. Since then, I have been collaborating with entomologists Erica Valle and Fabricio Baccaro at the Universidade Federal do Amazonas / INPA on a collaborative research project encompassing bioacoustics, field recording, behavioral ecology, taxonomy, music composition, and acoustic ecology. Ants are doing so much of the vital work maintaining tropical rainforest ecosystem functions: herbivory, seed dispersal, predation, decomposition, soil aeration - and their habitats are in turn crucial to global climate regulation. Can listening to ants generate empathy and encourage us to do our part in countering climate change? Can listening to insects remind us how little we know - and that we are not in charge of nature? Can it shift our perspective and encourage us to consider a biocentric viewpoint? "

"Chris Watson shares his experience as a composer and location wildlife sound recordist, discussing the technical elements of field sound recording and presenting his recordings of the rainforests near Iguazu Falls in Brazil and Brinicles (icicles forming under sea ice) in the Arctic and Antarctic. He concludes with a case study, presenting a piece of sound art, commissioned by the National Gallery, created in response to John Constable's The Cornfield."

"I love talking about field recording, as you can gather from reading my blog or following me on social media. I'm deeply passionate about all aspects of the discipline and I also love to inspire others to pursue it. Something I haven't talked much about is the editing and mastering side, probably because it isn't as glamorous as teetering on the edge of a volcano or being chased by an orangutan in the rainforest. It may also be because I do my best to escape the studio whenever I can, and this would mean more time spent indoors. At any rate, with this blog post I'm trying to fix that."

"Sound is everywhere in tropical forests. Rain drips from water-slicked leaves, birds screech, monkeys titter and bellow, branches crack, wind moans, and insects chirp and buzz. Vibrations pierce the humid understory and echo through the airy canopy, creating a symphony of sounds that speaks to both artist and scientist. Monacchi is harvesting artistic inspiration as well as data. The chirps and rattles contain information about how species interact with the environment and each other, as well as the health of the habitat. Sometimes Monacchi uses his recordings to inspire the public, sometimes to inform ecological research. "I'm trying to be at the edge of both worlds," he says."