conscient podcast

e157 sonic research group (part 1)

Episode Notes

• The most interesting part to me is to discover what we're not listening to and why we are not doing that. I think it's wonderful that I've had the chance to learn this listening from so early on where you're trained to listen to the environment and at that time it was more about listening to the sounds of the environment and critiquing them, analyzing them, trying to understand them. To me that subject has widened hugely and really has to do about listening in general and trying to understand why we are listening to things and why we're not listening to things. And so it becomes a political, social, cultural question on every level and when a society has a crisis, it's often really good to observe what we really don't want to listen to and who we are listening to and how we combine that. And I feel we are in a stage of real crisis right now. And that's why this subject matter has taken on great significance now. - Hildegard Westerkamp, March 5, 2024 conscient podcast e157

This is a special episode of the conscient podcast with 6 colleagues and friends from the Sonic Research Group at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver (this time with Milena Droumeva, Hildegard Westerkamp, Barry Truax, Julie Andreyev, Aaron Liu-Rosenbaum and myself). It's a group of 20 or so acoustic ecology researchers, activists and artists who get together every two weeks to talk about our practices and sound studies, and the things that interest us in and around the field of acoustic ecology and soundscape studies. 

I had the privilege of having five of my colleagues join me on a conversation about the theme of this year's podcast season: preparing for the end of the world as we know it (and the ‘as we know it’ part is really important) and creating the conditions for other worlds to emerge. That's the challenge that I've given myself and my guests this season.

I asked the group to think about the following set of questions: 

• How does ‘preparing for the end of the work (as we know it)’ apply in the context of acoustic ecology? How can our listening practices help us become more resilient in the face of the ecological crisis?
• How does ‘creating conditions for new worlds’ apply in acoustic ecology? How can listening and sound studies contribute to creating these conditions? What are some of the barriers for acoustic ecology to step up?
• How do any projects you are working on relate to this theme and how can this work be amplified?

Recommended reading and viewing in this episode include Jonathan Glazer's Zone of Interest film and Vanessa Andreotti’s Hopicing Modernity book.