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This volume reads the global urban environment through mediated sonic practices to put a contemporary spin on acoustic ecology's investigations at the intersection of space, cultures, technology, and the senses. Acoustic ecology is an interdisciplinary framework from the 1970s for documenting, analyzing, and transforming sonic environments: an early model of the cross-boundary thinking and multi-modal practices now common across the digital humanities. With the recent emergence of sound studies and the expansion of "ecological" thinking, there is an increased urgency to re-discover and contemporize the acoustic ecology tradition. This book serves as a comprehensive investigation into the ways in which current scholars working with sound are re-inventing acoustic ecology across diverse fields, drawing on acoustic ecology's focus on sensory experience, place, and applied research, as well as attendance to mediatized practices in sounded space. From sounding out the Anthropocene, to rethinking our auditory media landscapes, to exploring citizenship and community, this volume brings the original acoustic ecology problem set into the contemporary landscape of sound studies.
List of contents
1. Sound, Media, Ecology: Introduction in Three Acts, Milena Droumeva and Randolph Jordan.- Section I: Acoustic Ecology: Foundations and Critical Responses.- 2. Acoustic ecology and the World Soundscape Project, Barry Truax.- 3. The Disruptive Nature of Listening, Hildegard Westerkamp.- 4. Local Eardonances: The Contribution of Acoustic Ecology to the History and Present-Day Practice of Noise Abatement, Karin Bijsterveld.- 5. Multimodal Scholarship in World Soundscape Project Composition: Toward a Different Media-Theoretical Legacy (Or: The WSP as OG DH), Jonathan Sterne.- Section II: Environment and Community.- 6. Nothing Connects Us But Imagined Sound, Mitchell Akiyama.- 7. Havana's Falling Tanks and Flooded Laneways: Examining the Acoustic Community, Vincent Andrisani.- 8. Acoustic Ecology and Ecological Sound Art: Listening to Changing Ecosystems, Leah Barclay.- 9. Listening toEcological Interference: Renewable Technologies and their Soundscapes, Linda O'Keeffe.- Section III: Media and Society.- 10. The Uncanny Soundscapes of the Palestinian Exile: Rethinking About Technics, Memory, and Sound, Özgün Eylül Iscen.- 11. Responsive Listening: Negotiating cities of sirens, smartphones and sensors, Sarah Barns.- 12. Listening to Traffic with Guts and Antennae, Andra McCartney.- 13. Acouscenic Listening, Sean Taylor and Mikael Förnstrom (Softday).- 14. Evening of Sounds: Cultures in Call-in Programmes, Heikki Uimonen.
About the author
Milena Droumeva is Assistant Professor in Communication and Glenfraser Endowed Professor in Sound Studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, specializing in cultural sound studies and sensory ethnography. She works across the fields of urban soundscape research, sonification for public engagement, as well as gender and sound in video games.
Randolph Jordan is Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. His research, teaching, and creative practice reside at the intersections of soundscape research, media studies, and critical geography. He has published widely on the ways in which the fields of acoustic ecology and film sound studies can inform each other.
Summary
This volume reads the global urban environment through mediated sonic practices to put a contemporary spin on acoustic ecology’s investigations at the intersection of space, cultures, technology, and the senses. Acoustic ecology is an interdisciplinary framework from the 1970s for documenting, analyzing, and transforming sonic environments: an early model of the cross-boundary thinking and multi-modal practices now common across the digital humanities. With the recent emergence of sound studies and the expansion of “ecological” thinking, there is an increased urgency to re-discover and contemporize the acoustic ecology tradition. This book serves as a comprehensive investigation into the ways in which current scholars working with sound are re-inventing acoustic ecology across diverse fields, drawing on acoustic ecology’s focus on sensory experience, place, and applied research, as well as attendance to mediatized practices in sounded space. From sounding out the Anthropocene, to rethinking our auditory media landscapes, to exploring citizenship and community, this volume brings the original acoustic ecology problem set into the contemporary landscape of sound studies.
