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ACOUSTIC ECOLOGY IN AUSTRALIA

February 2023

11/2/2023

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WFAE 2023 International Conference

The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology is excited to announce Listening Pasts - Listening Futures, its first hybrid virtual and in-person international conference since 2011, to be held in March 23-26 2023 both at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and online.
The 2023 conference coincides with the 30th anniversary of the WFAE, founded in 1993, during 'Tuning of the World: The First International Conference on Acoustic Ecology' at the Banff Centre for the Arts.
Featured guest speakers include Amanda Gutiérrez (Mexico/Canada), Claude Schryer (Canada) and David George Haskell (UK/USA).

Three-day virtual tickets are available for $50 USD regular rate or $15 USD student rate.
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For more information, please visit the links below:
WFAE 2023 Conference Website
WFAE 2023 Conference Tickets

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Join the AFAE Discord Server

The AFAE has just launched a new Discord server, where members around the continent can discuss all things acoustic ecology, including field recording, soundwalking, research and creative practice.

To join the AFAE Discord server, join the AFAE as a member, with further instructions provided upon signing up.

Left: Ebb and Flow by Vicki Hallett; Right: Image by Tristan Louth Robins

AFAE 2022 Activities

AFAE Members have been involved in a variety of creative and research across 2022:
  • Jesse Budel engaged in several creative projects involving soundscape composition, including DWELL, a screen-dance work focus on endangered species in three South Australian ecosystems, and Herding Caterpillars, a VR project exploring the lifecycle of the Checkered Copper Butterfly.  He also mentored emerging composer Caspar Hawksley in a site-specific improvisation and recording project as part of a Carclew Fellowship. 
  • Vicki Hallett released new EP Ebb and Flow, a sound exploration using underwater recordings of the Barwon River revealing aquatic bugs, fish and other hidden creatures.
  • Anthony Magen has been working full-time in one the Country's fastest growing municipalities in Western Melbourne. In my capacity as a landscape architect I am able to instill and install sonic objects and share ways of listening daily through the creation of new playspaces and land modification. Loving the appreciation of sonically  sophisticated listening is developing in Australia. Listen to the land, listen to the people.
  • Tristan Louth Robins has continued to write on his explorations in ecoacoustic data analysis in his blog, Wrangling in the Antipodes. Posts from 2022 include examinations of applying acoustic indices in context and an introduction to acoustic detection algorithms.

​WFAE 2022 Updates

Over the past year, the WFAE has seen a number of exciting developments:

  • Review of the WFAE Bylaws, the first since their ratification in 1998
  • ​The addition of new WFAE Affiliate Member, REA_MX (Red Ecología Acústica México)
  • The first WFAE Associate Membership given to SVARAM, based in Tamil Nadu, India
  • The further development of the WFAE Library Catalogue on Librarika, featuring now over 700 entries of acoustic ecology-related media and resources

For more information, visit wfae.net.
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WFAE 2023 Conference​Listening Pasts - Listening Futures

25/9/2022

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The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology is excited to announce Listening Pasts - Listening Futures, its first hybrid virtual and in-person international conference since 2011, to be held in March 2023.

The 2023 conference coincides with the 30th anniversary of the WFAE, founded in 1993, during 'Tuning of the World: The First International Conference on Acoustic Ecology' at the Banff Centre for the Arts. 

Call for proposals: 
https://www.wfae.net/conference2023-cfp.html  

LOCATIONS

Conference Hub and Co-Presenter: Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida USA
  • Program Partner: Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida USA 
  • Program Partner: Stetson University, Deland, Florida USA​

DATES

  • 18 July, 2022 - call for proposals opens
  • Midnight October 1, 2022 - call for proposals closes
  • November 1, 2022 - accepted proposals notified
  • Thursday 23 to Sunday 26 March, 2023  - WFAE Conference Dates (Check in begins noon on Wednesday, 22 March)
  • Saturday, 18 March through Wednesday, 22 March: Pre-conference Community Engagement Programs hosted at various local venues including Stetson University, Canaveral National Seashore, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Florida State Parks.​

REGISTRATION FEES

Registration, with lodging at the Atlantic Centre for the Arts
  • Full fee (3-day attendance, accommodation & meals inclusive) – $650.00 USD
  • Early Bird / WFAE Member Rate – $550.00 USD
  • Verified Student/Need-based Rate – $400.00 USD

Registration, with no lodging at ACA (accomodation to be sought be delegate)
  • Full fee (3-day attendance + lunch) – $275.00 USD
  • Early Bird (3-day attendance + lunch) – $210.00 USD
  • Full fee (single day attendance + lunch) – $125.00 USD
  • Student fee (3-day attendance + lunch) – $100.00 USD
  • Student fee (single day attendance + lunch) – $50.00 USD
Please note that recommendations for accomodation close to the conference site will be provided upon registrations open.

Registration, virtual conference
  • Virtual attendance (3 days, incl. registration to Discord community channel) –  $50.00 USD
  • Virtual attendance (single day, incl. registration to Discord community channel) – $20.00 USD

Please note that recommendations for accomodation close to the conference site will be provided upon registrations opening in January 2023.

DESCRIPTION

Listening Pasts - Listening Futures convenes a global cohort as we mark the 30th anniversary of the founding of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE), and the first international conference on acoustic ecology in the United States of America. Now, as we mark this moment, we gather to consider how we can collectively and differently learn from the past, to imagine new futures based on a diversity of listening practices and acoustic relationships in our worlds. As the wider field of sound studies has matured, so have the contributions made by acoustic ecology to much current sonic scholarship and practice. At the same time, critical directions in sound studies have addressed the legacies of the World Soundscape Project and acoustic ecology directly: this is our chance, as a community, to reflect, look back, and re-imagine the core values of our field, its central approaches, methods, and key theorists of past, present, and future. We know acoustic ecology and soundscape studies have much still to give to the world at a pivotal environmental awakening. 

Among the appeals of ACA are its support of soundscape studies with the Soundscape Field Station artist residency and related programming, especially our shared mission and values of community engagement. These values reflect the topics in which we invite proposals including paper presentations, workshops, performances, and installations.

Located near the Canaveral National Seashore, in the unceded lands of the Seminole people, Atlantic Center for the Arts offers access to the beauty of this wild coastal habitat. Mangroves, manatees, and Spanish moss are here in one of the region’s last remaining areas protected from development.
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AFAE General News - Reveil 2020, Voices of Nature, Site and Sound, and COVID Soundscapes

18/2/2021

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Reveil 2020 (International Dawn Chorus Day)
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Reveil is a collective production by streamers at listening points around the planet. Starting on the morning of Saturday 2 May in South London near the Greenwich Meridian, the broadcast picked up feeds one by one, tracking the sunrise west from microphone to microphone, following the wave of intensified sound that loops the earth every 24 hours at first light.

In 2020 Reveil featured new streams from places where humans and non-humans meet, in soundscapes often radically altered by the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of these streams come from homes and gardens as people make connections between the domestic spaces where they find themselves.

Themes of connection and collective practices addressing changes in public space inform the program of extended radio projects that accompanies the Reveil broadcast. Supported by Arts Council England originally as a series of site-specific commissions, these have become virtual projects that respond directly or obliquely to the current situation. They help to recollect kinds of sociability that have been lost and point to others on the way. This is imagined sonically as an acoustic commons in the making.

On the Thursday prior to Reveil 2020, the AFAE was involved in one of Arts Front's Little Lunches, with AFAE president Leah Barclay talking with Tristan Louth Robins, Nicole Caroll and Jesse Budel about their featured streams in the event.  The live stream recording of this discussion can be viewed below.

Reveil 2020 was mixed live by Soundcamp in London UK (Grant Smith, Hannah Kemp-Welch) and Crete GR (Maria Papadomanolaki) with guest mixers in South River Ontario CA (Darren Copeland, NAISA) and Sunshine Coast, Queensland AUS (Leah Barclay, AFAE and Biosphere Soundscapes).

For more information on Reveil, visit https://soundtent.org/soundcamp_reveil.html

Art Front's Little Lunch #25, featuring AFAE members talking about Reveil 2020

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Voices of Nature 2020 (AFAE-AELA Partnership)

"Voices of Nature 2020"  was a national arts celebration presented by the Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA), AFAE and Arts Front to generate dynamic, cross-disciplinary interactions and projects for “Voices of Nature 2020”, and look forward to engaging with the science, technology, art, wonder and acoustic expertise of AFAE members.

“Voices of Nature 2020” explored of the concepts of ‘voice’, ‘standing’, ‘representation’ and ‘agency’ of the natural world within human governance systems. The theme also promoted AELA’s desire to focus on sound art and acoustic ecology as key mediums for communicating and exploring nature’s voice/s.

The program featured a variety of different platforms, including:
  • The National Exhibition ran from 12-17 October 2020 at Vacant Assembly in Brisbane's West End, in conjunction with AELA’s week of exploring and celebrating the Rights of Nature.
  • A Virtual Gallery featured works by artist from around Australia
  • AELA’s first anthology, “Earthwords and Artlings” was  published in October 2020, as part of the Voices of Nature arts celebration.  
  • The International Conference, “Earth Laws Asia Pacific”, was held in Brisbane on 14-16 October 2020
  • A Public Lecture Series was also held, with topics including:
    • 10 September 2020 – Exploring the Voices of Nature
    • 12 September 2020 – Nature Writing Workshop with Vivienne Glance
    • 15 September 2020 – Listening to Nature – a webinar with Andrew Skeoch and Michelle Maloney
    • 1 October 2020 – Poetry as the Conservation of the Wild
    • 12 October 2020 – DEEP LISTENING in the natural world with Andrew Skeoch


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Site and Sound: Sonic Art As Ecological Practice Exhibition

Site and Sound: Sonic Art As Ecological Practice is a new art exhibition offering immersive sound environments and listening events in a bid to help us come to grips with urgent and complex environmental issues.

Exhibiting at the McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery in Langwarrin, Victoria until April 11 2021, the show features works by 27 sounds artists, including AFAE members Leah Barclay, Ros Bandt and Nigel Frayne, and acoustic ecology pioneer Barry Truax.

More information can be found in articles by The Age and Australian Financial Review, or on the gallery website.


Other News

Soundscapes in the time of COVID-19: Observations around the globe

Following COVID-19 lockdowns around the globe, there have been numerous observations made on the impact of reduced human activity in acoustic environments:
  • In the May issue of The Monthly, Nicola Redhouse's article, 'Quiet Life', discussed the work of various acoustic ecologists during the pandemic.
  • The interactive New York Times article, 'The Coronavirus Quieted City Noise. Listen to What’s Left' by Bui and Badger compares urban soundscapes pre and post lockdown.
  • Tom Banse's article, 'The Pandemic Gives PNW Whales A Break From The Din Of Underwater Noise' for OPB investigates the impact of reduced ocean traffic during lockdown.
  • Douglas Quan's 'Listen up: In these disquieting COVID-19 times, hushed cities are making a loud impression on our ears' for The Star (Canada), discusses pandemic soundscapes with input from acoustic ecology pioneers Barry Truax and Hildegard Westerkamp, amongst others.
  • Ian Sample's 'Wave of silence' spread around world during coronavirus pandemic' in The Guardian considers the seismological impacts of decreased traffic and machinery use.
Many podcasts, recordings and multimedia projects have also been released, including:
  • Interiorities: Sonic Experiment and Documents from Lockdown, by Kate Carr
  • 'The Last Sound' on NPR's Invisibilia, hosted by Hanna Rosin and Alex Spiegil
  • 'Human Life Is Literally Quieter Due To Coronavirus Lockdown', a short feature by NPR
  • Cities and Memories' #stayhomesounds project, inviting people from around the globe to submit sound recordings from where they live during COVID-19.
  • Window-Swap features 10-minute audiovisual snapshots from people's homes in isolation.
  • Contributions of sounds in isolation on Radio Aporee
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AFAE News: Member Updates

28/1/2021

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Here, we look at a number of updates from AFAE members, focussed on activities occurring across 2020 and into 2021.  Read on for updates from Ros Bandt, Vicki Hallett, Tristan Louth Robins, Jesse Budel, Clare Hall and Anthony Magen:
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Australian Art Music Awards:
​Ros Bandt receives Distinguished Services to Australian Music Award


As part of the 2020 Australian Art Music Awards, AFAE member Dr Ros Bandt has received an award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music. The oration for her award outlines her "compelling contribution to Australian music":

"If it is the task of an artist to transcend her medium, then Dr Ros Bandt is an exemplar in her field. As composer and sound artist dedicated to intercultural acoustic improvisation, she has created a globally-recognised body of work over four decades. 

Whether working in the ancient cities of Crete or in the Australian bush, working with First Nations peoples or in other cross-cultural collaborations, she has made a unique career showcasing her liminal sonic compositions.  Dr Bandt's first environmental recording was made in a water tank in 1979, using a reel-to-reel tape recorder, a length of sewer pipe, a gong and a Renaissance recorder.  As her oeuvre developed, she implemented electroacoustic sound fields, electronic instrumentation and acoustic sculptures. A superb instrumentalist, she adopted the tarhu, a hybrid-string instrument developed in Australia, to further augment her compositions. 

Dr Bandt's academic career is significant, and the book, 'Sound Sculpture', is a seminal book in her field.  She directs the Australian Sound Design Project at Melbourne University, has taught sound art at the VCA and RMIT and advanced improvisation at the Box Hill Institute, and is in demand as a keynote speaker.  The first woman to be awarded the Don Banks Music Award in 1991, she has also won the inaugural Benjamin Cohen Peace Prize and the Sound Art Australia Prize, funded by the ABC and Goethe-Institut.

Dr Bandt is an inspiration to those who pursue art as a measure of worlds that would not reveal themselves to us unless someone first opened them up for inspection."


A comprehensive overview of Bandt's work can be read in Linda Kouvaras' AMC article, 'Ros Bandt: Sound-Sculptor/ Poet-Protector/ Crusader of the Land'.


Vicki Hallett: Habitat and Barwon Listening (with Ros Bandt)
Habitat is a creative project by three Australian musicians - AFAE Member Vicki Hallett on woodwinds and loops, Jeremy Alsop on bass, strings and laptop and Steve Falk on marimba and percussions - with Jem Savage as sound engineer and video by Marie Pangaud.  The project uses recordings of elephant vocalisations from Cornell Lab's Elephant Listening Project as its main source material.

​This concert recording captures one of the last live Australian music performances before COVID-19 caused the industry to shut down. It is the culmination of a creative project between three musicians who share a passion for using the sounds of the environments of endangered species to highlight their plights through innovative performances employing the universal language of music.

A Facebook Live stream of the performance on World Elephant Day, August 12, featured an introduction by Vicki Hallett, Jeremy Alsop, Leah Barclay and Rachel Morley.

The Habitat project shares a listening experience which invites you to immerse within the environment of the Forest elephant in Africa. The listener is invited by the Call of the Forest to enter the Central African forest, gather some leaves and collect honey. Further down the trail, and if all goes well, you just may encounter the endangered African forest elephants.

The Habitat EP, released on World Elephant Day, is available for purchase at https://habitat3.bandcamp.com/album/habitat.
PictureBarwon River at Sunset. Photo by Ros Bandt.

​Barwon Listening: seawater/freshwater - What do we hear? 
Ros Bandt and Vicki Hallett are two sound artists and musicians passionate in their interpretation of the environment through sound. Their creative works are derived from original recordings and research of habitat. Barwon Listening focuses on sensing the Barwon River in Victoria, Australia. Exploring the river from their kayaks, using hydrophones and other recording devices, Bandt and Hallett will track the River from the Otways to the estuary where freshwater meets saltwater. How many species of fish, eels, underwater insects, seagrasses, crustaceans and birds are having dialogues we can’t usually share? Many little-heard sounds will be uncovered and woven into new sonic creations: what does it feel like to be in the sound world of a mangrove, a seal, a pelican? These river experiences will become exploratory artworks attuned to the river itself. Works will be shared through live performances, installations and online through the Hearing Places website: www.hearingplaces.com

PictureKayak exploration. Photo by Ros Bandt.
WHY SOUND?  WHY LISTENING?
Sound is a powerful indicator of what is happening in a given space, its life and health. Listening, tuning in to what is around us, informs us of presence & absence, the behaviour and interrelationships of living things. Being together, reflecting and creating, Sensing Sound duo gives value and respect to the habitat, what has gone before, what we hear now and how it inspires musical creativity. This project uncovers and celebrates many little-heard sounds in unique ways for all to share. Listening is immersive, requiring attentiveness. Sound-sensing eclipses science and art in different ways every second. Did you hear it?

PictureSensing Sound, Ros Bandt (left), Vicki Hallett (right). Photo by Arthur McDevitt.
“Sensing Sound” duo, Ros Bandt and Vicki Hallett, brings together two creative environmental sound artists and performers who probe nature-human relationships in outdoor and indoor contexts. Each installation and performance is an organic osmosis of audible, visual, sculptural and performative elements rendered from the site itself. They have collaborated for the last four years, creating original environmental site-specific spatial sound works, commissioned twice by the City of Greater Geelong for Geelong After Dark (GAD) creating the night works Earthscape 2018 and Human Aquarium public installation (2019) joined by collaborator Jem Savage, creative sound designer.

Bandt and Hallett have performed at SeenSound, the Loop Bar, New and Experimental Arts Laboratory (NEAL), the Tate Gallery, Fryerstown and devised interactive multichannel audience participatory concerts and exhibitions such as Freshwater Listening to celebrate 10 years of acoustic ecology in Australia.
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Both artists, individually and together are key players in acoustic ecology, biodiversity, and underwater and wildlife recordings, continually sensing the environment through sound in unique spaces, from Africa (Hallett), to Greece (Bandt) and beyond. The Barwon River is their common home ground where they share a special attachment, individually and together.


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Member Update: Tristan Louth Robins

​Following the devastating impact of bushfires around Australia in early 2020, a number of AFAE members have responded in the aftermath with soundscape works.

AFAE Member Tristan Louth Robins curated a charity album, Waves (for Kangaroo Island), to raise funds for the recovery of the Kangaroo Island community in South Australia. Alongside this, Tristan has also included recordings made on the island in October 2019 on his Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island Sound Map, documenting soundscapes at Flinders Chase National Park and Hanson Bay prior to the fires.

Tristan explains more recent activities in his own words:

"Following the devastating bushfires of 2020, I returned to Kangaroo Island for a few days in September 2020 and documented soundscapes of Flinders Chase National Park and Hanson Bay, as well as other regions of the island for the Fleurieu & Kangaroo Island Sound Map. 


With a fairly open schedule for 2021, I’m keen to concentrate my research activities around the Fleurieu Peninsula. Over the 2020-21 summer I’ve been documenting the soundscapes of Lady Bay. With its intricate networks of reefs, sea grasses, fish and crustacean species, it’s a pristine coastal environment that I’m looking forward to investigating further, with recordings to be shared on the sound map in the near future. In terms of local engagement, I’m progressing plans to invite Fleurieu communities to a series of sound walks and recording workshops in and around the township of Normanville and Myponga Reservoir. These should hopefully eventuate by mid-2021. 

Away from the Fleurieu, my new permanent installation, Sternere is open to the public at the Barossa Adventure Station in Angaston, South Australia.

Lastly, in recent months I’ve been doubling down on learning data science and I’ve just launched a blog, Wrangling In The Antipodes, which will examine environmental and acoustic ecology datasets through exploratory data analysis (i.e. lots of visualisations.)"

Jesse Budel

In mid-2020, Jesse joined the WFAE Executive as the new WFAE Secretary.  Over the past half-year, various tasks have included included engagement with new affiliates in the US Midwest and Mexico, reconnecting with existing regional affiliates, holding the WFAE’s first-ever online board meeting, reviewing and updating WFAE bylaws first written in 1998, preparation of the WFAE’s Library and ongoing archival activities.

More recently, Jesse released a new album entitled Cathedrals, featuring recordings from three Australian sites in or near UNESCO Biosphere Reserves. In part inspired and in part assisted by Leah Barclay’s ‘Biosphere Soundscapes’ project, the recordings document three locations:

- Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve on Jinibara Country (QLD), in the region of Noosa Biosphere Reserve
- Wamoon/Wilson’s Promontory on Koori Country (VIC), site of Wilson’s Promontory Biosphere Reserve
- Pukumako/Calperum Station on Meru Country (SA), site of Riverland Biosphere Reserve

​Click the Bandcamp link below to access the full album and find out more:

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Member Profile: Clare Hall 

Clare Hall (PhD) is Lecturer in Performing Arts, Monash University, Australia. Her research, educational and artistic practice coalesces around music, sound and performance to promote social justice through creative arts engagements. Her interdisciplinary scholarship bridges boundaries between the arts, education, and cultural sociology, with her key contribution to date in music and gender. This is the subject of her book Masculinity, Class and Music Education (2018), which aims to understand the social factors that affect young children’s musical identities.
 
Clare’s scholarship draws on her background as a musician, dancer, performer, school-based and community-based teacher. This drives her work with pre-service and in-service teachers, school students and the wider community that aims to orchestrate democratic social spaces for creativity and community strengthening across the lifespan.

Her critical pedagogies incorporate acoustic ecology to facilitate more meaningful listening and embodied engagements with the performing arts, the environment and each other. She experiments with sound walking, scaping, foraging, sound and movement improvisation and storying, which intersects with her research expertise in narrative, ethnographic and digital methods. She is currently working with colleagues on Greek music educators’ experiences of urban soundscapes in Corfu as part of the European project the Soundscape We Live In 2019. She is also working on troubling audism and ableism through deaf music-making in pandemic times.

Clare is passionate about the part listening, sonic arts, and music making can play in decolonising music education, which she brings to her role as Co-founder/Leader of the Decolonising and Indigenising Music Education special interest group of the International Society for Music Education. For info go to: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ISMEDIME/


PictureImage by Denby Smith
​In Situ Poetics: An Essay on Soundwalking in Melbourne

Poet, audio producer and literary/media scholar Prithvi Varatharajan recently published an essay, In Situ Poetics, in the Sydney Review of Books, recounting the experience of leading several soundwalks in Melbourne with AFAE member Anthony Magen, exploring the evolution in the city's soundscape from indigenous perspectives and early colonial era diaries through to the present day.
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You can read the full essay on the Sydney Review of Books website.

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#REVEIL2020 International Dawn Chorus Day

30/4/2020

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Guest Post by USC Sound Lab

The Australian Forum for Acoustic Ecology is taking part in #Reveil2020 on International Dawn Chorus Day this year. Reveil is a global arts project and international web broadcast that relays the sounds of live microphones tracking sunrise in multiple locations across the planet.

Starting just before daybreak in Rotherhithe near the Greenwich Meridian in the UK, the Reveil broadcast will pick up these feeds one by one, tracking the sunrise west from microphone to microphone, following the wave of intensified sound that loops the earth every 24 hours at first light. The stream will launch this weekend, starting on Saturday May 2nd at 2pm AEST as a radio broadcast hosted on the Reveil platform. 

Microphones have been rigged in a network of points across the world to reveal their acoustic ecologies. This year's event is set to reveal information about the state of the planet as a result of global lockdowns that are changing our sonic environments.  

People from across the planet, including London, Chicago, Montreal and our very own University of the Sunshine Coast (USC)  team, will stream the broadcast live to radio stations for online listeners, providing a way to connect with nature and reveal these planetary changes during a time of disconnection. 

Working alongside the Reveil team in London, the USC team will be documenting the step by step process across social media platforms, such as Instagram and Twitter, as a global hub of information. Follow the event in real-time in Asia-Pacific timezones with the the USC SoundLab on twitter, instagram and facebook. Follow @SoundCamp for the global event and the #Reveil2020 for latest program information. Sunshine Coast soundstreams will be located in the rainforest canopy at Mary Cairncross, Maroochy River, Eudlo Creek and the Noosa Biosphere Reserve, tracking the chorus throughout the day. 
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SoundCamp are an art collective based at Stave Hill Ecological Park in Rotherhithe coordinated by Maria Papadomanolaki, Dawn Scarfe and Grant Smith. Reveil 2020 will be mixed live from London, UK (Soundcamp, Grant Smith), South River, ON (NAISA, Darren Copeland),  Sunshine Coast, Australia (Leah Barclay, Biosphere Soundscapes) and Crete, GR (Maria Papadomanolaki, Soundcamp). The Reveil schedule will bring together microphones from open windows, rooftops, gardens, forests, underwater and electromagnetic sites. The broadcast works with the Locus Sonus network to share sounds, ecologies and atmospheres as part of an emerging Acoustic Commons. 
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Soundscape Volume 17, 2019 – Celebrating 20 Years of the Australian Forum for Acoustic Ecology

12/12/2019

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Soundscape - The Journal of Acoustic Ecology, Volume 17, 2019
Celebrating 20 Years of the Australian Forum for Acoustic Ecology


Volume 17 celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Australian Forum for Acoustic Ecology and profiles the incredible diversity of acoustic ecology practice and research happening across Australia. The three feature articles showcase established Australian practitioners who are pushing the boundaries of sound and interrogating our sonic relationship with place. Volume 17 is dedicated to AFAE founder Nigel Frayne and features a tribute to his life and work from Hildegard Westerkamp.  ​
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  • Editorial, Leah Barclay 
  • Listening Invocation, Vicki Saunders and Gayle Munn
  • Remembering Nigel Frayne, Hildegard Westerkamp 
  • The Acoustic Sanctuary, Ros Bandt
  • Intersecting Place, Environment, Sound, and Music, Vanessa Tomlinson
  • The Sound of Place: Environmental Artworks at Bundanon, Nigel Helyer and John Potts
  • Earthscape Review, Melinda Barrie
  • RMIT Gallery Chaos & Order: Sonic Arts Collection Review, Melinda Barrie
  • Listening to Country: Exploring the value of acoustic ecology with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in prison, Sarah Woodland, Vicki Saunders, Bianca Beetson, Leah Barclay
  • Emerging Researcher Profile, Jesse Budel
  • Field Report: Sonic Mmabolela 2017, South Africa, Vicki Hallett

DOWNLOAD THE JOURNAL HERE

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'Voices of the Rainforest' Australian premiere and Q&A with Steven Feld and Leah Barclay

12/12/2019

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Please join us for the Australian premiere of 'Voices of the Rainforest', to be followed by a Q&A with Director and Producer Steven Feld and AFAE President Leah Barclay.

Experience a journey into Papua New Guinea's Bosavi rainforest and an intimate portrayal of its people through this environmental rockumentary concert of a day in the life of the forest and music it inspires.

Directed and produced by Steven Feld, and recorded with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, the project benefits the Bosavi Peoples Fund, advocating for environmental and cultural survival in the most remote part of Papua New Guinea.

WHEN: Friday 13 December
TIME: 6pm for a 6.30pm start
WHERE: Griffith Film School Cinema
COST: Free. Bookings essential.

MORE INFO:
'Voices of the Rainforest' is a seventy-minute, 4K image and 7.1 surround sound documentary about the ecological and aesthetic co-evolution of Papua New Guinea’s Bosavi rainforest region and its inhabitants. It is produced and directed by Steven Feld, who first began regular research visits to Bosavi in 1976 and is the author of 'Sound and Sentiment'.

'Voices' was originally a 1991 CD release produced by Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart for his Rykodisc series 'The World'. The recording condenses twenty-four hours of sounds of the rainforest and the Bosavi people into an hour. It makes audible myriad connections between the everyday sounds of the rainforest biosphere and the creative practices of singing to, with, and about it by the Bosavi people. As a work of advocacy for environmental and cultural sustainability, the CD royalties have benefited the Bosavi Peoples Fund, which aides the educational, legal, medical, and social needs of the Bosavi community.

In 2016 Feld digitized the original analog audio tapes held in Mickey Hart’s archive, and recomposed an expanded 'Voices' as a 7.1 cinema surround sound concert for the recording’s 25th anniversary. The work was done at George Lucas’s Skywalker Sound, in collaboration with Academy Award nominated sound editor Dennis Leonard. Performances were held in major music halls and auditoriums in the USA, Australia, and Europe in 2017.

The success of the immersive soundtrack led to funding efforts to digitize Feld’s archive of Bosavi images, and to send Feld and filmmaker Jeremiah Richards to Bosavi for two months in summer 2018 with high-resolution cameras and drones to renew the project locally. During the trip Bosavi people suggested the film be in two parts, the first a visualization of the 7.1 surround Voices of the Rainforest concert, the second an update about the state of the forest and the problems of development in what remains a remote and under-served region of Papua New Guinea. Feld and Richards will return to Bosavi at the close of 2019 to show the concert film, and to complete the companion documentary, 'New Voices of the Rainforest', for 2020.

Voices of the Rainforest
Concert Film on BluRay Disc
Created in collaboration with the Bona community of Bosavi, Papua New Guinea. Produced by Steven Feld and Dennis Leonard. Directed by Steven Feld and Jeremiah Ra Richards. Executive Producers: Caryl and Mickey Hart. Research, Sound Recording, Composition, Still Photography: Steven Feld. Videography, Drone Imaging, Film Editing: Jeremiah Ra Richards. 7.1 Cinema Surround Editing and Mixing: Dennis Leonard
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RIVERLAND BIOSPHERE SOUNDSCAPES LAB, SOUTH AUSTRALIA, MAY 24-26, 2019

11/5/2019

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Supported by Country Arts SA, the Riverland Biosphere Soundscape Lab will take place between May 24-26 2019 at Calperum Station in South Australia's Riverland Biosphere Reserve. Informed by the creative possibilities of acoustic ecology, and rapidly emerging fields of biology exploring environmental patterns and changes through sound, the Lab will bring together artists, scientists and community members to explore the acoustic environments of the Riverland Biosphere Reserve.

Led by South Australian interdisciplinary composer and sound artist Jesse Budel, participants will take part in a variety of activities across the weekend, including field trips, field recordings, creative work listening sessions, expert presentations, and group discussions. Supported by the Australian Forum for Acoustic Ecology and the Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Network, participants will immerse themselves in artistic, scientific and cultural perspectives on listening and acoustic ecology in South Australia's diverse terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

Participants will need to cover their own travel to the lab location, but all costs including workshops, accommodation and meals will be provided. There are limited places available, so please contact us if you have any questions about this experience. 

To register your interest in the project, fill out the form available here.

Biosphere Soundscapes is a large-scale interdisciplinary research project underpinned by the creative possibilities of acoustic ecology and rapidly emerging fields of biology exploring environmental patterns and changes through sound. Acoustic ecology is a field of inquiry concerned with the ecological, social and cultural contexts of our sonic environments. This project is designed to inspire communities across the world to listen to the environment and explore the value of sound as a measure for environmental health in UNESCO biosphere reserves. The project is delivered through immersive residencies with artists and scientists, research laboratories, intensive masterclasses and a diversity of creative projects spanning four continents. 

Explore www.biospheresoundscapes.org for further information on the project. 
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MASTERCLASS 2019: THE ART OF FIELD RECORDING

27/2/2019

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Bogong Centre for Sound Culture is pleased to announce its forthcoming masterclass in July 2019 led by world renown sound artists and recordists Douglas Quin [US] and Philip Samartzis [AU]. The masterclass will draw on the groundbreaking work they have produced in the Arctic and Antarctica to demonstrate technical and creative processes used to register and exhibit the transformative effects of extreme climates.

This five-day intensive masterclass is specifically designed to introduce participants to how to prepare for and undertake deep fieldwork in remote and difficult wilderness environments, and their attendant conditions. Participants will be situated in the pristine environs of Victoria’s Alpine National Park. Fieldwork will be undertaken at Howmans Gap, and the Bogong High Plains during the winter snow season. Practical fieldwork will be complimented by technical demonstrations and conversations focusing on compositional methods and analysis, spatial sound techniques, and exhibition strategies.

The masterclass will appeal to anyone interested in sound art and design, soundscape composition, acoustic ecology, experimental music and performance, spatial sound, and environmental art practices.

​Participants will be accommodated at Howmans Gap Alpine Centre, which is located above the snowline and is surrounded by mountain ash bushland. Visit the Bogong Centre for Sound Culture website for further information - http://bogongsound.com.au/projects/winter-masterclass-2019
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AFAE End of Year Newsletter

20/12/2018

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Read the final edition of the AFAE news for 2018 – packed with new projects, publications, sound, research, awards, and highlights from the 20th Anniversary of the Australian Forum for Acoustic Ecology.

​Read the newsletter online here: https://mailchi.mp/23314eb3313f/zs15vkf0r7-3370909 
Just the AFAE here to receive the newsletter in your inbox. 
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