Posted by: Hilary Martin on May 26, 2007 03:38 PM | Comments (0)

The first audience question after a panel discussion on soundscape, without fail, is: What is a soundscape? The panel discussion The Radio Hears the Soundscape did not buck the trend.

CEC offers some history.
click here

Heide's response is that there is no definition.

Hans says that there is a semantic network which can be helpful, but the movement makes sure that the terms keep changing. The soundscapers are always on the move, they redefine all the time. The definition is not key, the permanent process of retreiving and changing is key. It's a catalyst rather than a fixed point. Even in Germany there are twelve different translations of that word, so it is an open spectrum.

Robin says that soundcape refers to what is, attending to and active manipulation of the sounds in the environment that is not just a recreation of the environment but something aesthetically pleasing. She is interested in soundscape that is not acoustic ecology but completely artificial constructed soundscapes. Maybe they refer to worlds, just not *this* world.

Panels on soundscape also always mention the usual suspects: R. Murray Schaeffer (who cannot make the panel today); Hildegard Westerkamp, Barry Truax and the World Soundscape Project.

Heide mentions a usual suspect I haven't met yet (mea culpa): Bill Fontana.
click here

Particularly interesting to me are Heide's stories about the sculptures, installations unannounced in public space. People walk in a public space and there are frogs in a marsh where there were supposed to be stone public squares and monuments. There were storms where the sky was blue. People liked it. They would have picnics in these soundscapes. There were no protests, unlike in Gratz where people rebelled against the installations. (I can't recall the last protest against a sound installation in Canada, but please let me know. I'm sure it has happened.)

Heide says that technically it was difficult to make it happen. Wires through manhole covers and into buildings and a temporary station in a museum - it all sounded very confusing. Having worked in technical theatre I'm glad it wasn't my watch.

But during that fortnight inside the museum had a connection to the radio station and through a stereo line mix and anyone could listen to it 24 hours a day, and slowly the cultural channels started picking up the signal and these birds and frogs eventually infiltrated the pop stations, more and more frequently, in between programs completely unannounced. The last five minutes of the project were broadcast by these stations. so there was an accepting of the interruption of the normative flow. A feeling that there was a taking on of nature in that way.

His project with the microphones in nature was a surveillance installation.

Robin mentions a project called Figures in the Soundscape that she's recently worked on. We listen to some of it. She relates it to Acoustical Views, a project with (again) Bill Fontana and ABC. Bill wired the city of Sydney. They received complaints, as in Gratz, because the kids couldn't sleep at night because they were in their beds listening to sounds transmitted from the harbour.

Obviously I have to learn more about this guy.

More from Deep Wireless 2007 :
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