My inaugural lecture, “Towards a ‘New’ Sonic Ecology” is now available online.
Please go on this site to “publications” and then to “articles”.
My inaugural lecture, “Towards a ‘New’ Sonic Ecology” is now available online.
Please go on this site to “publications” and then to “articles”.
Thinking Sounds 
A new affective urban ecology. Yes! I am a writer interested in how we value the (sub)urban in story, believing this is critical to our sense of belonging, identity and emplacement. I have only come across sonic ecology quite recently and love what it adds to my thinking. Thank-you for your paper.
Dear Pamela, thanks for your message. I sincerely believe that sounds have an enormous influence on our well-being, on how we perceive and experience an atmosphere. Or better: sounds contribute to a large extent to an atmosphere.
Hi Marcel,
A bunch of random thoughts related to it:
Sound pollution: always a huge problem every time I go to India, where the honking horn is used as a courtesy to let other drivers and pedestrians know that you are behind them. “Sound Horn OK” is a common text on the back of rickshaws and lorries. Drives one nuts, specially when you live next to a road (almost always the case!)! I always use ear plugs when I walk down the road. And for sure, my Bose noise-cancellation headphones are life-savers, both on the plane and in the rickshaw!
At the HKU the department of Music and Technology cooperates with the Utrecht district on sound and public spaces:
http://www.hku.nl/Opleidingen/MuziekEnTechnologie/AudioDesign.htm
http://www.hku.nl/Opleidingen/MuziekEnTechnologie/SoundDesign/WelkBeroep.htm
Perhaps an exchange/cooperation between you(r) students might be interesting.
Interesting about bodily sounds. I suppose you are aware of the special toilets all around japan, which have buttons to turn on electronically produced sounds such as water or other earthly sounds which mask one’s bodily sonic creations J.
This composer has made some nice installations: Tao Vrhovec Sambolec: http://www.taogvs.org/works.html
I once did a project with him where he broadcast some sounds on a local radio station, then we got 50 people with ghetto blasters and walked through the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam. You had this cloud of sound moving through the area with no single source and you could see wonderful perplexed reactions on the people’s faces.
Here’s a piece for recorder and tape which I wrote after having more than a year of daily 7 am construction on my small street in the center of Amsterdam: http://www.nedmcgowan.com/music/solo-instrument/workshop2004/
Here’s a installation piece I made by making recordings that took place near the Hohernzollern bridge in Cologne.
http://www.nedmcgowan.com/music/solo-instrument/the-beating-heart-of-the-city2014/
Lastly, Disneyland might be a place to research sound design, as it cobines the goal to transport people to a magical land with the efficient political structure of a company which can easily implement whatever it wants to.
Big cheers, Ned (http://www.nedmcgowan.com)
This was a very inspiring lecture that will lead to other inspiring events!