My inaugural lecture, “Towards a ‘New’ Sonic Ecology” is now available online.
Please go on this site to “publications” and then to “articles”.
Archives for category: Science
On Monday 28 November, I will give my inaugural lecture at Leiden University. You are welcome to attend. It starts at 4 pm. Find the official invitation here oratie-cobussen-uitnodiging
The title of the lecture is “Towards a ‘new’ sonic ecology,” an appeal in favor of a more prominent role for sound artists in the design of public urban spaces. Although the invitation is in Dutch, the lecture will be in English. With the cooperation of two musical guests!
Conference dates: 29-30 November 2016
Location: Leiden University, the Netherlands
Introduction to the Conference Topic
Sound is among the most significant, yet least-discussed, aspects of public spaces in urban environments (Hosokawa 1984; Kang and Schulte-Fortkamp 2016). Architects, engineers, and urban planners invariably stress the visual and tactile aspects while (re)designing urban environments but often pay less attention to the aural consequences of their interventions; sound tends to be considered mainly as an inevitable byproduct of industrial areas, traffic, commercial centers, and/or human activities. If sound attracts the attention of policy makers and users of public urban spaces, it is often in a rather negative context: as noise pollution which should be avoided by somehow reducing the amount of decibels (Devilee, Maris, van der Kamp 2010; Elmqvist 2013; Kamin 2015).
In contrast, this conference aims to increase the attention to the role of sound, sound design, and sounding art in urban spaces – with sound considered both as an epistemological tool and as an aesthetic instrument.
Sounds in urban spaces – including the “omnipresence” of music – (co-)regulate our behavior, attract specific groups that give a space a specific identity, call for certain actions, make us nauseated, etc.; sounds thus have social, political, ethical, and economic power. Reflections on everyday urban soundscapes – their features as well as the way they are used and experienced – could lead to a new theory of sonic ecology.
Furthermore, sounding art has the potential to contribute directly to an improvement of city soundscapes, while a more fundamental and scholarly attention to sounds in public urban spaces can lead to a concrete contribution to already existing discourses in urban studies, history, anthropology, and philosophy.
In this conference three questions will play a central role:
- How do sounds in general and sounding art in particular contribute to the general atmosphere of a public urban space?
- How do users of that space – dwellers, tourists, people working in that neighborhood, passersby – experience its sonic qualities and how does that influence their behavior as well as the function of that space?
- How can we, on a theoretical level, develop a new sonic ecology?
Keynote speakers: Salomé Voegelin, Gascia Ouzounian, Holger Schulze, and Jean-Paul Thibaud.
Conference Coordinator: Prof. dr. M.A. (Marcel) Cobussen
(M.A.Cobussen@umail.leidenuniv.nl)
Abstracts: Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to Gabriel Paiuk acpa@hum.leidenuniv.nl before October 1, 2016. Submitters will be informed before October 15.
The conference is sponsored by KNAW, LUF, JSS, and ACPA (Leiden University)
I just received an email from Routledge that that The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art has now officially published! The book presents an overview of the issues, methods, and approaches crucial for the study of sound in artistic practice. Thirty-six essays cover a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to studying sounding art from the fields of musicology, cultural studies, sound design, auditory culture, art history, and philosophy. The companion website hosts sound examples and links to further resources.
The collection is organized around six main themes:
- Sounding Art: The notion of sounding art, its relation to sound studies, and its evolution and possibilities.
- Acoustic Knowledge and Communication: How we approach, study, and analyze sound and the challenges of writing about sound.
- Listening and Memory: Listening from different perspectives, from the psychology of listening to embodied and technologically mediated listening.
- Acoustic Spaces, Identities and Communities: How humans arrange their sonic environments, how this relates to sonic identity, how music contributes to our environment, and the ethical and political implications of sound.
- Sonic Histories: How studying sounding art can contribute methodologically and epistemologically to historiography.
- Sound Technologies and Media: The impact of sonic technologies on contemporary culture, electroacoustic innovation, and how the way we make and access music has changed.
With contributions from leading scholars and cutting-edge researchers, The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art is an essential resource for anyone studying the intersection of sound and art.
Aalto University researchers found that the emotional impact experienced by music listeners depends on the concert hall’s acoustics.
Earlier research has shown that the strongest emotional experiences by music listening may elicit shivers or goosebumps in the listener. Much weaker reactions can be detected from the variations in the electrical skin conductance. Based on this knowledge, the researchers presented the test subjects an excerpt of Beethoven’s symphony with the acoustics measured in different concert halls. During listening, the skin conductance was measured with sensors attached in the listeners’ fingers in order to record the magnitude of the emotional reactions to different acoustic conditions.
The results revealed that an identical performance of classical orchestra music evoked stronger emotional impact when presented in the acoustics of shoebox-type concert halls, such as Vienna Musikverein or Berlin Konzerthaus. The study included identically selected two positions from six European concert halls: Vienna Musikverein, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Konzerhaus and Philharmonie, Cologne Philharmonie, and Helsinki Music Centre.
“Some interpretations of a same music piece can evoke stronger emotions than others. Similarly, our study has succeeded in demonstrating that the hall’s acoustics plays an important part in the overall emotional impact. After all, emotional experiences are a key factor in music to many listeners.” says Dr. Jukka Pätynen. For decades, researchers on concert hall acoustics have aspired to explain the acoustical success of certain halls with room-acoustic parameters. The study by Finnish researchers is the first to assess the acoustics of existing concert halls as the emotional impact. The group aims to understand how room acoustics affect sound signals, and how people perceive room acoustic properties.
The full article can be found in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA): http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/jasa/139/3/10.1121/1.4944038
Soon the Routledge Companion to Sounding Art, edited by Barry Truax, Vincent Meelberg and myself will be available. The Companion presents an overview of the issues, methods, and approaches crucial for the study of sound in artistic practice. Thirty-six essays cover a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to studying sounding art from the fields of musicology, cultural studies, sound design, auditory culture, art history, and philosophy. The companion website hosts sound examples, links to further resources, and a blog for further discussion.
The collection is organized around six main themes:
– Sounding Art: The notion of sounding art, its relation to sound studies, and its evolution and possibilities.
– Acoustic Knowledge and Communication: How we approach, study, and analyze sound and the challenges of writing about sound.
– Listening and Memory: Listening from different perspectives, from the psychology of listening to embodied and technologically mediated listening.
– Acoustic Spaces, Identities and Communities: How humans arrange their sonic environments, how this relates to sonic identity, how music contributes to our environment, and the ethical and political implications of sound.
– Sonic Histories: How studying sounding art can contribute methodologically and epistemologically to historiography- Sound Technologies and Media: The impact of sonic technologies on contemporary culture, electroacoustic innovation, and how the way we make and access music has changed.
With contributions from leading scholars and cutting-edge researchers, The Routledge Companion to Sounding Art is an essential resource for anyone studying the intersection of sound and art.
|
DARE 2015
|
In collaboration with Studium Generale of Leiden University and several others, I am organizing 6 meetings between Dutch artists and scholars to talk about the role, function, and position of both the arts and the sciences in our contemporary society.
April 14: Ramsey Nasr (poet/writer/actor/director) and Hans Clevers (geneticist/physician/Professor of Immunology)
April 28: Hans van Houwelingen (painter/visual artist) and Maarten Janssen (Professor of Archaeology)
May 12: Barbara Visser (photographer/visual artist) and Frans-Willem Korsten (Professor of Literature and Society)
May 26: Johan Simons (theater director) and Carel Stolker (lawyer and Rector of Leiden University)
June 9: Francine Houben (architect) and Marileen Dogterom (bionanoscientist)
June 23: Colin Benders aka Kyteman (musician) and Bas Haring (philosopher/writer)
Live music by Juan Parra and Henry Vega. Panel chairman Andrea van Pol. Location: Het Paard in The Hague. Official language: Dutch. More info at:
We all saw the historical landing of Rosetta’s Philae on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko; we saw the pictures. But how does he sound? Here you can listen to him.
The European Space Agency (ESA) was surprised by the comet’s sound, inaudible for human ears as it has a frequency of 40 to 50 milihertz. What you can hear are vibrations from the magnetic field of the comet, here amplified by factor 10,000. The sound is probably caused by neutrons (particles without electric charge) coming from the comet which acquires negative or positive charge in space (a process called ionization).
The School of Media, Film and Music (MFM) at the University of Sussex is pleased to invite applications to study for a PhD.
We offer expert supervision in the following areas:
- Creative and Critical Practice
- Film Studies
- Gender Studies (Humanities)
- Media and Cultural Studies (including Journalism Studies)
- Music/Musical Composition/Music Theatre
As a member of CHASE, the AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership, MFM is able to offer a number of studentships to well-qualified candidates. CHASE is the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts in Southeast England, a partnership of 7 institutions (Sussex, UEA, Kent, Goldsmiths, Essex, the Courtauld Institute and the Open University). £17m has been awarded to provide doctoral training and to promote excellence in research, including the funding of 75 scholarships this year.
Successful applicants to MFM will be eligible to compete for these studentships. For UK students, these awards cover both fees and maintenance and for EU residents awards are on a fees only basis. MFM has an outstanding record in research, and is currently home to over 90 research students who contribute actively to our lively interdisciplinary research culture. Our students have a good track record in attracting funding.
- For more information about the School, its Research Centres, our faculty and their research interests, please visit: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/mfm/
- You can also find more information about doctoral research at Sussex via our Doctoral School website: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/doctoralschool/
- For information about how to apply, see: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/pg/2015/research
- If you would like to visit the campus and talk to faculty, please come to our Postgraduate Open Evening on 3rd December: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/visitus/pg/phdevenings
- or get in touch with the School’s Director of Doctoral Studies, Dr. Kate Lacey, who is happy to answer any questions about our doctoral programmes and the application process:k.lacey@sussex.ac.uk
The deadline for applications (including all supporting information such as references, etc.) is January 14th 2015. You are encouraged to contact the School as soon as possible to start the application process.
Thinking Sounds 