Yoganathan, Nimalan (2017) Disparate Soundscapes and Ecotones: Critically Sounding the Amazon and Arctic. [Graduate Projects (Non-thesis)] (Unpublished)
Abstract
Popular media representations of jungles and arctic territories tend to center around either lush and pristine rainforests or remote Northern landscapes (e.g. Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982), Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922)). Often beyond these captivating visual depictions lie complex soundscapes that reveal information about environments that is difficult to decipher through vision alone. Disparate Soundscapes and Ecotones is a research-creation project that proposes active and critical modes of perceiving and composing with environmental sound. This project takes the form of a long-form stereo soundscape composition incorporating audio field recordings I collected in the Northern Canadian community of Inukjuak, Nunavik during 2009 and the Brazilian Amazon during 2011. Cultural and natural sounds are digitally processed and arranged in order to investigate the deeper referential meanings of environmental sounds including their musical, social and ecological resonances. Furthermore, this project explores how the extraction of these environmental sounds from their original contexts and integration within a studio composition affect their communicational properties. The exploitation of studio processing and editing to both highlight and undermine indexical relationships between composed soundscapes and “real” soundscapes is at the heart of my investigation. This project draws from but also questions the conceptual aims and techniques of the soundscape composition genre. Additionally, I consider the importance of ethical studio methodologies when processing and consequently abstracting sensitive sound material such as Inuit throat singing and traditional kayak building.
| Divisions: | Concordia University > Faculty of Arts and Science > Communication Studies |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Graduate Projects (Non-thesis) |
| Authors: | Yoganathan, Nimalan |
| Institution: | Concordia University |
| Degree Name: | M.A. |
| Program: | Media Studies |
| Date: | 22 August 2017 |
| Keywords: | soundscape, acoustic ecology, field recordings, Amazon rainforest, Inukjuak, Nunavik, acousmatic, ecotone, ethics, dub music. |
| ID Code: | 983269 |
| Deposited By: | NIMALAN YOGANATHAN |
| Deposited On: | 05 Dec 2017 17:37 |
| Last Modified: | 18 Jan 2018 17:56 |
| Additional Information: | Appendix 1 For practical purposes, I have divided my long-form soundscape composition into four sound files according to the below four segments. Please import the four WAV audio files into your media player (e.g. iTunes) in the following chronological order: 1. Break of Dawn (15’52’’) 2. Acousmatics (12’12’’) 3. Wind (7’10’’) 4. Ecotone (13’30’’) |
References:
Akiyama, M. 2010. Transparent Listening: Soundscape Composition’s Objects of Study. Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review 35(1): 54–62.Akiyama, M. 2015. The Phonographic Memory: A History of Sound Recording in the Field. PhD dissertation, McGill University.
Bijsterveld, K. T. 2012. Listening to machines: industrial noise, hearing loss and the cultural meaning of sound. In J. Sterne (ed.) The Sound Studies Reader. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Chapman, O. and Sawchuk, K. 2012. Research-Creation: Intervention, Analysis and "Family Resemblances". Canadian Journal of Communication 37(1).
Chapman, O. 2015. Ecotones, Eco-Territories and the Sonic Relationality of Space: An Audio Investigation of Montreal’s ‘Falaise St. Jacques’. Wi: Journal of Mobile Media 9 (2).
Chion, M. 1983. Guide des objets sonores: Pierre Schaeffer et la recherche musicale. Paris: INA/Buchet/Chastel.
DeLaurenti, C. 2005. On Phonography: A Response to Michael Rüsenberg. Soundscape: The Journal of Acoustic Ecology 6(2): 6.
DeLaurenti, C. 2015. Personal email communication, 10 November 2015.
Keller, D. and Truax, B. 1998. Ecologically-based Granular Synthesis. Proceedings of the 1998 International Computer Music Conference. Ann Arbor, MI. Krause, B. 2012. The great animal orchestra: finding the origins of music in the world's wild places. London, UK: Profile Books.
Long, N. W. 2015. ‘scapes. Chicago: Chicago Artists Coalition.
Long, N. W. 2015. Personal email communication. 2 June 2015.
Lopez, F. 1998. Schizophonia vs.l'objet sonore. CEC eContact! 1(4).
McCartney, A. 1999. Sounding Places: Situated Conversations through the Soundscape Work of Hildegard Westerkamp. PhD dissertation, York University.
McCartney, A. 2009. Reception and reflexivity in electroacoustic creation. Proceedings of the Electroacoustic Music Studies network EMS 08 Conference. Paris, France.
McCartney, A. 2010. Ethical Questions About Working With Soundscapes. Proceedings of the Ideologies and Ethics in the Uses and Abuses of Sound Conference. Koli, Finland. McCartney, A. 2010. Soundwalking and improvisation. Improvisation, Community and Social Practice. http://www.improvcommunity.ca/. McCartney, A. 2014. Soundwalking: creating moving environmental sound narratives. In S. Gopinath and J. Stanyek (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Mobile Music Studies. Vol. 2. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Monacchi, D. 2009. Proceedings of the 2009 Ambisonics Symposium. Graz, Austria. Norman, K. 1994. Telling tales. Contemporary Music Review 10(2): 103-109. Prochnik, G. 2011. In pursuit of silence: Listening for meaning in a world of noise. New York: Anchor. Schafer, R. M. 2012. Soundscape. In J. Sterne (ed.) The Sound Studies Reader. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Truax, B. 1994. Discovering Inner Complexity: Time-shifting and Transposition with a Real-time Granulation Technique. Computer Music Journal 18(2): 38-48.
Truax, B. 1996. Soundscape, Acoustic Communication and Environmental Sound Composition.
Contemporary Music Review 15(1): 49-65.
Truax, B. 1999. Handbook of Acoustic Ecology [CD-ROM]. Vancouver: Cambridge Street Publishing.
Truax, B. 2001. Acoustic Communication. Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing.
Truax, B. 2002. Genres and Techniques of Soundscape Composition as Developed at Simon Fraser University. Organised Sound 7(1): 5-14.
Truax, B. 2013. Interacting with Inner and Outer Sonic Complexity: From Microsound to Soundscape Composition. eContact! 16(3).
Van Peer, R. 1998. Music: Nature Abstracted and Extracted. Soundscape Writings. The Acoustic Ecology Institute. http://www.acousticecology.org/writings/renelaselva.html.
Veal, M. E. 2007. Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae. Middletown,
CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Westerkamp, H. 1996. Transformations. Montreal: Empreintes Digitales, IMED 963-CD liner notes.
Westerkamp, H. 2002. Linking Soundscape Composition and Acoustic Ecology.
Organised Sound 7(1): 51-6.
Westerkamp, H. 2008. Personal email communication, 6 April 2008.
Westerkamp, H. 2016. Hildegard Westerkamp Presences électronique 2016. YouTube video. Paris: Ina GRM. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jl4hQNHzfo.
Williams, S. 2013. Stockhausen Meets King Tubby’s: The Transformation of the Stepped Filter into a Musical Instrument. In F. Weium and T. Boon (eds.) Material Culture and Electronic Sound. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press.
Wynne, J. 2002. Upcountry: Electroacoustic Composition Between Documentary and Abstraction, Technology and Tradition. In E. Waterman (ed.) Sonic Geography Imagined and Remembered. Toronto: Penumbra Press.
Repository Staff Only: item control page
Download Statistics
Download Statistics