#acoustic ecology

[sound-art-text]

How can we escape from listening paradigms that are based on expansive, colonial, violent and extractionist approaches? What can we learn from current ethical and political applications of Acoustic Ecology, acoustic anthropology, and bioacoustics? What can we, as sound artists, scholars, activists and listeners, do beyond simply witnessing another wave of reports on declining biodiversity and the ongoing collapse of our planet’s systems? How can this ever more tangible and multi-sensory experience on a planetary scale be addressed on a local and collective level, beyond the act of listening?

The proposed gathering in Budapest would be the fourth event connected to the CENSE network and would signal its return to Budapest. The aim of the colloquium is to provide a transdisciplinary forum for the achievements in recent years and to foster further exchanges, communication and networking during the years to come. 

Deadline for applications: 30 April 2023. 

[sound-notes]

World faces ‘deathly silence’ of nature as wildlife disappears, warn experts

[fenixthreads]

Hildegard Westerkamp keynote at Invisible Places conference in 2017. (I was looking on the web to see if there was a video of Francisco Lopez at the conference... there is not but there are excellent keynote lectures by Hildegard Westerkamp, Sam Auinger, and Juhani Pallasmaa.) The proceedings of the conference were edited into a book, available as PDF on the website:

From the conference website:

Many studies engaged with acoustic ecology have focused on urban environments, motivated by increasing concerns about the sensory impoverishment related to the dominance of anthropogenic sound associated with traffic and other types of transport, machinery from industry or construction, alarm signals and other sounding activities, which often mask and interfere with our living environment. These anthropogenic sounds have tended to be linked to a lack of environmental quality, as they inhibit the perception of other natural sounds. The sounds of the wind, the water, the voicing of certain animals originating from natural landscapes often contrast with human sounds in urban landscapes. They often share the same physical characteristics as measured by volume, duration, frequency or tone, but are experienced by humans differently. Beauty is in the ear of the beholder, we could say.

Soundscapes are part of any ecosystem and a fundamental manifestation of life. Every individual and species contributes and responds differently to a given sonic context with its own perceptual mechanism and will use diverse communication strategies. Development processes and urbanization have directly influenced the environment, often in negative ways that eliminate or diminish unique sounds, causing loss of social identity and cultural diversity.

Processes that occur in a landscape create patterns of sounds that can be identified. In turn, the entire phenomenon that inhibits or prevents effective acoustic communication can have consequences for the survival of individuals, species and ultimately, entire ecosystems. As our natural soundscapes morph and shrink, threats of extinction increase.

The future of cities is often related to the idea of city as a living environment dependent on and enriched by technology. A city should be seen as a sustainable community, where living organisms coexist and interact with man-made technologies integrated in our everyday life. Landscape therefore reflects the way humans interact with their natural world while organizing space and time. In this sense, landscape ecology should be expanded conceptually and imaginatively to encompass all the possible dimensions of human relations with and within the environment, including its living components.

The aim of this conference is to bring together scholars, artists and theoreticians on soundscape art and ecology and encourage them to present new perspectives that will further interdisciplinary research and practice. We still know little about the complex relationships between landscapes and soundscapes or the significance of acoustic ecology for all living organisms including ourselves. Focused study and intentional stewardship of our sound heritage for the holistic evaluation of landscapes is fundamental to the evolution of all species, and will have a great impact on the survival of many. This will be a central topic to be discussed.

[sarka-160cm-me]

CO VŠECHNO JSME S TO ZAMÉST POD KOBEREC? [WHAT CAN WE SWEEP UNDER THE RUG?], 2023, site specific acoustic situation

on display: 4+4 Days in Motion, Prague, CZ, 11–21/5/2023

As if nothing was here. Is and isn't. This sound situation invites us to listen to the voices of the environment that we tend to neglect. Only quiet sounds rise above the surface, the intensity is hidden below the surface - to listen more carefully, you need to immerse your ears, head or whole body.

It is difficult to face anxiety and skepticism today. We are actors of the climate collapse, whose consequences seem to be more threatening; we live in polarized societies, in which it is more difficult to find agreement on the basic conditions for coexistence. The tools designed for bringing people together start to fight back, so we feel lonely, isolated, and excluded. It is a paradox that we are getting better at realizing the complexity of the systems and processes we are part of.

They touch upon the established categories of reality, which requires rephrasing the roles we play. The exhibition Everything’s Everybody’s aims to take a stand based on the awareness of the interconnectedness of seemingly separated sets. Art that overcomes isolation contains elements of idealism as well as possibilities rather than impossibility. Art that overcomes futility, but does not deny the anxiety, uncertainty, and fears.

Curated by: Jiří Ptáček

Participating artists:

Argišt Alaverdyan, David Böhm a Jiří Franta, Anna Černíková, Dávid Čerťanský, David Čumalo, Kateřina Drahošová, Václav Girsa, Marián Grolmus, Vladimír Havlík, Pavel Havrda, Petra Herotová, Martina Horáková, Tomáš Hrůza, Institut Institut, Šimon Kadlčák, Lukáš Karbus, Stanislava Karbušická, Krištof Kintera, Samuel Kollárik, Václav Kopecký, Jan Kostohryz, Martin Kubica, Denisa Langrová, MINA, Radek Mužík, Filip Nádvorník, Karolína Netolická, Hedvika Ocásková, Jiří Pitrmuc, Julius Reichel, Žaneta Reková, Tomáš Roubal, Rudolf Samohejl, Lucia Sceranková, František Antonín Skála, Sára Skoczková, Gabriela Slaninková, Matěj Smetana, Václav Stratil, Petr Strouhal, Barbora Šemberová, Jan Šerých, Marie Štefáčková, Gabriela Těthalová, Agáta Tichá, Jan Turner, Tereza Velíková, Šárka Zahálková, Aleš Zapletal

[pockets-and-paint]

living with me is really just having to listen to my fortnightly "very fun activity" ideas (small ecological studies I want to run outside the apartment)

[embodiedlistening]

Bernie Krause discussing the animal orchestra and how our ears/recordings can pick up things from the missing from the biophony better than our eyes can. A healthy habitat must should have animals voicing in all frequencies...

[delicatelysublimeforester]

A Symphony of Sounds in the Afforestation Area

[ninaqueissner]

Nice! @linda-weiss @tempe-corals

[sound-art-text]

Listen to a live stream we [Soundcamp] set up in New Delhi this month - vivid and close up sounds at great distance.

[sixteenseveredhands]

Moths in Disguise: these are all just harmless moths that have developed the ability to mimic wasps, bees, and/or hornets

Top Row (left to right): Eusphecia pimplaeformis and Myrmecopsis polistes; Bottom Row: Pennisetia marginatum

Moths are exceptionally skilled when it comes to mimicry, and there are hundreds of moth species that rely on that tactic as a way to protect themselves from predators. Their disguises are numerous and varied, but hymenopteran mimicry is particularly common, especially among the moths that belong to subfamily Sesiidae and family Arctiinae.

Yellowjacket-Mimicking Moths: Pseudosphex sp. (top and bottom left) and Myrmecopsis polistes (bottom right)

Some of their disguises involve more than just a physical resemblance -- there are some moths that also engage in behavioral and/or acoustic mimicry, meaning that they can imitate the specific sounds and behaviors of their hymenopteran models. In some cases, these moths are so convincing that they can even fool the actual wasps/bees that they are mimicking.

Such a detailed and intricate disguise is unusual even among mimics, and researchers believe that it developed partly as a way to trick the wasps into treating the mimic like one of their own. Wasps tend to prey upon moths (and many other insects), but they are innately non-aggressive toward their own nest-mates, which are identified by sight -- so if the moth can convincingly impersonate its model, then it can avoid being eaten by predatory wasps.

Wasp-Mimicking Moths: Pseudosphex ichneumonea (top), Myrmecopsis sp. (bottom left), and Pseudosphex sp. (bottom right)

There are many moths that can also mimic hornets, bumblebees, and carpenter bees.

Hornet-Mimicking Moths: Eusphecia pimplaeformis (top left), Sesia apiformis (bottom left), Paranthrene simulans (top right), Pennisetia marginatum (middle right), and Sphecodoptera scribai (bottom left)

Bumblebee-Mimicking Moths: Hemaris tityus (top and bottom left) and Hemaris affinis (bottom right)

Moths are some of the most talented mimics in the natural world, as illustrated by their mastery of hymenopteran mimicry. But it's not just bees, hornets, and wasps -- there are many other forms of mimicry that can be found among moths, and the resemblance is often staggering.

Moths deserve far more credit than they receive, to be honest, because they are so incredibly interesting/diverse.

Sources & More Info:

Journal of Ecology and Evolution: A Hypothesis to Explain the Accuracy of Wasp Resemblances

Frontiers in Zoology: Southeast Asian clearwing moths buzz like their model bees

Royal Society Publishing: Moving like a model: mimicry of hymenopteran flight trajectories by clearwing moths of Southeast Asian rainforests

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

What’s in a name? It’s more than a sound people make to get your attention — it’s a seemingly universal hallmark of human society and language, the specifics of which set us apart from our fellow animals. Now, scientists say they have found evidence with the help of artificial-intelligence-powered tools that elephants call each other by names too.

“They have this ability to individually call specific members of their family with a unique call,” said Mickey Pardo, an acoustic biologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and an author of a study published Monday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Elephants’ trumpeting calls might be their most recognizable sounds, but these “are basically an emotional outburst,” Dr. Pardo said. Lower-pitched rumbles, he said, are more meaningful, as they make up a majority of elephant vocalizations and are used in a wide variety of social situations. “A lot of interesting stuff is going on in the rumbles,” he said.

To decode these rumbles, Dr. Pardo and George Wittemyer, a professor of conservation biology at Colorado State University and chairman of the scientific board for the nonprofit Save the Elephants, analyzed 469 vocalizations made by family groups of adult elephant females and their offspring recorded at Amboseli National Park and the Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves in Kenya.

Elephant rumbles can be difficult for the human ear to differentiate, so the researchers used machine learning analysis: Essentially, they relied on A.I. to break down different elephant calls.

Individual elephants seemed to respond to certain rumbles from other elephants, and the researchers fed those sounds into their A.I. tool. “If the calls have something like a name, you should be able to figure out who the call is addressed to just from the acoustic structure of that call alone,” Dr. Pardo said.

So far, the scientists are not sure precisely which part of a vocalization might be the elephant’s “name.” But they found that their A.I. tool’s ability to identify the intended recipient of a rumble far exceeded what random chance would dictate.

They supplemented these analyses with fieldwork conducted by Dr. Pardo and David Lolchuragi, a co-author of the study and a research assistant at Save the Elephants. The researchers played recordings of rumbles to elephants and filmed their responses; they found that the individual elephants reacted more strongly to their “names” than to other calls, perking up their ears and rumbling back.

[haggishlyhagging]

A feminist Searcher who reads definitions of fetishism in psychiatric encyclopedias and "studies" will find ejaculations of bias and self-contradictions everywhere. The authors of the entry on fetishism in the Encyclopedia of Aberrations and Psychiatric Handbook, for example, begin by discussing this as "a form of sexual deviation in which the person's sexual aim becomes attached to something that symbolizes that person's love-object" [emphases mine]. These sages go on to explain that the "something" may be an article of clothing or a nongenital (!) part of the body. It is only later in the article that we find their admission that the fetishistic "person" is male and the "love-object" female, when we read that: " . . . the fetishist is attempting to escape from women. When he cannot do so he compromises by depreciating them. . . . he can then consider [his mate] superfluous."

It would be a mistake for women searching for clues about fetishism to stop reading the article at this point, for we would be left with the knowledge that fetishists are male but might still assume that these constitute a perverted minority of males. Moving further into the maze of this analysis we come upon their admission that fetishism is so widespread in its implications that it includes acoustic stimulation, such as the pleasure obtained by listening to sexual stories. Immediately the processions of professional Peeping/Listening Toms appear before the feminist mind's eye, as we recall the parade of priestly, psychiatric, and ob/gyn Toms, whose main interests and concerns are sexual stories. By now we are ready to handle the concluding sentence of the article:

Fetishism is quite often a normal and necessary component of the sexual lives of all individuals [emphases mine].

A-mazing, we see not only that "individuals" means males, but that the "sexual deviation" described at the beginning of the article is considered "normal and necessary" for all males.

-Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology

[greathoughtsphilosopy]

Shrunken acoustic profile of the Holy Rosary Bells in Vancouver in 1973, after the construction of taller buildings around it led to the sound waves being absorbed much sooner than before. The audible range of the bells was reduced by miles.

Image sourced from Barry Truax's Handbook for Acoustic Ecology