credit: Stephane Marin

Living the Anthropocene: Rethinking Sound and Nature

Festival

HearSay 2018, Kilfinane, Ireland. 4-7 April 2019.

Description

We live in The Anthropocene, an epoch marked by human influence on species decline and climate change. As a field recordist, I wonder how historical approaches to nature have been complicit with these changes.

At HearSay this topic was approached through two talks and a listening session. The talk was a version of the paper previously given at the World Forum of Acoustic ecology, as described in this entry. Here it was re-contextualised for a radio audience.

The listening session included the first bird to hit the Top Ten, the loudest sound in the ocean, and other curiosities. Each sound was played without comment, so that listeners could approach the sonic textures as for the first time. Each sound was then contextualised in order to highlight its very special properties.

Photograph by Stéphane Marin, taken on his amazing soundwalk.

Availability

An extended version of this paper is available.