Domestic Systems – by Will Schrimshaw

In a previous post on this blog, Marie Thompson has discussed the complex interweaving of audio technologies and care in the home. This is a broad theme that I’d like to continue here. Marie’s post is accompanied by an image of a smart speaker in the home. This complex machine housing many electronic components to … Read more

Listening to the Confluence Project: Part 2 – by Lutz Koepnick

In my last blog, I wrote about a recent visit to Maya Lin’s Listening Circle at Chief Timothy Park in Eastern Washington. Associated with the Confluence Project, the site asked challenging questions about how sound and listening to silence can help us recognize the devastating impact of Lewis and Clark’s 1804/5 expedition on Native American … Read more

Listening to the Confluence Project: Part 1 – by Lutz Koepnick

Maya Lin's Listening Circle at Chief Timothy Park

In this and my next post to this blog, I write about a recent trip along the Columbia River and invite you to think about sound’s ability to read violent history against the grain and memorialize the silence that followed the destruction of vibrant sites of life. How, I ask, can we listen to the … Read more

The War is Over but the Sound Remains: WWI and the Life of a Shell – by Michael Bull

Carpathian Mountains

When do the sounds and silences of any war really end? I recently came across a contemporary story of a World War One shell exploding in the Carpathian Mountains. A newly married British couple of Ukrainian heritage, Norbert and Lydia Makarchuk had camped out in the idyllic countryside to share a honeymoon evening with family … Read more