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
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
Listening-with Humans and Nonhumans Auditioning a field recording, and assembling its meaning, is a similar yet very different process to making a jigsaw. As a child, I tried to complete a jigsaw puzzle without the crutch of the image guide. It was a process that oscillated between hope and despair. Hope at the freedom to … Read more
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
In this regular Q&A series, we interview authors and major figures in the field about their work, interests, and overall thoughts on sound studies. This week, we spoke to Brandon LaBelle, an artist, writer and theorist working with sound culture, voice, and questions of agency. Brandon develops and presents artistic projects within a range of … Read more