Soundscapes are seldom simple ; on the contrary, they tend to be complex sounding systems continuously changing in time, which no art or science can approach in depth on its own.
Listening is the ‘corner stone’ for the appreciation, participation and study of the sonic environment that surrounds and includes us. As Westerkamp (2002) remarks, it is the ecological balance of our planet that becomes audible “to those who care to listen.”
We might consider listening in two ways : as the actual activity of focusing (in innumerable ways) our attention to the soundings, and in a metaphorical manner ; listening as a metaphor. A research or a compositional approach to the sonic environment, for example, can be thought of as a listening path.
One alone cannot listen to everything that is simultaneously sounding in the soundscape ; similarly the meanings transmitted through soundings cannot be fully uncovered by a single discipline. The multidisciplinary approach in the research of the sonic environment has been highlighted from the very beginnings of Acoustic Ecology.
These different aesthetic and scientific approaches to the soundscape are considered here metaphorically as crossing listening paths, which in their ‘conjunctions’ and interactions might create a better understanding of the whole.
‘Crossing listening paths’ is the main theme of the Conference of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, which will take place at the Department of Music of the Ionian University in Corfu, Greece from 3-7 of October 2011.
The conference will be endorsed by the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology and the Hellenic Society for Acoustic Ecology, will be organized and co-sponsored by the Department of Music of the Ionian University and the Electroacoustic Music Research and Applications Laboratory (EPHMEE) of the Ionian University, and will be supported by the Computer Music Laboratory of the Department of Music Technology and Acoustics of the Technological and Educational Institute of Crete.
Le programme du colloque est accessible ici
