In February 2018 I taught a workshop at the CUNY Graduate Center, as part of their Digital Initiatives Sound Series:
Field-Recording Beyond Your Ears
In this talk, I will introduce “expanded” recording techniques using D.I.Y transducers to reveal hidden sounds, sonify non-acoustic phenomena, and challenge the assumption of the human listening subject recording “in the field”. We will explore contact mics (which respond to the vibrations of objects), binaural mics (for 3D audio), hydrophones (for underwater listening), synesthetic light-to-sound conversion, VLF radio, and ultrasound.
We will listen to examples of sound art, music, and installation works where expanded recordings provoke conversations about subject-hood and “post-human” listening, taking into consideration how the work is diffused into space (via traditional and specialized speaker designs, soundwalks, broadcasting, live-streaming, etc).
These techniques are quite accessible for those with more curiosity than money, so I’ll share my resources to help you build transducers for your own work. Bring a sound recorder if you would like to probe CUNY GC’s hidden soundfields.
