Southern Soundscapes: Ecological Sound Art Responses to Two South Australian Ecosystems (original) (raw)

2018, eContact!

An emerging ecological discipline, soundscape ecology has already had a significant impact on the methods by which ecosystems might be engaged, analysed and understood. Considering sounds as proxies for ecological activities, whether of biological agents or abiotic environmental processes, the innovative field of research has introduced new approaches of non-invasive, long term analysis (Pijanowski, Farina et al. 2011, Farina 2014). Analysing soundscapes through acoustic parameters including frequency, temporal relationships, amplitude, spatial diffusion and gradients, and sonic interactions, soundscape ecology provides an effective framework in which environmental (acoustic) data may be garnered and subsequently utilised in creative contexts. In the case of music and sound art, these data types can relate to pitch/timbre, temporal/rhythmic patterns and cycles, volume/dynamics, sound spatialisation/performance layout, and texture/counterpoint respectively. As such, a creative framework-in-development has been proposed, intended to connect soundscape ecology with musical/sound art practice in order to produce effective compositional responses to specific places, their ecosystems and soundscapes (Budel 2016). This paper will explore the implementation of this creative framework in two works responding to specific South Australian ecosystems. Long Island, responding to the eponymous island bisecting the Murray River at Murray Bridge, utilises real-world legislative controls on motorboat activity as a compositional device, comparing terrestrial and aquatic soundscapes as impacted by anthropogenic activities. By contrast, Farina responds to the 140 year history of a notable desert ghost-town in far-north South Australia. Moving from initial European settlement and rapid multicultural population increase to gradual decline throughout the twentieth century (and recent surges in volunteer revitalisation efforts), the work uses town surveying referents to inform the spatialised octophonic setup, and historical and sociological research to inform the reconstructed soundscape response. A concluding discussion of prospective avenues for future related creative responses is considered.