Sonic Research Practices | Preparations

Sonic Research Practices Complete by 15 September

Watch these lectures

Tutorial

Listen to this audio event

Karel, Ernst and Veronika Kusumaryati
2020    Expedition Content. Link ➙

Note: this is a livestream and discussion forming part of the Open City Documentary Festival. The date is Sept 10, 20:00-22:00 CEST. Tickets are very cheap and must be purchased in advance. If necessary, a recording of this event will be livestreamed at midnight on Monday 14th September. Details available via the link above. 

Read these texts

Feld, Steven and Donald Brenneis
2004
Doing anthropology in sound. American Ethnologist 31, 461–474. Link ➙
Rennie, Tullis
2014
Socio-Sonic: An Ethnographic Methodology for Electroacoustic Composition. Organised Sound 19, 117–24. Link ➙
Pisaro, Michael
2010
Ten Framing Considerations for the Field. Link ➙

Write journal entries

In your journal write about your listening experience of Expedition Content. Write out all the questions that come to mind when listening to the assigned piece. What sort of issues take prominence in the discussion following the audio projection?

Sonic Research Practices Complete by 22 September

Watch these lectures

Seminar

Read these texts

Henley, Paul
2007
Seeing, Hearing, Feeling: Sound and the Despotism of the Eye in “Visual” Anthropology. Visual Anthropology Review 23, 54–63. Link ➙
Chion, Michel
1994
Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. New York: Columbia University Press. Chapter One. Link ➙
Gupta, A. and J. Ferguson
2012
Chapter 24 – Beyond “Culture”: Space, Identity, and the Politics of Difference’. In Robben and Sluka (eds.), Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader, 2 edition. Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, MA. Pp. 374-386.
2012
Statement on Ethics. American Anthropological Association. Link ➙

We recommend that you read these texts, too

Marion, J.S. and J.W. Crowder
2013
Visual Ethics. In Visual Research: A Concise Introduction to Thinking Visually. Bloomsbury Academic, London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney. Link ➙

Listen to these tracks

Required Listening (Available online. Use good headphones or speakers!)

Stephanie Spray

Blue Sky, White River.
32:55 minutes

Peter Cusack

Favorite Beijing Sounds. Track 11 and at least two other tracks whose titles interest you.
Approx. 10 minutes total

In class you will listen to Ernst Karel’s “Chidambaram, Early”. But please read accompanying text before class.

Write journal entries to these prompts

In addition to your general entries/reflections on tutorial exercises, field studies, and method reflections, respond to the following module specific prompts.

  • How did deep listening affect your experience of the space?
  • What about it was audible, and what not?
  • Did the act of recording make you relate to it differently, mentally or physically?
  • When you listened back to your recordings, what kind of information did you perceive, and how did it make you feel?
  • How might greater attention to sound inform your visual practice (or not)?