silence and other ways

What is it?This book will act as a way of communicating your early explorations with sound in the city, based on research activities work-shopped with Lawrence Harvey and Michael Fowler [SIAL SOUND].It will be your first exposure to the Fermata Project.The book will take the form of an Audio Visual Presentation and will collectively be used as a way of opening up the discussion on sound in the city with those involved in the Fermata Project (SIAL, MCC, other interested parties). 

How it will start:Thurs 3/8 1.30-5pm: n-space and city with Lawrence Harvey. Activities/lectures:Overview of acoustic ecology and resourcesCity Sounds project: background, process and resultsSound walkPerceptual Exercises and notationFriday 4/8 1-5pm: n-space with Michael Fowler, Activities/lectures:The fermata in musicNotationSpecial unscheduled short session Thurs 10/8 1.30 – 3.30pm: Jail [11.c.12] with Fiona and Liam.Activities/lectures:Research toolkitsPublic space and Melbourne 

What will the book contain?The “Book of Listening” is more precisely a book [read – mechanism / device for telling a story] of your listening[s][read – aural discoveries in the city]. This is a place to put forward curated ideas about sound and the city via sound and material propositions and it has two distinct parts/chapters.Chapter One is essentially “audio”. It will be constructed out of recordings and compositions of sounds that you encounter in the city. To do this you will need to design and construct an instrument for collecting and interpreting aural information. This will be a combination of technologies and questions and research methods introduced to you by your lecturers. It will have a visual component [exterior or interface]. This could be physical / material or screen based. It could be dynamic or static.What you choose to do will become clear as your research progresses. 

Chapter Two is concerned with the idea of your position in the articulation of your research into a series of ten (10) Marquette’s. A way of framing this design activity is to think of these “objects” as “listening posts”: think of bird hides, fire towers, crows nests or any structure / device that is designed for the observation of specific phenomena.  SCALE: this book (and all of its contents) will be contained in a box no larger than an “A4 Transfer Box” 

DUE: The point of submission will be an event on Thursday the 31^st of August.You will design, organize and document this event. 

What you interpret “Audio Visual” as constituting is open.However it is important that you present your ideas in a way that invites and provokes discussion – as it is this that will give you direction for the rest of the studio. 

Resources:Download this freeware sound-editing suit. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/Web storage: You may need to store your book online so that it can be linked to the blog [blog file size restrictions may be inadequate. Use one of the more reputable free net storage services or use your RMIT net storage http://www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=tjda4cll2fmyYou will need to borrow a Portable DAT Recorder from TSU http://tech.tce.rmit.edu.au/ and may need to use their editing suits and other services for DAT to file transfer.