Even the surrounding hills were hushed, as if brought low by language.–from Grendel by John Gardner
Often we associate catastrophes with massive and sudden sounds. We give animalistic descriptions to the sounds made by what we call natural disasters, such as growling tornado, roaring avalanche, shrieking cyclone, groaning earth. This practice speaks to our complex relationship with nature, connecting us to it and taking us out of it at the same time. But what of the slow silencing that happens to our soundscapes when certain species die out? Such quiet disasters affect everything, sadly in ways we don’t (and won’t) notice until too late.
In The Great Animal Orchestra, author, musician, soundscape recordist, bio-acoustician and naturalist Bernie Krause coins the term, biophony, to help ecologists, biologists, acoustic scientists, and others to understand the long-term impact of disasters, particularly silent ones. Biophony refers to the collective sound vocal non-human animals create in each given environment. We face many compounding problems with the silencing of certain species and the quieting of a whole biophony, not the least of which is our connection with the world.
Krause provides some powerful examples of silenced biophonies in his book, such as the story of the Wy-am tribe in the Northwestern United States, whose history has been intertwined with the Celilo Falls, a waterfall just west of the Columbia River’s midway point, for thousands of years. Wy-am means “the echo of falling water.” Krause writes: “so central were the falls to the tribe that the Celilo was considered a sacred voice through which divine messages were conveyed.” It was also their yearly source for fish. In 1957, when the Dalles Dam gates were ordered shut by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the waterfall and fishing site were completely submerged, sending the Wy-am into a state of mourning that continued to subsequent generations.
Krause cites several similar “silencings” in his book using spectrographs. Similar to sonification, Krause’s spectrograms give form and shape to “silent” disasters. A particularly sad example for me, coming as I do from a family from the Hawaiian Islands, is the recorded comparisons of the coral reef in Vanua Levu, Fiji, that has been devastated by warming waters, shifts in pH, and pollution.
To Bernie Krause: “We have a tendency to attribute ‘loud’ to the perspective of a disastrous event. Can you discuss the relationship of silence to disaster?”
In the natural world there are so many events that, to the “rational” human mind, appear to be contradictions. For instance, after the 11 September 01 disaster, which resulted in cancellation of all domestic and private aircraft flights and a reduction of automobile traffic around our house in the far western United States, the natural soundscape (biophony) returned in a way that we had never heard it before…even in September…late summer when almost all of the birds have fledged and gone elsewhere. And then there’s the reference in the book to the return of the biophony around Chernobyl, recorded by Peter Cusack from the UK. On the other hand, after some types of disasters, the immediate silence appears to happen because all of the vocal creatures have to reassess their acoustic territory, and, depending on the biome, takes anywhere from minutes to years, to recover a stable biophonic expression.
UK artist Peter Cusack’s Sounds from Dangerous Places, sought recordings from disaster sites like the Chernobyl exclusion zone in the Ukraine, the Caspian oil fields in Azerbaijan, the Chernobyl-fallout affected farmlands of Northern Wales, and the rivers of Eastern Turkey with their extensive, local climate altering dams. What is surprising and moving about these works is the strong human element, especially the lack of human presence and the evolving relationship of humans to these post-disaster soundscapes.
Listening to some of Cusack’s recordings from Chernobyl, one might feel surprised to hear that iconic name attached to such rich and pastoral soundscapes. When we consider the massive industrial accident that killed thousands and created an exclusion zone of 30 kilometers (19 miles), some of us are compelled to imagine a wasteland…not a living creature in sight. But those like Cusack who have visited the area are met with quite a different experience, one we can share when listening to the recordings. Cusack says Chernobyl held the richest dawn bird choruses he has ever recorded; haunting full choruses of frogs and nightingales sound throughout the night. And again we hear that iconic sound of the Geiger counter increasing its metallic chirp as Cusack walks toward an infamous radioactive hotspot, at one point it makes an eerie duet with a calling cuckoo.
To Peter Cusack: “How has the sound of dangerous places surprised you?”
Dangerous places can be both sonically and visually compelling, even beautiful and atmospheric. There is, often, an extreme dichotomy between an aesthetic response and knowledge of the ‘danger,’ whether it is pollution, social injustice, military or geopolitical.
In the context of the Sounds from Dangerous Places project ‘dangerous places’ are mostly areas of major environmental damage, but also include nuclear sites or the edges of military zones. The danger is not usually to short-term visitors, but to local people who have no option but to stay or more widely through the location’s role in global power politics.
Many aspects of dangerous places are a surprise, mostly because ones expectations are often wide of the mark, especially in the smaller details. However different places surprise one very differently. For example the name ‘Chernobyl exclusion zone’ implies no one is there. Not so. Thousands still work at the site, some live there and some commute in every day (by rail, so trains are part of the soundscape). That many people also require restaurants, bars, administration and all the infrastructure of a small town. So people and work sounds of all kinds are still to be heard around Chernobyl town and the nuclear sites. Some of the villagers, originally evacuated out, have returned bringing their sounds too – horses, chickens, carts, hand farming, traditional songs, modern day TV. The zone is also now a wildlife haven and the sounds of the dawn and evening chorus of spring are intense. The vibrant recordings of wildlife show that many species, at least, are doing fine in the exclusion zone. . .
Excerpt from article in Sounding Out! journal on sound studies
Graciela Machado, Ana Paula Coutinho
2021
Sílvia Simões, Natasha Antão, Vítor Silva
2020
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2020
978-989-9049-04-8
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Graciela Machado, Teresa Almeida, Ana Margarida Rocha
2020
978-989-9049-00-0
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Graciela Machado, Teresa Almeida, Ana Margarida Rocha
2020
978-989-9049-01-7
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2020
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Susana Lourenço Marques, Vitor Almeida
2020
2184–7991
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2020
978-989-54703-6-5
Português
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Carla Cruz, Hugo Cruz, Isabel Bezelga, Miguel Falcão e Ramon Aguiar
2020
978-989-54417-9-2
português, espanhol, inglês
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José Carlos de Paiva, Mário Bismarck, Sílvia Simões
2019
978-989-54703-3-4
Português
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2019
978-989-54417-7-8
English, Portuguese
The orthodox narrative of Western knowledge is particularly obsessed with clarity. Clarity should be understood here not only as an expression of intelligibility, but also, in terms of light. That the association between knowledge and clarity is a given, veils – that is, does not enlighten – the history of domination, obscurantism, occlusion, suppression of […]
Júlio Dolbeth, Margarida Dias, Rui Vitorino Santos, Tiago Assis
2019
978-989-54703-5-8
Portuguese, English
MEETING ON YOUTH EDUCATION THROUGH ILLUSTRATION [MYETI] is an internacional encounter that took place at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto, on 11th October 2019, at the end of the 3rd Edition of the YETI (https://yeti.up.pt). The publication MYETI#0 Livro de atas is composed by the articles that were created from the presentations and that […]
Catarina Martins, Marta Valente, Samuel Guimarães
2019
978-989-54417-3-0
English
International Meeting on Museum Education & Research #1 Rethinking Museum Theory and Practices This publication comes out of the first edition of IMMER #1 International Meeting on Museum Education & Research. Rethinking Museum Theory and Practices that took place at Museu do Douro (Douro Museum), Peso da Régua, Portugal, on the 23rd and 24th May 2018. […]
2019
PT
Publication of the PhD in Fine Arts of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto. Registration of exhibitions held during the academic year 2017-2018.
2019
978-989-54417-5-4
PT
This publication presents the work developed between November 2018 and March 2019 in the artistic residence developed at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, within the scope of the first edition of the Photography Biennial of Porto. The exhibition, curated by Susana Lourenço Marques, took place at the Museum of the […]
Francisco Laranjo, Domingos Loureiro, Sofia Torres, Teresa Almeida
2019
978-9889-54417-0-9
PT, ES, EN, FR
2019
978-989-54111-7-7
Português, Espanhol
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Domingos Loureiro, Sofia Torres
2018
978-989-54111-8-4
Português
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2018
978-989-54111-3-9
English, Portuguese
The editorial aim of ‘Artistic Research Does’ is to contribute to the comprehension of artistic and educational research in Portugal. Departing from the problematic framing of research towards, about, as much as, without, according, for, to, in face of, confronted, of, against, with, framed by, under, following, in art (quoting here a lengthy yet incomplete definition of artistic task as proposed […]
2018
978-989-54111-4-6
Português
Specularis, which will be held at the Museu Alberto Sampaio in Guimarães, is an open exhibition aiming to include the several studies and works produced around engraving and glass. It aims at showing the collaboration between different people and their areas of technological interest, based at the Faculdade de Belas Artes of the Universidade do […]
Mário Bismarck, Vítor Silva, Miguel Duarte
2018
1647-8045
Português
Catarina Martins, José Carlos de Paiva, Tiago Assis, Catarina Almeida
2018
2183-3524
English, Portuguese
Derivas is a semestral publication from the Post-Graduation Programs in Arts Education at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto and the Research Group in Arts Education at the i2ADS – Institute of Research in Art, Design and Society. The aim of the journal is to publish original articles, subject to blind peer review, […]
José Carlos de Paiva, Liliana Alves Couto
2018
978-989-54111-2-2
PT, ES
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2018
PT
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Catarina Almeida, Catarina Martins, José Carlos de Paiva, Tiago Assis
2018
Pt, Es
EPRAE is an international meeting that intends to make public and to discuss ongoing doctoral researches students with invited discussants and a community of students and teachers of arts education. Visit website: http://eprae.fba.up.pt 6th Encounter of Practices of Research in Arts Education
Cláudia Amandi, Joaquim Jorge Marques
2018
978-989-54111-0-8
2018
978-989-99839-4-6
English, Spanish
According to Juan Luis Moraza, art is the form of knowledge that avoided less the articulation of the capacities of knowing, of tasting and appreciating. By making use of the conceptual device saboer instead of knowledge, Moraza actualises knowledge as a process intrinsically defined by material and conceptual sensuality. This relation with subjective recursiveness (and its defence) is likely to be the […]
Mário Bismarck, Paulo Luís Almeida, Vítor Silva, José Manuel Barbosa, José Maria Lopes
2017
1647-8045
PT, Eng
PSIAX continues its mission of supporting research on drawing and image, carrying forward the publication of a selection of the most relevant papers presented in Drawing in the University Today – International Meeting on Drawing, Image and Research, held at the Faculty of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto, […]
Catarina Martins, Catarina Almeida, José Carlos de Paiva, Tiago Assis
2017
2183-3524
PT / ENG
Derivas is a semestral publication from the Post-Graduation Programs in Arts Education at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto and the Research Group in Arts Education at the i2ADS – Institute of Research in Art, Design and Society. The aim of the journal is to publish original articles, subject to blind peer review, […]
José Carlos de Paiva, Rita Rainho
2017
978-989-99839-7-7
Português
Partilha de Reflexões sobre as Artes, a Luta, os Saberes e os Sabores da Comunidade Quilombola de Conceição das Crioulas.
2017
978-989-99839-8-4
EN
Creative School Partnerships with Visual Artists, is a project for experimenting pedagogies based on contemporary art practices in primary schools. The project has been co-funded with support from the European Commission (2015-1-PT01-KA201-012989), started in 01/09/2015 and finished 30/11/2017. Crearte aspires to promote creative spaces in education that will fire young students’ active participation, willingness to […]
Francisco Laranjo, Domingos Loureiro, Sofia Torres, Teresa Almeida
2017
978-989-746-143-9
Pt, Es, Eng
Reflexions Beyond Thinking and Practice This book gathers a selection of articles made in context of the International Congress on Contemporary European Painting, held at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, in April 3, 4 and 5, 2017.
Sofia Torres, Domingos Loureiro
2017
978-989-99839-6-0
Pt, Es, Eng
This publication was held in the context of the International Conference #2 Research Journeys of the Nucleus of Art and Design, of the Reserach Institute of Art, Design and Society. It presents the abstracts of more than two dozen communications made by researchers, artists and art teachers, occurred on November 23 and 24, 2017 at […]
Catarina Martins, Miguel Carvalhais, Paulo Luís Almeida, Paulo Bernardino, Cleomar Rocha, Maria de Fátima Lambert, Maria Manuela Lopes, Suzete Venturelli
2017
978-989-99839-3-9
16th International Meeting of Art and Technology #16.ART: Artis intelligentia: IMAGINING THE REAL Proceedings book 2017
Fernando José Pereira, Eugénia Vilela, Jorge Leandro Rosa
2017
2184-0067
Português
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2017
978-989-99839-0-8
Português, English
Anita Seppä’s “Art as an Act of Love with the Radically Other – The Post-Humanist Art of Terike Haapoja” opens up for the statement that there is a transformative power in opening up. Otherness appears at the centre of this thought in terms of the meanings of sharing, giving, and including. Artistic Research Does #3 […]
Sofia Ponte, Domingos Loureiro, Sofia Torres, Francisco Laranjo
2017
978-989-746-124-8
Português
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Francisco Laranjo, Domingos Loureiro, Sofia Torres, Teresa Almeida
2017
978-989-746-136-1
Pt, Es, Eng
Reflexions inside the University This book gathers a selection of articles made in context of the International Congress on Contemporary European Painting, held at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, in April 3, 4 and 5, 2017.
Francisco Laranjo, Domingos Loureiro, Sofia Torres, Teresa Almeida
2017
978-989-746-122-4
PT, ES, EN
ICOCEP, 1sth International Conference on Contemporary European Painting, is organized by Faculdade de Belas Artes (College of Fine Arts) of the University of Porto and I2ADS, Research Institute of Arts, Design and Society. It aims to promote dialogue and discussion, and develop research projects between Professors, Artists, Graduate Students and Researchers from different locations and institutions. This book of abstracts of […]
2017
978-972-36-1548-7 (Edições Afrontamento), 978-989-746-119-4 (i2ADS)
Português
2016
978-989-98745-9-6
Português, English
The publishing of first essay of the series Artistic Research Does brought us to a state of drooling joy. The acute remarks and observations made by Annette Arlander in that essay were instrumental to set our dear project in motion. With the new academic season Artistic Research Does proudly presents a new contribution for the […]
2016
Português, English
Hey presto!, this is not another ant-ology neither aspires being part of one. And we are not tied to defining artistic research neither we intend to spend our and others’ sweat to eventually provide an enlightened state of the art. We are nevertheless quite happy to present a friendly, fancy and laid-back ink and paper […]
2016
978-989-730-050-9
Português
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2015
978-989-730-042-4
English
Texts by Catarina Almeida, Catherine Rosamond, Cristina Mendanha, Eduardo Morais, Joana Mendonça, Leonardo Charréu e Marilda Oliveira, Lígia Lima, Sofia Barreira
Diana Carvalho, Miguel Leal, Dário Cannatà, João Brojo, Felícia Teixeira
2014
978-989-98745-4-1
Português, English
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Catarina Martins, José Carlos de Paiva
2014
978-989-730-041-7
English
Derivas is a semestral publication from the Post-Graduation Programs in Arts Education at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto and the Research Group in Arts Education at the i2ADS – Institute of Research in Art, Design and Society. The aim of the journal is to publish original articles, subject to blind peer review, […]
2014
978-989-97856-6-3
Catarina Martins, José Carlos de Paiva, Catarina Almeida, Tiago Assis
2014
ISSN: 2183-3524
Português, Espanhol
Derivas is a semestral publication from the Post-Graduation Programs in Arts Education at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto and the Research Group in Arts Education at the i2ADS – Institute of Research in Art, Design and Society. The aim of the journal is to publish original articles, subject to blind peer review, […]
Miguel Carvalhais, Pedro Tudela
2014
978-989-98745-0-3
English
This volume concerns music, sound arts and sound in the arts and media. It collects reflections on theory and practice, on composition, performance, technique, virtuosity and aesthetics, as well as on publishing strategies and other issues brought about by computational technologies. It tries to traverse a convoluted map of artistic and design practices that are […]
Cláudia Amandi, Graciela Machado, Pedro Maia
2014
978-989-746-035-7
Português
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José Carlos de Paiva, Rita Rainho
2013
978-989-730-031-8
Português, English, Castellano
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2013
978-989-97856-8-7 (PORTUGAL)
978-84-475-3843-0 (ESPANYA)
Português, Català
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2013
1647-8045
Português, Castellano
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Catarina Martins, Manuela Terrasêca, Vítor Martins
2012
978-989-20-3000-5
Português, English
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2012
978-972-98517-7-3
Português, English, Castellano
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José Carlos de Paiva, Catarina Martins
2011
978-972-9171-76-5
Português, English
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2011
Português, English
A compendium of contemporary public art / space thinking. “In the spirit of an exploratory, transdisciplinary object, you may thus find here essays on the mutating codes of landscaping (Laura Castro), a possible topology of media (Miguel Leal), the shifting status of public art (Jeremy Hunt & Jonathan Vickery), and even a graphic novel on non-gravity […]
Fernando José Pereira, Miguel Leal
2007
1646-7388
Português, English
The title MONO becomes relevant in the context of a publication intending to reflect the contemporariness of visual arts, in particular through its inherent connection with the production process – mono is the volume/prototype made by printers to enable the client to check the final work. And in addition because on embodying the notion of […]