Hello everyone. This month’s newsletter will be brief because it’s being written from a tiny Airbnb-cave hybrid in Seoul. We’ll both have left by the time this goes out, but in case you were interested, we just had some really delicious soup.
I’ll explain below why the first AudioSpaces trip was to Seoul. First things first, though, let’s have a listen to our favourite sounds from March.
AudioSpace(s) of the month
This month was very musical: piano melodies from Cheltenham all the way to the Douro valley, Balkan folk in Prague, flutes in Montréal, strange ambient samples in Tokyo and the unmistakable voice of Sgt Pokes at Subdub in Leeds. Also some delicious soundscapes that tell of Spring in the North: the swooshing salty sounds of Madeira shores, what I think are dunnocks in Oxford and what are definitely seals on the California coast. There are too many beautiful moments to mention really—it was really nice exploring the map this month. Go have a listen for yourself!
A rainy jam in the Douro valley
by oriel
Somerset birds sing different
by alana
Lost without you starting with F#
by thorlo
From one stop to another in 2 minutes
by chrismetric
sunset at vrh opora near the windmills
by pech
Silvretta medzistanica v dedine Ischgl.
by @ladikuuuuu
Korean Traditional Music
by oliver
Travelling around Changdeokgung
by chiara
Audible Futures
So what the hell are we doing in Korea?
Firstly, over the last few months we’ve been so excited by all the activity going on in the AudioSpaces map that we decided to start doing some analysis. We’ll share what we’ve been working on more concretely with you all soon. But in a nutshell, we’re interested in what the many patterns of contribution to AudioSpaces might be able to tell us about cultures of everyday listening, recording and sound more generally in the world today.
Oliver and myself have spent a lot of time reflecting ourselves on how the project has developed in this regard, and in the last couple months or so we decided to connect with a selection of contributors to see how they understand their recording and listening practices. Needless to say, we had some wonderful conversations and managed to write a short paper based on four in-depth case studies. It’s worth mentioning that this research is ongoing, so for any keen AudioSpaces contributors or anyone else interested that might want to get involved with the research—get in touch!
Anyway, we came to Seoul to present the paper we put together in this year’s International Conference on the Politics of Sound and Technology at Hanyang University’s Music Research Centre. The conference title was Audible Futures: Media, Ecology, and Art, and it featured a huge range of artists and researchers working in various ways to “unpack the power dynamics, social implications, and cultural significance embedded in our sonic environments and listening habits”. All very large.
It was a real pleasure to participate. Both of us are really happy to have met such a range of friendly and talented presenters, and were inspired hearing about all of their work. A massive thanks to Kyung-Young Chung and all the other organisers, staff and performers from the Hanyang Music Research Centre for making the weekend possible. You can find out more about their work here.
A big thanks also to our creative director Chiara, who was not only essential for making the paper & presentation go as well as they did, but also helped maintain a level of sanity throughout the whole process.
Probably the most important thank you, though, is to our amazing AudioSpaces contributors hello, concon, jody and siobhan, without whose input and generous time this paper could never have been written.
Apart from the conference, from this little taster Seoul seems like a great city and I recommend you stop by if you ever have the opportunity. When you do, you can come have a listen to what we’ve been up to here the past few days, right on the AudioSpaces map.
You’ll hear from us in the coming days about some big big app updates and keep your eyes out tomorrow morning for an exciting collab post! Have a nice rest of the week xx