Noise Issues: Canadian Stories

The following is a series of short news videos explaining various noise issues facing Canadians across the country.

Ottawa (3:54) Air and sound pollution that created by bus and truck in downtown Ottawa may possibly be addressed by using rail service.

Vancouver (4:31) Vancouver International Airport is building a $12 million ground run-up enclosure to minimize noise while engines are run-up as part of regular maintenance work. The structure is intended to block noise radiating outward from the planes in order to protect surrounding neighbourhoods from noise pollution. Journal of Commerce Canada.

Victoria (3:08) The Environment and Infrastructure Public Advisory Committee is tuning into something many of us tune out; environmental noise pollution. The committee notes that there is a need for an overall community noise policy. A News Vancouver Island.  

Research: Listening to Elephants

Two videos on the subject of elephant communication are included in this posting:

Listening to Elephants (12:46 ) Bioacoustics researcher Katy Payne and her colleagues have found that elephants use low frequency sounds to communicate. These sounds are mostly below the range of human hearing but we feel them as "pulsations" in the air. In Africa these sounds may travel as far as 10 km and serve to coordinate elephant herds. Payne is co-founder of the Elephant Listening Project, which uses acoustic methods to study and aid in the conservation of forest elephants in Central Africa. Source: Cornell University. YouTube

Elephant Communication (1:44) Matt Anderson of the San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conversation Research explains how they have been monitoring communication between elephants that cannot be heard by human ears. Source: BBC

Soundscape: Buenos Aires

Look down, look up and listen in Buenos Aires (4:36) Based on a soundwalk which began at the Borges Cultural Centre in Buenos Aires in early December 2010, as part of the Balance-Unbalance colloquium. A silent, listening group walked through the shops to the pedestrian mall on Florida, down to the park of Plaza St. Martin and back through Galeria Pacifica to return to the Cultural Centre.  All sound recordings, photography and montage are by Andra McCartney. 

Project: Grinding Gears - Acoustic Composition

Grinding Gears (7:55) Students at the University of Windsor explore their acoustic environment by first listening to sounds in the field and then, returning to the classroom, create vocal compositions based on those sounds. This project was part of the Creative Improvisation in Music Therapy Course conducted by Dr. Petra Kern. Source: YouTube

Soundwalk: Guided Soundwalk on Culture Night

Guided Soundwalk (7:20) This September, 2009 NCBI Guided Soundwalk offered a unique sonic experience led by the perceptive abilities of a team of guides with vision impairments while immersed in the intimate acoustic environment of an ‘Audio Umbrella’. The Soundwalk took place on Dublin's Culture Night.

The walk involved five stages, each one is 15 mins. in length and brought the participants to some of the most prominent cultural venues in Dublin's city center, where they could choose to partake in a range of exciting arts programmes for Culture Night.

The walks  were repeated three times during Culture Night so participants could choose to take part  in ‘Light’, ‘Dusk’ and ‘Dark’ events. Unlike a typical tour, guides of the NCBI Guided Soundwalk lead in silence, operating a long cane fitted with microphone and transmitter. With this, they created unique aural compositions broadcasting inside the domes of the Audio Umbrellas, like a mobile conductor directing a score for an urban orchestra.

NCBI Guided Soundwalk offered the audience not only the opportunity to enjoy the rich wealth of sonic experience in the urban environment, but also to appreciate a diversity of perception, ability and creativity.

Text Source: National Council for the Blind of Ireland

Video: Vimeo

Soundscape Composition: Reuschenberger

Reuschenberger  (10:51) This audio visual coproduction of Peter Hölscher and Michael Rüsenberg is a portrait of Hölschers atelier (studio), an old but still working watermill in Leverkusen, Germany. Sound and photos were recorded at the same time and place and then the artists worked on each element independently until the merging of both took place 2 weeks later. This is part of a series of "zeitbilder" (images in time). Source: Vimeo

Project: Bio Circuit - A Wearable Soundscape

Bio Circuit (2:26)  "Bio Circuit is a vest that provides a form of bio feedback using data from the wearer's heart rate to determine what "sounds" they hear through the speaker embedded in the collar of the garment. The wearer places the heart rate monitor around the ribcage, resting against the skin and close to the heart. An MP3 audio player embedded in the vest plays the audio track related to that specific heart rate. The audio tracks are soundscapes mixed from a range of ambient sounds. If the wearer’s heart rate is low, the soundscape will reflect a quiet natural area with sounds such as water, birds and insects. If the wearer has a high heart rate then they will hear a cacophony of urban sounds such as people talking and traffic." Bio Circuit was created at Emily Carr University of Art and Design by Industrial Design student Dana Ramler, and MAA student Holly Schmidt.

Source: Vimeo

Project: Sonsofera di Roma

Sonsofera di Roma (6:14) What better way to call attention to listening to the soundscape than through a street performance with an oversized microphone. In this video the artists from Escoitar.org  take their message to the streets of Rome and the famous Trevi Fountain. A goal is to make the public aware of the need to listen and give attention to the sounds of daily life. 

Escoitar.org is a  group of artists in Spain who are interested in the natural and human made soundscapes. One objective of the group is to call attention to the sonic environment in an age that has an obsession with the visual aspects of culture. The artists note that the sounds we hear are inevitably a part of our lives and collective memory. The recognition and preservation of the sounds that enrich life is an issue for artists to address in the 21st century.