Sound is an experience of inhabitation. It is a sign of organisms and materials in interaction, of the formation, flow and dissolution of systems. This experience is historically, culturally, socially, materially situated: our sonic experience is embroiled with the systems in which we dwell.

Sound is emergent. Listening is an aspect of making sense of our world, a dual process of interpretation and construction. It can be isolated only as a thought experiment. Perhaps it is better to consider meaning a verb than a noun.

Sound is unruly. When we work with sound, we construct systems, however contingently, to gather, measure, analyse, choreograph. Yet, in doing so, we have to reduce: sound transcends mere signal and, in reducing, we make choices, enact priorities. We make models of our soundful world.

Against a backdrop of technocracy, of being administered through systems and reductions in which there is depleting democratic involvement, how do workers with sound approach re-animating sound-as-data, to render it a convivial part of a lived and liveable world?

This panel will be chaired by Dr. Owen Green and will feature the following panellists:

Sandra Pauletto, Chris Watson, Adam Linson,  and Marco Donnarumma.

Register to attend – www.wisd-day-03-pm.eventbrite.com

Panelist Details

Chris Watson is one of the world’s leading recorders of wildlife and natural phenomena, and for Touch he edits his field recordings into a filmic narrative. For example. the unearthly groaning of ice in an Icelandic glacier is a classic example of, in Watson’s words, putting a microphone where you can’t put your ears. He was born in Sheffield where he attended Rowlinson School and Stannington College (now part of Sheffield College). In 1971 he was a founding member of the influential Sheffield-based experimental music group Cabaret Voltaire. His sound recording career began in 1981 when he joined Tyne Tees Television. Since then he has developed a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals, habitats and atmospheres from around the world. As a freelance recordist for film, tv & radio, Chris Watson specialises in natural history and documentary location sound together with track assembly and sound design in post production.

Born in 1953 in Sheffield where he attended Rowlinson School and Stannington College, Watson was a founding member of the influential Sheffield based experimental music group Cabaret Voltaire during the 1970’s and early 1980’s. His sound recording career began in 1981 when he joined Tyne Tees Television. Since then he has developed a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals, habitats and atmospheres from around the world. As a freelance composer and recordist for Film, TV & Radio, Watson specialises in natural history and documentary location sound together with sound design in post production.

His television work includes many programmes in the David Attenborough ‘Life’ series including ‘The Life of Birds’ which won a BAFTA Award for ‘Best Factual Sound’ in 1996. More recently Watson was the location sound recordist with David Attenborough on the BBC’s series ‘Frozen Planet’ which won a BAFTA Award for ‘Best Factual Sound’ (2012).

Watson has recorded and featured in many BBC Radio productions including; ‘The Ice Mountain, ‘The Reed Bed’, ‘Jules Verne’s Volcano’, ‘The Ditch’, ‘The Listeners’ and ‘The Wire’ which won him the Broadcasting Press Guild’s Broadcaster of The Year Award (2012). His music is regularly featured on the BBC Radio 3 programme ‘Late Junction’.

Performer, new media, sound artist and teacher, Marco Donnarumma was born in Italy and is based in London. He is a PhD student at Goldsmiths, University of London, funded by the European Research Council and supervised by Prof. Atau Tanaka and Dr. Matthew Fuller.

Marco looks at the collision of critical creativity with humanized technologies. He is known for his body-based performance works with custom open biotechnologies and physical interactive systems. He is a Harvestworks Creativity + Technology = Enterprise Fellow (New York, US) with support by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Marco has performed and spoken in 50 countries including US and South America, Europe, India, China, South Korea and Australia. His works have been selected at leading art events (ISEA, Venice Biennale, WRO Biennale), specialized festivals and venues (FILE, Panorama, EMPAC, New York Electronic Arts Festival, Sonorities, Némo, Mapping, Piksel, Re-New, Laboral) and major academic conferences (NIME, ICMC, Pure Data Convention, Linux Audio Conference @ Stanford CCRMA, SICMF). He curated a comprehensive journal publication on biotech and performing arts entitled Biotechnological Performance Practice (eContact! 14.2). His writings have appeared in the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (MIT Press), in the book “New Art/Science Affinities” (CMU and Studio for Creative Enquiry, US), and several times in specialised conference proceedings.

His biophysical system Xth Sense won the 1st prize in the Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition (Georgia Tech, US). His latest installation with Marije Baalman entitled “Nigredo” was recently awarded the 2nd prize in the TransitioMX New Media Art Award (MX). He has been artist in residence at STEIM (NL), Inspace (UK), and National School of Theatre and Contemporary Dance (DK). His work has been funded by the European Commission, British Council, Creative Scotland, New Media Scotland, and the Danish Arts Council. His projects have been reviewed on BBC, Reuters, Wired, RTVE, El Pais, Weave, Create Digital Music, We Make Money Not Art, Rhizome, and Digicult.

Marco teaches regularly worldwide for academic institutions and media labs. Past courses were hosted at Harvestworks in New York, US; SESC Sao Paulo in Brazil; UNAM and CENART in Mexico; UPR Universidad de Puerto Rico; STEIM in Netherlands; NK and LEAP in Berlin; Newcastle CultureLab, University of London, Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts in the UK; Gotland University Institute for New Media Art and Technology in Sweden; Academy of Fine Arts of Brera and Pierluigi da Palestrina Conservatory in Italy.

Currently, he investigates how body theory can provide perspectives on the design of combined biosensing and machine learning technologies for music and the performing arts.

 Adam Linson is active internationally as a double bassist, improviser, composer, and scholar, who performs acoustically and with live electronics, solo and in a wide variety of ensembles. He also designs, develops, and performs with real-time interactive computer music systems. He is currently completing his doctoral research in Artificial Intelligence and Improvised Music at the Open University (UK), in the Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology.

His research interests extend to other areas of musical human-computer interaction, especially phenomenology and cybernetics. He received an MFA from Bard College in 2012, and a BA in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego in 1998, where he also studied composed and improvised music under George Lewis (now his PhD co-advisor), and classical double bass under Bertram Turetzky. As a software engineer and GNU/Linux specialist, he has extensive experience in the private sector, ranging from large-scale distributed architectures to embedded systems. From 1999-2009, he was based in Berlin, Germany, where he began many continuing musical collaborations with distinguished improvisers. He performs regularly in concert series and international festivals, and can be heard on several critically-acclaimed albums. His performances and recordings have been broadcast on US and international radio, including BBC Radio 3 in the UK and SWR in Germany. In 2004 and 2008, he was an artist-in-residence at the Studio voor Elektro-Instrumentale Muziek (STEIM), Amsterdam. His compositions for chamber ensembles and contemporary dance productions have been performed in Europe and North America.

Linson is originally from Los Angeles, California, and currently divides his time between the UK and Canada.

Sandra Pauletto is a lecturer and researcher in sound design with a background in music, physics and music technology. She is the director of the MA/MSc in Post-production with Sound Design at the Department of Theatre, Film and Television at the University of York. Her research interests include sound design for film and television, synthesised and cinematic voices, storytelling through sound and audio-films, auditory displays, sonification, and sonic interaction design.
Sandra has worked as a technologist, researcher, and sound designer in a variety of projects including the COSTART project (Computer Science, Loughborough University), which aimed at studying the relationship between artists and technologists during the creation of digital artworks, and the EPSRC project Data mining through an interactive sonic approach, (Electronics, University of York), which focused on displaying data structures, present in complex multivariate data sets, using sound synthesis and interaction.
Sandra was part of the EU Cost-Action Gesture Controlled Audio Systems and was the UK representative for the EU Cost-Action on Sonic Interaction Design. More recently she was part of the EPSRC network on Creative Speech Technologies and produced, with colleagues, an interactive speech installation The Conversational Kiosk that explores the introduction of emotions in speech synthesis and people reactions to it. This installation was exhibited in York, London, Sheffield, Hull and Scarborough.
Recently she was the sound designer for the audiovisual animation Is the world listening? Jane’s story that used cinematic sound design techniques as well as sonification and animation to bring attention to chronic health issues of adolescents. The piece was designed for and exhibited at the 3Sixty, an immersive exhibition space of York University, comprising of four screens/walls and an array of 32 speakers.
Sandra believes that sound design research, teaching and practice can benefit greatly from a strong collaboration between academic research and sound design practice. To promote this collaboration she has organised and chaired two international symposia: Sonic Interaction Design and its relation to Film and Theatre Sound Design (2009) and Perspectives on Sound Design (2013).