Dr. Abby Aresty as a Post-Doctoral scholar at the Acoustic Ecology Lab @ ASU

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Abby Aresty as a Post-Doctoral scholar to the Acoustic Ecology Lab @ ASU. Abby is a composer and sound artist who uses technology to facilitate unexpected interactions between people, the built environment, and the natural world. Aresty’s work is rooted in the fields of acoustic ecology, sound art, and electroacoustic composition, and has included concert works, public sound installations, soundwalks, pop-up galleries, multimedia collaborations, biofeedback interfaces, and sound sculptures, including prosthetic listening devices.

Abby received her Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Washington in 2012. From 2013-2014, she was a Fellow at the Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University, and from 2014-2016, she held the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Electronic Music and Sound Studies at Grinnell College.

Aresty Pic

We will be launching the new Acoustic Ecology Lab site very soon and you can expect to hear a lot more from Abby over the coming months.

Listen(n) Concert and EcoRift at Institute of Humanities Research 10th Anniversary Event

Listen(n) Concert at Institute of Humanities Research 10th Anniversary Event

Friday, October 16, 2015 – 4:00pm to 6:00pm
ASU Art Museum

As part of a month-long commemoration of its 10th Anniversary, the IHR will be hosting a party to celebrate the diversity of humanities research at ASU. Come broaden your horizons through virtual reality, or awash yourself in multisensory performances; learn origami and create memories in the humanities photobooth; express your poetic side at the open mic, or share your passion through the Humanities Manifesto board; above all: eat, drink, and be merry with other lovers of the humanities! This party will be a unique and exciting way to truly honor the ways in which the IHR and its affiliates have expanded humanities research at ASU for the last 10 years. Come celebrate with us!

Back by popular demand: “Listen(n): Embodied Sonic Experiences” concert – come experience the acoustic ecology of the USA’s Southwest deserts! Other activities and performances include:

EcoRift virtual reality tour
Origami station
Photobooth with humanities props
Open mic poetry
“Experimental Humanities” visual sound presentation
Electronic music and video performance by Pincushioned
Multisensory exploration of a medieval manuscript
Wine, beer, and food
And more!

Screen Shot 2015-10-15 at 3.51.28 PM

Media Release – Listen(n) Project in National Park Week

Media Release: April 14, 2015

Listen(n) Project

Open your ears to the sonic environment during National Park Week

America’s largest celebration of national environmental heritage begins on April 18 with events and activities happening across 400 national parks.

Hosted by the National Park Foundation and National Parks Services, National Park Week celebrates the vibrant culture, rich history and iconic landscapes of National Parks across the country.

The National Park Week program features Arizona State University’s Listen(n) Project, which explores technologically innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to acoustic ecology in National Parks across America. During National Park Week, the Listen(n) Project team is hosting presentations and workshops that foster community-centered listening experiences in Joshua Tree National Park and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park in California. Conceived in 2013 by Arizona State University professor Garth Paine, the Listen(n) project examines how new approaches to listening increased awareness of the acoustic ecology can inspire environmental stewardship among local and global communities. The project has already gained significant international attention and has been featured at some of the world’s leading acoustic ecology and conservation events, including the 2014 IUCN World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia and SxSW Eco in Austin, Texas.

Listen(n) engages local placemaking through deep listening and sound recording community workshops, providing local communities with the tools and skills to document the acoustic ecology of their local park. The Listen(n) created a user-friendly online database and portal for community members, researchers and artists to share their sonic experience of park environments globally. The project has formed diverse partnerships and promotes creative projects to be shared with larger communities.

Dr. Paine and visiting researcher Dr. Leah Barclay will lead field recording workshops and demonstrate the value of listening to the park environment through a series of public presentations during National Park Week. Workshop participants will have the opportunity to contribute to the Listen(n) online database and online community portal, which is a dynamic and inspiring model for soundscape presentation and digital archiving of sound, media art works and community storytelling.

Joshua Tree

Listening to Joshua Tree

The Listen(n) team will also contribute to the ‘Find Your Park’ campaign on FindYourPark.com. Launched April 1 by the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation, Find Your Park is a public awareness and education campaign celebrating the milestone centennial anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016 and setting the stage for its second century of service. ‘Find Your Park’ is also the theme for this year’s National Park Week. It is an exciting opportunity for the Listen(n) Project to engage in a national conversation about the value and future of America’s National Parks.

One of the crucial components of the Listen(n) Project has been the development of rich digital media environments that can be used to engage local and global communities including the elderly and disabled without access to these precious places. Given the current challenges of environmental degradation, the Listen(n) team has created novel virtual reality experiences (EcoRift) which facilitate remote embodied experiences of natural environments through sound to broaden discussion about the value of pristine, yet fragile ecosystems.

As the National Park Service turns 100 on August 25, 2016, it continues to foster new ideas to engage communities through recreation, conservation, and historic preservation programs. National Park Week offers programs that enable communities to protect, preserve and experience nature. The Listen(n) Project underscores the NPS vision by creatively exploring the rich sonic environments of parks. Assisted by Dr. Sabine Feisst and Dr. Daniel Gilfillan from the Humanities and Sciences, the Listen(n) team documents the parks’ acoustics and offers path-breaking virtual reality experiences of parks, responsive community listening workshops in parks and realizes music and art projects inspired by the sounds of parks with the goal of studying, protecting and preserving the parks’ acoustic ecology and building community capacity and environmental stewardship for the future.Follow the Listen(n) Project during National Park Week using the hashtag #ListenProject and #FindYourPark on social media platforms and on  www.ecolisten.org

10922518_985763691448911_7144597671277549567_n