SoundingWalks part of the Art + Oceans exhibition
Sounding Walks reflects upon and continues conversations begun between artists, scientists and visiting audiences during the art project Sounding initially presented across Dunedin in September 2017. The artists’ employ sound as the key sensory source of both information and playful interaction.
Sounding Walks draws our attention to urban spaces as potential acoustic spaces to help us better understand and relate to our marine mammals’ aural environment. Parallels are made between land-based and ocean-based communication spaces that we can’t see. Listening to our activated environment, brought alive through technology and our movement through it, helps us understand the problems Otago’s sea mammals are facing.
Sounding Walks employs electronically enhanced umbrellas that respond to Dunedin’s “wi-fi oceans”. Four public walks taking approximately 90 minutes each, weave social engagement, conversations with marine scientists, whale experts and technology designers through aural soundscapes to activate and create ecological connections between scientific and social methods. We draw on research and media produced by Professors Liz Slooten, Steve Dawson, Dr Will Rayment, Sophie White and Eva Leunissen.
One sonic umbrella is installed in the gallery along with audio from the original Sounding Installations and artefacts for the audience to understand the conceptual progress of the work
Sounding is a call to action for better management and research into the connections between noise pollution, whales and dolphins of New Zealand.
“Song is what the world does. From the tiniest bugs sitting on branches … to birds and frogs and whales, the planet is singing. And this is doubly true in the ocean”
(reference: Richard Shiffman (2016), How Ocean Noise Pollution Wreaks Havoc on Marine Life Yale Environment 360, https://e360.yale.edu/features/how_ocean_noise_pollution_wreaks_havoc_on_marine_life)