Category: English

The Sonic Mediations and Ecocritical Listening project (SOMECO) is on it’s second field work trip, now in Bissingen an der Teck, Germany. We are posting daily from the field for ten days or so, to our project blog (https://blogs.uef.fi/someco/blog/) and there’s little something on my bluesky wall (https://bsky.app/profile/merikyto.bsky.social).

So much work! But very much fun.

This is the continuation of World Soundscape Projects Five Village Soundscapes (1975) and Acoustic Environments in Change (2000). In case you’d like to read of the previous projects the books are here: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-7266-82-3 and the 2000 recordings can be listened to here: https://m.soundcloud.com/akueko/sets/acoustic-environments-in.

The Finnish Society for Acoustic Ecology turned 25. We had a celebratory seminar, discussions and an exhibition of done work at Kone foundations premises in Helsinki. What joy to have such good colleagues! #SoundscapeWorkSince1999

Our team effort ”Background music cultures in Finnish urban life” is soon out from Cambridge University Press! We expect the online version to be openly available on April 30th. (UPDATE: it’s already out!)

This is a result of a four-year project with my absolutely fabulous colleagues Heikki Uimonen and Kaarina Kilpiö.

The front cover is generic for the series (music and the city) which actually suits quite well with the topic of the book.

More horn tooting in May!

Very happy to announce that our NOS-HS funded Nordic network will continue under the European Association of Social Anthropologists: https://www.easaonline.org/networks/sensory_media/

Our aim is to bring the subfields of media anthropology and sensory anthropology into sustained dialogue, facilitating an integrated theorisation of media and the sensory. For contact, mailing list, events and future publications check out the EASA site.

I was invited by Lauri Sallinen and Karita Tikka, the artistic directors of the Silence festival at Kaukonen village near Kittilä, to make and perform a soundscape piece at a small log cabin called “Villa Magia”. The festival is running on it’s 13th year, a mixture of circus, music and collaboration acts. It is a gorgeous, free spirited event under the midnight sun that lasts for one weekend every June.

During one week I recorded the surrondings of the village and then added some sonic comments to them by touching different objects and materials I found in the cabin (plus my double bass). The work ended up having the name “Sora, vire, kytö”. The name plays with ambiguities (“gravel, breeze, swidden” or also “discord, tune, my surname”), along with the festival theme of the elements. The name was coined up at the festival office which is just as well, because I would probably have named it something more boring like “Kaukonen soundscape”.

I did three performances in the space lit by beautifully by Jukka Huitila. Here are the soundscape recordings I used, listed in a handout for the audience:

Soundscape recordings of Sora, vire, kytö
– Stepping at the cabin
– Nestmaking sparrows picking between the logs at Ojanperä cottage
– A walk across the wooden Accademia bridge in Venice
– Night time crickets at Ezine, Turkey
– Cicadas singing during the day at Kowloon park, Hong Kong
– Kaukonen’s chainsaw sculptor Vesa at work
– The dogs of Rengastie with passing cars
– Brewing morning coffee at Ojanperä cottage. In the background one can hear songs performed by Eero Magga, ”Pohjolan yö” (Night in the North, comp. Godzinsky, lyrics Nuorvala) ja ”Onnen kaipuu” (Longing for happiness, comp. & lyrics Pedro de Pajaro, aka Pekka Lintula). ”Pohjolan yö” is originally from the film Salakuljettajan laulu (Smugglers song, 1952, dir. Lasse Pöysti), telling a story of rationing after the second world war and how buying of secondary commodities – like coffee – was being prevented.
– Spruces, aspen and birches sway in summer wind in front of Villa Magia
– Stepping out from the cabin

Between and during these recordings I changed shoes and stepped around the wooden cabin floor, answered to the sparrows by knocking on the window, made water drip from the ceiling through some woolen yarn onto a large metal lid that swung nicely on the floor when I crushed some dried reeds and rocks on it (piezo amplified), swung my double bass that I had filled with dried peas and hung from the ceiling (amplified as well), and finally rubbed my palms and some sawdust on a beautiful rusted circular saw blade that was hanging on the wall there (piezo amplified, this too). At the end I stepped again out from the cabin, asking the audience to follow me to the yard, to experience some acoustic Kaukonen.

Here are the programme notes in Finnish:

“Sora, vire, kytö -ääniteoksessa eri äänimaisemat koskettavat toisiaan synnyttäen äänten ja tilojen, maisemien duettoja. Äänitaiteilija Meri Kytö tuo Kaukoseen eri paikoista kokoamiaan äänimaisemaäänityksiä, jotka alkavat soida yhdessä Kaukosen äänten kanssa. Villa Magian tulipirtti laajenee äänelliseksi kokonaisuudeksi, joka sisältää monia äänellisiä polkuja. Meri Kytö on musiikin ja äänen tutkija sekä kulttuurintutkija Turun Yliopistossa. Teoksessaan Meri hyödyntää tilan omia ääniä, pienimuotoista äänentoistoteknologiaa, itserakennettuja kontaktimikrofoneja ja jo hieman ikääntynyttä Edirol 09 -kovalevytallenninta.”

The work ended up being a somewhat organic whole. It would have benefitted from a few days of more work and balancing out the different elements but I’m quite ok with it. I had the most enjoyable discussions with people who came and listened to it, these really were the best take-away from the festival. It’s lovely to hear the different connotations and physical reactions people have with this kind of quite mundane, modest and low-fi sounds when given a little allocated time. I also learned that Stihl is the go-to brand in Kaukonen chainsaw sculpting scene.

Last Summer I was lucky to be invited to work with fema group (Hanna Kahrola, Tuija Touhunen, Anna Kupari). I acted as a “conversational shoulder” in the group, discussing about soundscape, public space, feminist methodologies, situational knowledge, the night time, wolves, epidemics, things like that. I’m planning to write about what we did in more detail but in the meantime here’s a video showing one part of the working process.

This was filmed during September. Performers are Kahrola and Touhunen. Edit by yours truly.

References to the lecture:

Bassett, Caroline & Ben Roberts 2019. Automation now and then: Automation fevers, anxieties and utopias. New Formations. DOI: 10.3898/newF:98.02.2019

Beer, David 2010. Mobile music, coded objects and everyday spaces. Mobilities 5: 4, 469–484. 

Bijsterveld, Karin 2018. Mechanical Sound. Technology, Culture, and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

Bucher, Taina 2016. Neither black nor box. Ways of knowing algorithms. In Innovative methods in media and communication research, eds. Sebastian Kubitschko and Anne Kaun. Palgrave Macmillan. DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40700-5_5

Crary, Jonathan 1999. Suspentions of perception: Attention, spectacle, and modern culture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Hayles, Katherine 1999. How We Became Posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kitchin, Rob & Dodge, Martin 2011. Code/Space. Software And Everyday Life. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

Krivý, Maroš 2016. Towards a critique of cybernetic urbanism: The smart city and the society of control. Planning Theory. DOI: 10.1177/1473095216645631 

Kytö, Meri 2019. The senses and the city: Attention, distraction and media technology in urban environments. The Routledge companion to urban media and communication. Eds. Z. Krajina & D. Stevenson. London: Routledge, 371–378. DOI: 10.4324/9781315211633-39

Lahjoita puhetta 2020. Yle. URL: https://yle.fi/aihe/lahjoita-puhetta

Librivox 2014. Karel Capek: R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). URL: https://librivox.org/rur-rossums-universal-robots-by-karel-capek/

Männistö-Funk, Tiina & Tanja Sihvonen 2018. Voices from the Uncanny Valley. How Robots and Artificial Intelligences Talk Back to Us. Digital culture and society, 4: 1.

Paasonen, Susanna 2016. Fickle focus: Distraction, affect and the production of value in social media. First Monday, 21(10). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i10.6949

Parviainen, Jaana 2014. Mediakaupungin viettelyn logiikka ja kairoottiset silmänräpäykset. Media ja viestintä 37: 1

Saariketo, Minna 2020. Kuvitelmia toimijuudesta koodin maisemissa. Tampere: University of Tampere. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-03-1531-3

Santangelo, Marco 2016. A (more?) intelligent city. Noesis. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20983/noesis.2016.12.5

Thompson, Marie 2020. Music in the Post-Mom Economy. Keynote at RMA conference. Script of the lecture: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f105cc8cdeb4f35285b5b68/t/5f59c24e59ab3511edd7aaae/1599717969427/music+in+the+post+mom+economy.pdf

Tonight show with Jimmy Fallon 2017. With guest David Hanson and Sophia. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg_tJvCA8zw

Wiener, Norbert 1961. Cybernetics: or control and communication in the animal and the machine. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

This is a list of links to online content (audio, pictures, text, “media”) documenting and commenting on the sonic environment during Spring 2020. EDIT: Additions from Spring 2021 are in green.]

As there is a huge amount of content scattered in the web, this is not in any way close to being exhaustive but a resource and a memo you can use. Also as you can clearly see, the list reflects my place in the world (I live in Finland), my research interests, language skills and search engine algorithm bias.

If there is something you’d like to see on the list, please write a comment below.

Thank you for all who contributed to the list, much appreciated!

Corona sound map projects

1. Radio Aporee Project Corona
   https://aporee.org/maps/work/projects.php?project=corona
2. Cities and memory: #StayHomeSounds
   https://citiesandmemory.com/covid19-sounds/
3. Covid-19 Sound Map by Pete Stollery: https://earth.google.com/web/@31.61265225,32.75149559,8133.66958234a,25017742.90688754d,35y,0h,0t,0r/data=MicKJQojCiExN0MwN3o5Y1JIOV8ycjRXOE5IYmlYSkt0cDVFMHBCcl86AwoBMA [Chrome browser needed]
4. Sound Outside Map: Listening to the world at Covid-19 Time
   https://www.soundesign.info/2020/03/28/the-sound-outside/
5. Locus Sonus, real time audio streaming
   http://locusonus.org/soundmap
6. Muuttuvat suomalaiset äänimaisemat Listening Map: Poikkeuksellinen kevät 2020: http://kartta.aanimaisemat.fi/projects
7. Locate your sound, Italian Covid-19 sound map: https://locateyoursound.com/paesaggi-sonori-italiani-covid19
   (see also related essay: https://ilmanifesto.it/covid-19-il-ritmo-del-silenzio/)
8. Several recordings (Grenoble) and soundwalks (Turin) on Cartophonies during confinement (search year 2020):
   https://www.cartophonies.fr/
9. Sound recordings from Fukushima and Sendai, Japan, by Koji Nagahata: https://www.sss.fukushima-u.ac.jp/~nagahata/covid-sp/index-e.html
10. Freesound Audio Database, with the search word “covid”:
    https://freesound.org/search/?q=covid
11. Based on the list collated by Society for Ethnomusicology members of hundreds of corona themes songs around the world, Elise Heinisch has made a very accessible map: https://padlet.com/eliseheinisch/a_global_coronavirus_playlist (Because of “national education system she has had to filter certain songs which could be viewed as religious, political, or otherwise controversial”, so it now contains 139 songs from the list. The list keeps growing substantially.)
12. Lisbon sound postcards in times of Covid-19, a tourist city without tourists: http://www.soundsoftourism.pt/soundpostcards-in-times-of-covid-19-confinement/

Articles or blog posts about “change in soundscape” or similar

1. The quiet life, article on The Monthly:
   https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2020/may/1588255200/nicola-redhouse/quiet-life#mtr
2. Article on Toronto Star:
   https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/04/18/in-these-disquieting-covid-19-time-hushed-cities-are-making-a-loud-impression-on-our-ears.html
3. Scientific Sonification – The Sound of Corona, essay by Holger Schulze:
   http://passiveaggressive.dk/scientific-sonification-the-sound-of-corona/
4. Less seismic vibration on Earth (YLE, in Finnish, references Nature journal):
   https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11295684
5. Birds sing louder (Iltalehti, in Finnish, references Reuters):
   https://www.iltalehti.fi/ulkomaat/a/70a94312-3615-48a4-a33d-ccef6de2100e
6. Reduced marine noise (The Guardian)
   https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/27/silence-is-golden-for-whales-as-lockdown-reduces-ocean-noise-coronavirus
7. Essay on Istanbul, by Burcu Yasin:
   https://terrabayt.com/expat-life/the-soundscape-of-covid-19-in-istanbul/
8. Essay on various places, by Matt Mikkelsen
   https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/changing-sound-of-cities
9. The bagpipes at Lauttasaari, Helsinki (in Finnish):
   https://www.lauttasaari.fi/suurenmoinen-sakkipillinainen-esiin-soitan-kannustukseksi-ja-valittamisen-osoitukseksi/
10. Silent Helsinki (YLE, in Finnish):
    https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11259414
11. Silent Kuopio (YLE, in Finnish):
    https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11313383
12. Not so silent Helsinki (HS, in Finnish, mentions the legendary Corona Bar):
    https://www.hs.fi/kaupunki/art-2000006449033.html
13. Silent day care centers (MTV, in Finnish):
    https://www.mtv.fi/sarja/kevennys-10-4-2020-33001002004/korona-on-hiljentanyt-paivakodit-ja-paasiaisaskartelu-on-jaanyt-vahaiselle-aleksin-paivakotitadit-askartelivat-ikkunaan-lasten-paasiaisvisan-1243021
14. Silence retreats by Tampere parishes are cancelled between March-May (in Finnish):
    https://tampereenseurakunnat.fi/tutki_uskoa/retriittielamaa/retriittikalenteri
15. Music for corona generation (in Dutch):
    https://www.thisisourhouse.nl/features/muziek-voor-een-corona-generatie/
16. Seismograf article compilation on sounds of 2020, essays collected through a writing competition  (Lyden af 2020, in Danish): https://seismograf.org/fokus/lyden-af-2020
17. A collection of written experiences with the sonic environment during lockdown (in English and Dutch): https://urbansoundlab.nl/listening-to-the-city-in-times-of-corona/ (see also the related open call: https://soundtrackcity.net/open-call-how-do-you-experience-a-quieter-city/
18. A blog by field recordist Arnoud Traa in Amsterdam: https://deauditievedienst.tumblr.com/ (tags #corona recordings and #coronarecordings)
19. The Observer: Why lockdown silence was golden for science, June 20th, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jun/20/why-lockdown-silence-was-golden-for-science
20. “Missing Sounds of New York: An Auditory Love Letter to New Yorkers”, New York City library’s list of sound recordings from NY “before Covid-19”. https://www.nypl.org/blog/2020/05/01/missing-sounds-of-new-york, see also a story by Ashawnta Jackson at https://daily.jstor.org/recalling-city-sounds-during-a-quarantine/ 
21. Jez riley French’s blog diary on listening during the pandemic: https://jezrileyfrench-aquietposition.blogspot.com/2020/03/552020-i-first-posted-about-this-during.html

22. “Singing Together, Apart”, by Rachael Beale, blog post at London Review of Books site: https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2020/june/singing-together-apart

Silence in pictures: empty cities photo reportages

1. Istanbul (Sabah, in Turkish): https://www.sabah.com.tr/galeri/yasam/istanbulda-korona-sessizligi/13
2. Istanbul (Milliyet, in Turkish): https://www.milliyet.com.tr/galeri/corona-virus-sessizligi-istanbulu-hic-boyle-gormediniz-6173749/1
3. London (Financial Times): https://www.ft.com/content/e2b314aa-69d2-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3
4. Segovia (El Norte de Castilla, in Spanish): https://www.elnortedecastilla.es/segovia/estridente-silencio-ciudad-20200405121429-nt.html
5. Paris (Le Point, in French): https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/en-images-coronavirus-paris-ville-morte-17-03-2020-2367562_23.php

Social media videos / streams of sounding out, playing, singing that have caught my attention

1. How I’m Handling Online Teaching (Original Screaming Teacher Video)
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy_y9yOrgxk
2. HUS (Helsinki University Hospital) doctors choir (in Finnish):
   https://www.nly.fi/pida-huolta/
3. Saturday evening music by Lauttasaari church, Piia Maunula on baroque oboe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHJndfPdUA0
4. The Lahti Symphony Orchestra: Sibelius: Finlandia op 26
   https://youtu.be/Sh1L-8T5hu0
5. Virtuaalikuoro (Virtual Choir project, in Finnish)
   https://www.facebook.com/virtuaalikuoro/
6. Vaskivuoren lukion kuoro (Vaskivuori High School virtual choir, in Finnish):
   https://www.vantaa.fi/uutisia/101/0/150216 and
   https://youtu.be/OrThp_wFI7k
7. Covid-19 parody songs FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2717954571809688/
8. Darude Sandstorm on your balcony (in Finnish), FB group with videos: https://www.facebook.com/groups/669917093758944/
9. Video from early March with a hazmat dancer and people cheering in Spain: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=521289605463875&id=361430174733
10. Balcony scene from Germany, a commentary on balcony singing: https://mobile.twitter.com/MusicIsPeople/status/1239500328862695425 (Searching social media platforms with “balcony singing” provides lots of videos.)
11. Spectral Electric: Pandemic Response Division album
    https://spectralelectric.bandcamp.com/album/pandemic-response-division
12. Alex Ross essay on pianist Igor Levit’s home concerts:
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/18/igor-levit-is-like-no-other-pianist
13. The Boccaccio Project, a ollection and commision of musical performances by the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/concerts/boccaccio-project/

Research projects or surveys about the same subject

1. Year of Sound 2020 response to Covid-19:
   https://sound2020.org/news/soundscape-under-covid-19-and-wiki-for-sound/
2. Silent Cities: A participatory monitoring programme of an exceptional modification of urban soundscapes:
   https://renoir.hypotheses.org/files/2020/03/Silent·Cities-Project.pdf
3. Survey by Paola Moscoso:
   https://es.surveymonkey.com/r/RQ69GXZ
4. The Hellenic Society for Acoustic Ecology’s International Survey: https://forms.gle/tHd4WZ3EgKXx7smz7
5. The Collegium Hungaricum Berlin Open Call for making a collective soundscape compositions:
   https://www.facebook.com/events/2489926544601566/
6. Invitation for sound contributions for Live Release, open call:
   https://livereleaseconvergence.tumblr.com/
7. Call for works: Sonic, Social, Distance and Soundtracks for Strange Days, curated by Maile Colbert at Sonic Field: https://sonicfield.org/2020/05/call-for-works-sonic-social-distance-and-soundtracks-for-strange-days/

Sound art works on the subject

1. A radiophonic sound work “Poikkeusaika” by Taina Riikonen on life in quarantine: https://areena.yle.fi/audio/1-50513054
2. “Poikkeustila” soundscape work by Mikko Haapoja under the project The routes of Helsinki (Helsingin reitit): http://mikkohaapoja.net/helsinginreitit/poikkeustila.htm
3. Ricardo Huisman’s (DJ Sensescape) compositions of his contributions to the Aporee sound map, published as an album: https://ricardohuisman.bandcamp.com/album/sensescapes-in-the-pandemic-disruptive-transparencies
4. “Sounds of COVID album” by Sammy Holmes and co, Carleton University, Ottawa: https://sammyholmes.wixsite.com/website/sounds-of-covid-album (see also reflections on the project here).