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A picture of me (Zoom Recorder in hand) in the Big Drift Wilson's Promontory National Park during one of the recording sessions for my Final Project

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Brief articulation of my project

To conclude, my final project for the Resonant Ecology Studio consists of a three-screen audiovisual installation that explores the subject through the lens of Bernie Krause’s acoustic ecology triad—geophony, biophony, and anthrophony. Each screen is dedicated to one of these categories, accompanied by its respective soundscape, as well as an ambient composition. Each screen and soundscape fades in gradually; layering until the three coexist in a final immersive mix. The project is designed for RMIT’s installation space the Black Box, where spatial sound can be used to immerse the audience to encourage engagement with active deep listening. The project combines video cinematography, foley artistry, ambisonic recording, video post-production and music composition to highlight the presence and fragility of natural soundscapes in a world increasingly dominated by human-made noise.

My strengths

By drawing directly from Krause’s framework, my project displays the interrelationship between environment, sound, and human presence. The implementation of camera angles, visual ambiguity and surround sound via ambisonics positions the viewer away from their positioning as a mere observer and allows audiences to carve new connections to the world around them — one that isn’t built upon prior knowledge or experiences, but the beauty in each location’s natural rhythms and timbres. The gradual fade-in structure not only allows the audience to become attuned to each soundscape individually but also illustrates the overlapping and sometimes conflicting nature of these soundscapes. Across my time completing the Design Responses tasks from earlier in the Semester, I too have come to understand the value of deep listening to help hear past the physical means of human noise — learning to accept that these sounds are equal parts of the sonic ecosystem just as are the biophony and geophony. Thus, I aimed to help others develop a richer relationship with the world by acknowledging the presence of sound as not only an auditory perception but as a reflection of our positioning in the world. The use of spatialised sound and multi-channel visuals strengthens this, by helping to create an immersive and contemplative space where the ability to forge these relationships is heightened.

Things I would do differently

As mentioned previously, I would hope to explore a more dynamic interactivity between the soundscapes and their respective environments if I were to do a task like this again in the future. At first, I conceptualised this project to take the form of an interactive website inspired by the Stem Player, in which visitors can isolate, mute, or adjust the volume of each component of Krause’s acoustic ecology with an interactive slider. This would strengthen the same ideology of the importance of active listening, and encourage viewers to reflect on sounds that are dominant or lost in our environment;but in a format that is more accessible to non-RMIT students. Unfortunately, due to time and technical constraints, this was inconceivable, but it is something I want to explore in the future once I learn the basics of web design. Additionally, I would revisit environments I had captured with an iPhone to re-shoot with a higher fidelity camera and perhaps include a wider diversity of non-human life. Not only would this have included more nuanced interplays of human and non-human sound and visuals within my piece, but it also would help maintain a sense of visual cohesion, as the use of multiple cameras can often blur the natural beauty I hoped to capture. I am conflicted in this regard, however, as I do believe the iPhone footage does ground the project, but perhaps if I had more time to experiment with these two conflicting ideologies, I would have come to a proper conclusion.

What I've learnt

Technically, I gained experience in multi-screen video editing, audiovisual synchronisation, and spatial audio design, as this project gave me the opportunity to work in digital workstations that were once foreign to me. For example, this was my first time utilising REAPER for ambisonic purposes; which opens up future doors as a sound designer to apply and strengthen this knowledge into working more with 3D audio. Creatively, I learnt how to structure a visual narrative without relying on traditional storytelling techniques. Instead of using dialogue or text (which I think could have been experimented with had I had the time), I was able to guide the audience’s attention and emotion through timing and pacing — a lot of which was gained via my opportunity to research fellow sound ecologists and visual creatives such as Chris Watson and John Akomfrah. Whilst the production process proved to deepen my understanding of audiovisual synchronicity, colour correction and ambisonic encoding, most of my learning came from an improved general understanding of sound as an ecological medium. I came to appreciate how environmental issues can be communicatedpowerfully through non-verbal sensory experiences, but also how to listen with intent. I think being able to recognise the presence and absence of voices in a soundscape and to consider what those silences signify is helpful in a personal sense, as you become closer to the world around you, but also in a musical sense, as I am now enamoured by the subtle shifts in tone and rhythm that I now hear on a daily basis.

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A screenshot of my Logic Pro File, with my ambisonic recordings

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With the Milestone Presentation submitted, it’s time to actually lock-in. I realised that after submitting, and more importantly seeing the work that everyone else had already done towards their projects, I had to start working towards my project goal. As I already had enough footage compiled from my day-long journeys to both the Big Drift and the Punchbowl Caves in Kilcunda, I thought that this week could be utilised to create presets for each video screen, as well as nail down the composition before building my soundscapes.

I have always loved the organic, imperfect and warm feel of celluloid film, so I knew from the onset that I wanted to evoke the same visual qualities. Additionally, the emotional resonance of something like traditional film has a profound effect on the viewer, as the warm hues are often tied to a sense of nostalgia and align perfectly with the romanticised depiction of the environment that I want to create. Having already shot everything in a very mechanical and stationary way, as influenced by Michael Snow’s La Région Centrale, I used Mustafa Yamak’s filmography as another inspirational basis for the colour grading. In the Cape Town filmmaker’s short project Safari on Super16 Film, he opted to shoot biophony in a similar way to how I have done — undisturbed and in a very DIY style, fit with shaky handheld zooms, long exposure shots and mass amounts of film grain. I knew that if I were to employ a similar effect, each screen would effectively look like a window into another world — revealing just enough to maintain a sense of immersion but also hopefully illicit reflection within viewers to explore their connection to more than human species even further. Thus, I used a Shape Mask in Final Cut Pro to create the jagged circular edges of the 4:3 footage within Yamak’s short film, as well as applying adequate film grain and increase the colour of each shot (particularly boosting warm hues in the highlights and mid tones. I copied and pasted this preset for all the footage; changing the parameters when necessary to make shots look more cooler if the raw footage was far more saturated than the previous.

Now that the first screen was completed, I aimed to refine the composition — introducing a few new ear candy elements and giving the whole track a mix-down before moving on to implementing the sound design next week. The first of the ear candy added was some short percussion hits and orchestral crashes on each beat once the second chorus approaches, as I envision this to be the marker for when the anthrophony screen will be introduced. As the human visuals are expected to be more chaotic than compared to what’s featured in Screen 1 and 2, I wanted to accompany this with a burst of energy to sonically represent human’s disruptive nature within natural soundscapes. This is now also accompanied by soft synth leads drenched in saturation — depicting the decay of peace in the natural soundscape with the introduction of human noise. This eventually lessens as the piece continues; leaving the interpretation up to the audience as to what sounds could be considered “annoying” or “peaceful”. When mixing, Susumu Yokota’s 1999 ambient record sakura proved to be somewhat of a reference track, as its sonic qualities; particularly how the compositions build with each sound or texture co-existing and morphing like an ecological web; proved to be very effective in creating a sound that replicated the natural rhythms of the footage I’d captured. Yokota’s ambient and minimalist style (much like the tracks from André 3000’s New Blue Sun) invites the viewer to take part in contemplative and deep listening. I was also inspired by how Yokota utilises panning within his mixes. The timbre and textures of the modular synthesisers in a track like Tobiume flow with organic unpredictability, which I couldn’t help but think was achieved by various tremolo and widener effect racks, which I have since simulated within my mix upon listening. Yokota also opts for repetition in the form of delay and echo and creates juxtaposition with these soft transient heavy synth melodies and harsh saturation pads that are panned across the sonic field; creating a temporal ecology where sounds emerge, decay, and return like natural systems. I have also used a similar technique by panning elements across the field as they relate to what’s going on screen, as well as tastefully drenching my mix in delay and reverb where necessary.

With all this work completed, I am a bit sceptical about the future. Will I have enough time to complete everything? I still have the anthrophony and biophony screens to film which may take a day each to collect enough footage. With the ambisonics being an area I am going into blind, I feel as though I need to set enough time amidst other priorities to teach myself how to encode and mix with this foreign audio format, as well as test in the Black Box. At least with the composition being done, I now have a stable foundation to build off of.

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mustiymk (2024) Safari on Super16 Film., YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7ENhbBWfvo.                             Yokota S (2000) Sakura, Susumu Yokota, https://susumuyokota.bandcamp.com/album/sakura.                                             

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A photo from one of my recording sessions at the You Yangs Regional Park

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This was definitely a more eventful and productive week than the last. I finally got my hands on an Ambisonic microphone courtesy of the RMIT AV Team, who recommended I use the Zoom H3 VR rather than the AMBEO VR microphone, due to its portability. As you are only given these Zoom recorders for a short amount of time, I really wanted to optimise my usage of the microphone by researching what sound ecologists typically looked for when recording sound that showcases a deep multi-species relationship. Who better to look at than Hildegard Westerkamp? In an interview with Cathy Lane, she expresses how much of her recording choices are made “according to what [is] happening at the time”, and that positioning herself as a listener-mediator between the environment and the audience prevented her from ever getting lost in the recording process, and instead focused on capturing phenomena she was hearing in the natural world. Westerkamp also records with the ideology in mind that one must direct attention to "what is heard, gather meaning, interpret, and then decide on action”. With this in mind, my recording habits changed from just walking into a given environment, reaching for my Zoom Recorder and then leaving. I was now recording with intent - turning into a practice that involved my full attention and active listening to whether any relationships between humans and material agencies were taking place before actioning by recording these sounds. In retrospect, this made the process of collecting sound a lengthy process but led to me capturing some pretty cool natural anomalies.

With the Zoom Recorder in hand, I travelled to various places within Melbourne to capture ambisonic recordings for each screen. The Royal Botanical and Carlton Gardens proved to be a hive of activity for bird sounds, which is mainly what I was aiming to capture. I even had the opportunity to get very up-close and personal with a swarm of ducks at the Carlton Gardens, who let me record their quacks. I also travelled to Melbourne Central, the State Library and Southbank — picking up various recordings of ambience and human chatter, as well as Crown’s gas brigades which will act as the intro shot to segue from the biophony and geophony screens into the anthrophony sequence. Closing out my very eventful day, I went around Port Melbourne at 2 AM with a few friends to film a music video but also walked away with some night-time film footage of river ways and foliage, as well as nighttime cicadas and bird call recordings.

The next day consisted of even more recording, although a little unsuccessful. Exhausted and tired from my late night just before, I arrived at the beloved You Yangs Regional Park to see if I could capture any more bird calls — this time in the early morning and with no interruptions from human sounds. However, I woke up very late, and by the time I got there, swarms of cars and hikers were roaming the mountaintops — seemingly scaring the birds away as I didn’t get to capture many of them. Instead, I left with probably 20 different recordings of random conversations, the wind's melodic gusts and cracking gravel. I then got ready to fly to Sydney, as part of a mini-holiday for my English friend who had arrived a month prior, with both Zoom Recorder and Sony camera in hand to record more footage and ambisonics. I was successful in recording the remaining sound effects I needed; including waves, water sloshes, gusts of wind against foliage, crushing leaves, bird sounds, mini waterfalls, distant traffic and room tones; which primarily took place in Circular Quay, a bird sanctuary in Taronga Zoo and Bondi Beach.

I feel so much more positively with all the ambisonic and foley recordings done. I managed to tick off all the sound sources I needed to collect, as well as having some time to kick back with friends in Sydney for a mini holiday. When I get back, I will start arranging these recordings alongside the finished composition and first Screen, before going out to reshoot.

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Coming back from Sydney, I felt so sick. I think I was burning the candle at both ends so to speak — trying to get as much done for my university studies, and other musical endeavours and making sure my English friend had a good time while away. But overall, this sucks. Being sick not only prevents you from having any energy to devote to anything else apart from trying to make yourself feel better, but now I can’t go into class and play test in the Black Box, which pushes everything back a week from schedule. Regardless, for most of this week, I resided in my bed — too sick to face the world and reshoot some of the footage from last week (which was my original plan). However, I did muster up the energy to blend the ambisonic recordings for the sound design. Looking at reference materials for this part of the post-production process, I stumbled across the work of Chris Watson, a sound recordist known for his field recordings in David Attenborough documentaries, which I found very instrumental in finding approaches to layering sounds and timbres. Watson’s How to listen to a forest and his Artists of Sound interview is where he mentioned the importance of positioning and drawing narratives purely from environmental recordings. He states, whilst recording the Pacific Ocean from various cliff sides and beaches in Malibu, that allowing soundscapes to breathe and using active listening to capture hidden sound worlds is integral for being able to communicate relationships between facets of the natural world. His recordings are very dense with audio wonder - as he loves to record in close proximity to his source, juxtapose high-frequency recordings with sudden low bass resonant sources and capture tiny, overlooked sounds of the world (In his interview was Artists of Sound he captures these haunting glissando tones from cracks in frozen lakes created by seals which I thought was very profound). In response to this, I have blended in subtle low-frequency textures in my wind recordings or water rumbles to a deeper connection to non-human perspectives, as well as avoiding over-processing the mixes. I have simply opted for subtractive EQ techniques and delays when applicable to preserve the natural dynamics of the sound source, as well as utilising long crossfades and slow dissolves to encourage deep listening by gently shifting from each sequence. Watson also prioritises panning, which feels like an obvious thing to consider for my project to heighten the immersive elements in the Black Box. Despite each sound source being panned and widened via Ozone’s imaging plugins, I have also opted for harder left and right pans for the track stacks of Screen 1 and 3 (geophony and anthrophony) to match the onscreen visual separation, as well as make it even more satisfying when the screens did converge. I am excited to see if this works within the Black Box or not.

After feeling marginally better, and with the sound design ready to go, I decided to stick to the original plan and take the Zoom Recorder and my father’s Nikon Z FC to the Botanical Gardens and You Yangs to finish the final reshoots. I was primarily targeting the geophony and anthrophony scenes this time around, capturing the various wattlebirds and fairy wren in the local area, as well as out-of-focus shots of passers-by. I was accompanied by a good friend and fellow Bachelor of Design student Callum Tham this time, assisting me with the challenge of simultaneously recording film footage and ambisonics. By the end of the day, I had roughly 100 more shots in the hard drive to work with and clear scope for what I wanted the two screens to look like.

With only a week left, I feel like I am in a good position to finish strong. Obviously, not having this week's playback in the Black Box is unfortunate, but not a total loss, as I still have next week. It only means that next week will be pretty full of tasks I will need to complete. Not only do I have to edit the last two screens (which in saying that shouldn’t be too strenuous of a job given I’ve created presets with all the effects), but I also have to refine the sound design, test in the Black Box and then create a presentation! I wish I would have stuck to my schedule.

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The Quietus (2023) The Strange World Of... Chris Watson | The Quietus, The Quietus, https://thequietus.com/interviews/strange-world-of/chris-watson-interview/. The Art of Sound by L-Acoustics (2024) The Artists of Sound - Chris Watson, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdoRX1G0ulA.

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The last week of work. In the grand scheme of things, it felt as if I had a mountain of work to complete, but in actuality, I steamed through everything rather seamlessly. The first order of business was finalising the Biophony and Anthrophony screens of the project, now that I had new footage to work with from last week. I came across John Akomfrah’s film Vertigo Sea, an audiovisual installation that takes the same form as mine in that it uses a triptych-format brooding ambient composition to convey a narrative about man's relationship with the ocean. I valued Akomfrah’s work as it highlighted the importance of pacing when working with three screens. An issue I have been contemplating this week was whether or notmy project may be too overstimulating for some, and I wish I had seen Vertigo Sea earlier in my production cycle because Akomfrah showed me just how to fix this. To direct the viewer’s attention to a specific screen, he opted to slow down the overall shot composition of the two neighbouring screens so that the narrative focus is put on the screen he wants you to focus on. This bolsters Akomfrah’s motifs of human intervention on ecological concerns, as the viewer is slowly drawninto deeper awareness rather than overwhelmed all at once; strengthening their ability to comprehend narrative through-lines. Inspired by this technique, I employed time shift parameters in Final Cut Pro to slow down specific screens, as well as utilising cross dissolves to prevent sensory overload early on when transitioning from screen to screen. With all three visuals edited, I took them to Premiere to synchronise alongside the audio I’d finalised last week. A 3D effect was also utilised on each screen to create a theatre-like experience, where the left and right screens fold into one another for added immersion.

The final task was to adjust the mix within Logic before exporting to REAPER for ambisonics encoding. To maintain levels and further synchronise actions happening on-screen, I applied crossfades to each recording and lessened the saturation applied to the various synth leads following the introduction of the anthrophony screen (as I was finding it too overbearing when accompanied with the composition and other sound elements). Via Ozone 11, I mastered the aforementioned mix by using adaptive EQs and vintage limiters — a decision I made to boost the overall level before exporting into REAPER, as I had been outputting at a very low volume and wouldn’t have an opportunity to limit my bounces once in the ambisonic format. With all of the above completed, it was time to load into REAPER, where I applied the suite of IEM’s plugin suite to encode the stereo audio signals into ambisonics, pan-specific tracks to different speakers within the Black Box’s configuration, and monitor movements within the sonic field. Finally, I automated the volume of each soundscape at specific intervals within REAPER to heighten the position of sounds as they moved in and out of the mix, as well as create space for the introduction of new sounds.

Overall, I feel very comfortable about my project and am incredibly pleased with how it has turned out — a thought reinforced when I finally tested it within the Black Box. Each screen, alongside the ambisonics, was working as intended,by occupying their respective position within the stereo field, before culminating into a wall of sound that seemingly came from all angles of the room. I only realised at that moment just how powerful such recordings can be to create a sense of immersion, as they complimented the visuals perfectly without taking precedence and vice versa. However, Ben suggested whether the dramatic orchestral drum section that accompanies the anthrophony sequence was necessary, as he felt it was out-of-left-field when compared to the composition being derived purely from ambient soft synth pads. I explained to him that this creative decision was made to accentuate and strengthen the message of human-made noise disrupting natural environments, but I saw where he was coming from, as it did seem a bit pompous at times. When I got home, I jumped into the Logic session again to mute the orchestral drums, and he was right! Now the change between biophony and anthrophony seems all the more powerful, as the viewer is no longer guided by an obvious sound to recognise the emotional change in the piece, but they can come to this conclusion subtly purely based on the visual content. It also helps to maintain a sense of cohesion within the composition, as now it is strictly the synthesisers that act as the foundation for the musical piece.

Now that the project is done, there’s nothing left to do but submit. It’s safe to say that I enjoyed this Studio. I believe, with the first half dedicated solely to learning the ideologies of resonant ecologies through the lens of several academics, thatmy involvement in this Studio has changed my whole perception of what listening and hearing feels like, and for that, I am very pleased. I hope to take on more projects that revolve around breaking down multi-species relationships in the future, as I find it very rewarding.

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othelloeduardo (24AD) John Akomfrah- Vertigo Sea, www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehd9hzMMia0                                Searle A (25 January 2016) ‘John Akomfrah’s Vertigo Sea: human and natural history meet at the abyss’, The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jan/25/john-akomfrah-vertigo-sea-bristol-arnolfini-london-lisson-gallery-auto-de-fe-the-airport-tropikos.