Jez Minfaq (s3948865) Resonant Ecologies Listening Journal by Jez Minfaq

Week 2

s3948865 — 2025-03-16 11:24:58 UTC

Walking amongst the Old Melbourne Gaol searching for some “momentary art experience” as described by the given text scores, I was struck by the interplay of the sounds around me. The rustling of the wind caressing neighbouring trees and the melodic screeching of rainbow Loriini overhead was being interrupted by the clutter of RMIT. The hustle of the urban experience seemed to slice through the otherwise organic sounds of nature as if it were at odds with the environment – creating a surreal juxtaposition. My quest to find an attractive sound source was halted due to the auditory clutter. This drove an active desire inside of me to make sense of, and to seek meaning from the sounds I was hearing – a sentiment upheld by Pauline Oliveros, who championed the importance of fostering the ability to target a sequence of sounds in order to be “connected to the whole of the environment and beyond” (Oliveros, 2005). Listening in such a way acknowledges that our physical, social, and cultural context shapes the way we hear, and informs us to “give attention to what is perceived both acoustically and psychologically” (Oliveros, 2015). The assortment of man-made sonics amongst the naturalistic sounds I was hearing was initially misinterpreted as a disruptive force. However, as I adjusted my listening and attempted to hear past the physical means, I understood that these disruptive sounds were equal parts of the sonic ecosystem as were the Loriini and soft wind – and maybe there was beauty in this fact. To understand this further, I sought out Oliveros’ TEDx talk where she outlined this same ideology – stating that the level of awareness of soundscapes brought about by deep listening can lead to the “shaping of chaotic sounds of technology and urban environments and machinery” in an entirely new context (Oliveros, 2015). Based on Oliveros’ methodology, I understand that to develop a richer relationship with the world around us, we must acknowledge the presence of sound as not only an auditory perception but as a reflection of our positioning in the world. Concluding my walk, I noticed my art experience before my very eyes – a flurry of Loriini singing harmoniously amongst the Gothic 1800s man-made architecture of one of the Gaol’s courtyard entries, as if I were an audience member for their grand performance. This seemed to put everything in perspective for me.

Week 3

s3948865 — 2025-03-23 08:22:49 UTC

Following our in-class sound walk, I reflected on a few discussions that took place after about the entire exercise's purpose. One anonymous classmate described the experience as “unfulfilling” as the sounds they were exposed to were all too familiar – halting their ability to conjure any “deep psychological awakening” as they put it. At first, I couldn’t help but nod my head and agree – as the mechanical hums of air ventilators, student huddles brewing conversation and constant clicking of computer keyboards were all too domestic to really resonate with. I sought out an explanation via Hildegard Westerkamp, who encouraged the act of listening without the need to immediately “define, intellectualise, categorise, or interpret with expectations” (Westerkamp, 2009). He even praised the use of soundwalks in the places most normal – directly sighted those performed at home as being a more effective way of “gain[ing] deeper knowledge and information [about] often ignored sound environments” by directing our attention to its psychological significance (Westerkamp, 2009). Approaching the soundwalk in this way recontextualised everything. I began to isolate the sounds I had heard time and time again from their source – challenging the preconceived notions of sound and revealing qualities I had not noticed prior. The loud shuffle of pebbles took on a sort of rhythmic musicality, the mechanical swirls of the vents now highlighted this sense of repetition and motion akin to a looping melodic sample, the birds’ calls became sharp and punctuated bursts of high-frequency tones, and the reverberant qualities of concrete underpass created an isloating sense. Even the breaks in between the walk in the more quieter sections of RMIT brought on this new lease of life – maybe they weren’t excuses to rest your legs or go on your phone, but a chance to hear the contrast between the intimate, natural and balanced soundscapes with the noisy, cluttered low-fidelity soundscapes. In conjunction with the forms of listening fostered by Michel Chion (which in an of itself acts as a way to deepen “the emotional, physical, and aesthetic value of a sound” by acknowledging it’s surface-level information and “own personal vibration.”), I was able to appreciate the soundwalk much more. I see it now as an experience that challenges the fast-paced lifestyle of the urban world by embracing silence and becoming consciously aware of surroundings that you have just taken for granted. The musician in me loves dissecting the textural ear candy in studio productions, so having that same enjoyment be applied to everyday sounds was quite eye-opening.

Week 4

s3948865 — 2025-03-30 11:14:19 UTC

The media projects showcased in Tuesday's lecture that foster multi-species relationships widened my perspective on the work I can produce within this class. In saying this, I found a glaring omission of sound-only works featured that dug deeper into this notion. Hoping to build on this library of works to pull influence from, I found myself re-listening to Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants – a soundtrack to an accompanying film I’ve always omitted from my rotation, but one I thought might be worth the listen given my deepened understanding of the interdependent relationships between sound and the environment. On the walk back from university, I pressed play on Plants - taking in Wonder's artistry whilst slowly walking back home. The record plays much like a Stevie Wonder album. However, it is separated from his previous output for its inclusion of detailed field recordings captured through Ambisonic microphones (mainly capturing insect calls and natural ambience), as well as its concept of personifying nature via sound. I believe the creative process behind Wonder’s work connects to Donna Haraway’s theory on the god trick – in particular, the idea that knowledge is embedded within us via specific experiences and relationships rather than an omniscient vantage point;resulting in a “more adequate and richer account of a world”. (Haraway, 1988). I found that Nikki Fairchild, a professor of Gender and Education studying Haraway, put it best – describing the concept as a recognition of knowledge as being reliant on “partial perspectives" and the inclusion of "lived material realities and feelings" to help shape our educational experiences (Fairchild, 2021). Seeing as Stevie Wonder is blind, his commitment to producing music for a mainstream film about ecology (one that he is incapable of actually watching himself I might add) responds to Haraway’s ideals of being able to “distance the knowing subject from everything in the interest of unfettered power” (Haraway, 1988). Wonder’s objective view of the environment is shaped by his particular set of experiences, as well as cultural contexts and norms. Using emotions to dictate creative decisions is what I carried most from after listening to and watching Plants, as Wonder was able to utilise his deep emotional responses, evoked from nature’s sensory qualities, to represent the natural world in a way that is deeply personal and contingent instead of simply displaying it as some kind of universal experience. This expanded my view on how to create art whilst acknowledging my relationship with the world around me, as well as learning to look past my positionality within the space to dictate what I perceive - an idea I've carried over from prior lectures in Resonant Ecologies. This may be why Stevie Wonder’s work on Plants – an album that juxtaposes sound collages of field recordings with synthetic Proto funk – resonates so heavily, as he can forego his physical relationship with the world around him to create something that rejects the totality of how to represent nature within mainstream music.

Week 5

s3948865 — 2025-04-01 11:51:39 UTC

Hiking through the Northern Range Walk at the You Yangs Regional Park as part of my weekly exercise routine, I heard a flurry of sound whilst reaching the peak. The melodic whistling of the wind; seemingly changing its tonality and rhythm when passing through the various foliage. The calls of thornbills and wattlebirds, despite differing in pitch and occurring simultaneously from one another, never seemed to overlap or sonically detract from the ambience. At the highest peak of the trail, a small commercial aeroplane (possibly coming from the nearby Avalon airport) buzzed overhead – audibly sliding its way through the environment’s audio spectrum. It seemed as if I had stumbled across a perfect example of Bernie Krause’s categorisation for sound in the same location - as the howling wind, bird calls and hovering planes represented geophony, biophony and anthrophony respectively. Krause uses these listening techniques to suggest that all biophonies in a single environment have evolved “ in ways that the channels of bandwidth of transmission and reception are occupied by individual species” (Krause, 2016). This, in turn, rejects society's instinct to be “visually led”, and the belief that “soundscapes offer no particular information” (Krause, 2016). This evokes similar notions preached by Finnish composer Petri Kuljiuntausta and his theory of nichephony, which suggests that in both nature and human-made soundscapes, different sounds organise themselves within the “frequency and temporal space” to avoid clashing (Kuljuntausta, 2021). The concept of nichephony reveals that even in seemingly random environments, whether it beurban or natural, sound has structure and balance. The ambience of the You Yangs, despite being disturbed by anthropomorphic sounds at times or the overlapping of numerous bird songs, is believed to be dynamic when Krause and Kuljunstausta’s ideologies are taken into consideration. It makes me look at the environment like a well-tinkered studio mix, with each instrumental component having its own assigned slot to thrive in mirroring how biophony can live harmoniously with one another. The idea of nichephony enhances my appreciation of sound’s role as a “narrative of place filled with rich information we just need to know how to decipher” (Krause, 2016).