Eight years since its last issue Field Notes returns with a new design, and for the first time also accompanied by two (freely available) audio releases. In this all-new collection we present the writings and “audio-textual” contributions of Janko Hanushevsky (on the meaning behind every-day sounds and how they do play into his artistic work), Aleksandar Vejnovic (sharing memories about his ears capturing sounds from afar and how the microphone shapes the recording artist’s experience and work), Eli Neuman-Hammond (exploring the microphone-recorder as a creative tool and its role as a descriptive apparatus), and Ludwig Berger (on a long-form field ...

“A Cinder Block Falling on Concrete” consists of sounds and stories from Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s Earwitness Inventory, a personal library of sound effects related to the testimony of earwitnesses in criminal investigations. The objects in Earwitness Inventory are derived from interviews that Abu Hamdan has conducted with earwitnesses, as part of his work as a “private ear,” as well as transcripts from trials across the globe. (Multiple entries concern the reconstruction of Syria’s Saydnaya prison and the experiences of detainees, which Abu Hamdan undertook with the London-based research agency Forensic Architecture and Amnesty International from 2015 to 2017.) The library ...

Sirens, the second episode of the series Ages of Receivership: On Generous Listening, is based on a talk by artist Aura Satz. She speaks about the sound of sirens and emergency signals and about turning bodies and things into speakers, transducers, antennaes or musical instruments. The series Ages of Receivership: On Generous Listening emerges from the spring 2022 Master Symposium at the Institute Art Gender Nature, moderated by Chus Martínez and Quinn Latimer, in collaboration with Vuslat Foundation.

‘Eavesdropping: A Reader’ addresses the capture and control of our sonic world by state and corporate interests, alongside strategies of resistance. For editors James Parker (Melbourne Law School) and Joel Stern (Liquid Architecture), eavesdropping isn’t necessarily malicious. We cannot help but hear too much, more than we mean to. Eavesdropping is a condition of social life. And the question is not whether to eavesdrop, therefore, but how. Published by City Gallery Wellington in association with Liquid Architecture and Melbourne Law School, on the occasion of the exhibition Eavesdropping, curated by James Parker and Joel Stern, at City Gallery Wellington, 17 August–17 ...

Yeah, I have tinnitus by now but it’s not so bad… I’ve DJed a lot of parties and made a lot of mixtapes over the years… And now you can listen and download most of them right here. The best place to begin is 2001’s game-changing live 3-turntable mix, Gold Teeth Thief. This influenced a lot of people & opened many ears; over a decade later, the world sounds a lot more like I was hearing/blending it back then. Here’s a list of most of my mixes in chronological order for free download as V0 mp3s. After the list you’ll find ...

Contemporary urban discourse relies overwhelmingly on visual representation. While it may be more effective both in conveying the actual appearance of a particular urban space and in communicating the intentions of the architect and the planner, this kind of representation leaves little room for individual interpretation and cannot possibly capture the full range of feelings and emotions that people attach to particular places. For this, we must also turn to the more immediate sensations of touch, smell, taste and sound. This episode explores the last of these sensations, considering what it means to represent cities and architecture through sound. Unlike the ...

In Peter Ablinger’s work, the listener is often asked to cross the distance between sounds. These types of comparative actions fall into at least three categories. One of these categories is a comparison between two sound sources: a recording and a reproduction. The term Ablinger uses for these reproductions is “phonorealism.” Another type of comparison is between a sonic memory and the sound that is present. I’ll play two examples later that activate specifically musical memories through a process called “verticalization.” We’ll start, though, with yet another type of distance that is to be traveled, this time in the sonic imagination, ...

Taking the term soundscape as a starting point, this essay by José Manuel Berenguer addresses a number of concerns relevant to understanding the listening experience within art and everyday life. Tackling questions such as phenomenology, cognition, new media, aesthetics and the overlap between art and science, Berenguer engages in a critical analysis of recent sound art practices, using both significant historical examples and his own experience. Intermedia artist, composer, teacher, curator… The many labels that can be applied to the career of José Manuel Berenguer (Barcelona, 1955) reflect the multidisciplinary drive that has always guided his professional activities. Aside from producing his own ...

The noisy buzz of the mains electricity power supply has been one of our urban environment’s most persistent background noises. One day in 1996 Dr Catalin Grigoras realised that the electricity wasn’t just making noise, but in fact singing… The UK national electrical grid delivers power across the country. This mains power supply makes a constant humming sound, yet there are tiny changes to the frequency of this sound every second. Most recordings made in the UK have a trace of mains hum on them and this can be forensically analysed to determine the time and date they were made, and ...

A reading of John Donne’s sermon preached at the Spital on April 22, 1622, accompanied by Star Wars sound effects produced by a human mouth on November 3, 2010.

Our second issue features Marcus Kürten’s interview with the passionate phonographer Walter Tilgner, the second and final part of Stefan Militzer’sessay about “Tones, Sounds and Noises,” a collection of old Chinese texts regarding silence and noise – compiled by sound artist Lin Chi-Wei –, anecdotes by Yannick Dauby regarding his recording and hearing experiences with frogs as well as thoughts and reports based on Gabi Schaffner’s personal experiences with accidentally deleted or never recorded sounds from Finland. The magazine closes with an essay of the componist and sound artist Andreas Bick regarding the construction of meaningful correlations when listening – “listening is making sense.”

Live Audio Essays presents transcripts from performances and films by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, an artist known for his political and cultural reflections on sound and listening. Abu Hamdan’s intricately crafted and heavily researched monologues are at times intimate, humorous, and entertaining, yet politically disquieting in their revelations. Using personal narratives, anecdotes, popular media, and transcripts rooted in historical and contemporary moments, the artist leads the reader through his investigations into crimes that are heard but not seen. These live audio essays turn our focus to acoustic memories, voices leaking through walls and borders, the drone of warfare, cinematic sound effects, atmospheric noise, the ...