Reading Blog 1

Throughout the article Nature, Sound Art and the Sacred David Dunn starts by comparing and contrasting the relationship between sound and sight. He then talks about music stating that he “wonders if music might be our way of mapping reality through metaphors of sound as if it were a parallel way of thinking to the visually dominant metaphors of our speech and written symbols”. In addition he states that “not only aural and musical metaphors provide us with a means to describe the world in ways that remind us of our physical connection to the environment, but the physical act of using our aural sense, in contrast to entertainment, can become a means to practice an engender integrative behavior.” David Dunn believes that through this combination of complex activities, environmental music and sound art, we can better understand the world surrounding us. He still questions the true meaning of these activities however, asking, “what is the meaning of these sound-making activities if they are not traditional music and not intended to be?” He deduces the answer to this question through his ‘sound art work’. He describes his work of connecting the relationship of sound and nature over the last 25 years and how all of his findings can be separated into 2 categories.

The first category, being the environmental performance works, is intended for outdoor performance. The second consists of tape compositions derived from environmental sounds that are a hybrid between electroacoustic composition and soundscape recording. The first category contains two experiments, Mimus Polyglottos and Entrainments 2. Mimus Polygottos was an experiment conducted by Dunn and Ric Cupples about the mimicry of mockingbirds. Entrainments 2 was an experiment conducted by three performers that demonstrated “a progressive expansion of context, moving interactions with a single member of another species toward interactions with complex environments.” Dunn also says in his description of this experiment that “my idea of environmental language is an experiential, dynamic process that explores whatever tools and metaphors are available toward a greater understanding of the profound interconnections between sound, language and the environment.”

In Category 2 titled, Hybrid Soundscape Compositions, he focuses on “two experiences in particular that charged my cynicism about soundscape work and the aesthetic role of phonography.” He put himself into 2 different situations and he came out of both of them feeling that his involvement supported something “duplicitous”. He then goes on to describe two works he conducted. The first titled, The Lion in Which the Spirits of the Royal Ancestors Make Their Home, describes of his time in Zimbabwe and how he had to record sounds from African watering hole habitats. Although once he was there, he realized the sounds weren’t of pure nature. They were contaminated with human evidence of voices and passing vehicles. The second experiment he conducted is titled Chaos and the Emergent Mind of the Pond. This work was composed of sounds from underwater in vernal pools in North American and Africa. After years of recording them Dunn realized there was a pattern of “how beautiful and complex these miniature sounds are.” He then proceeds to introduce science, life and cognition into his explanations.