Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology

Description

Eric Leonardson, Chicago based audio artist and educator, is a co-founder and current President of the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology. He collaborates with his board, artists, arts administrators, and community leaders who help him manage the organization's membership, online presence, interns, program design, operations, communications and direction.

Work Sample

Amanda Gutierrez produced this short video document to help answer a frequently asked question, "What is a soundwalk?"
The Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology's Soundwalks in the Parks series began in Chicago, in 2016. Free and open to the public and for all ages; they are led by individual teaching artists thanks to the support and partnership of the Chicago Park District's Night Out In The Parks arts and culture program. Soundwalking is an ecological practice that begins with opening our ears to all the sounds around us. Experience your local soundscape, and answer the frequently asked question, "What is a soundwalk?" for yourself. We work to connect communities with teaching artist who will guide others in understanding the role of environmental sound and listening. A range of themes and interests may be engaged, from wildlife monitoring, to Deep Listening, to placemaking, to field recording, and social justice, among many others.

This one-minute video explains the purpose and activities of the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology.

https://youtu.be/sAieqwuZvRA

"GLASS/MSAE Geographies of Listening Symposium" is a virtual co-presentation of the Great Lakes Association for Sound Studies and the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology. Held on February 23, 2022, practitioners and artists in the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology shared recent projects that address the geographic conditions of listening, including relationships with human and more-than-human communities and modes of engagement that experiment with virtual tools and platforms. Eight artists highlighted their recent work including MSAE's 2021 Summer Soundwalks in the Parks, the 2021 Aural Neighborhoods events, and Listening to Stillness in Motion: Alex Braidwood Viv Corringham
David de la Haye
Alice Eldridge
Amanda Gutierrez
Rob Mackay
Linda Nelson
Andy Slater
This livestream screening of pre-recorded video and audio presentations concluded with a roundtable discussion with presenters and attendees.

The audio-video media samples serves two purposes, one to document and communicate underlying ideas and methods we employ, namely the practice of guided soundwalks led by MSAE's teaching artists. The other purpose shown in the example of the "Virtual Soundwalks 2020" shows how our teaching artists create experiences that bridge recorded media aesthetic education with real time, embodied presence to reveal and explore the listening positionality of the individual and community.

History

Established in 2009 by a group of sound artists and musicians, we were inspired by the rapid growth in interest in practices of field recording, phonography, and the idea of acoustic ecology globally since the 1970s. These were intersecting with increased speed and access to technologies of sound recording, mapping and transmission through web-based media, and their mobility. This promised greater connection through community soundscape awareness in urban and natural areas, for the public and artists together. Because of the formation of global and national organizations like the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, American Society for Acoustic Ecology, with its chapters in New York and California, we in Chicago were invited to join the growing network. In 2018 the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology formed its own independent status as a nonprofit corporation in Illinois, and became a 501c3 in 2022. Notable among our initiatives is MSAE's partnership, started in 2016, with the Chicago Park District's Night Out in the Parks arts and culture programming. With this support the MSAE has annually designed and organized free public soundwalks across Chicago's diverse park system, led by local teaching artists who engage communities in the all-important but often ignored soundscapes of their parks.

Artistic Vision

The field acoustic ecology is relatively new, initiated by the composers who formed lead the World Soundscape Project in the early 1970s. Since then it has developed, in part through the efforts of our organization, to address critical concerns in the arts and sciences.

Acoustic ecology is concerned with improving the quality of the sonic environment, or soundscape, by re-sensitizing aural faculties both on the individual and the social level. Soundwalking is an ecological practice that engages each participant in listening while walking, to explore, discover, and understand an essential but often ignored aspect of our environment: our soundscape as its listeners and creators.

We apply and share this knowledge so that others will adopt it and enhance the quality of everyday life, using public parks as a local starting point. For citizen scientists, a soundwalk helps memory and focus for monitoring changes in the acoustic environment, or soundscape. For others, it reveals new meaning in the sound we hear and those we produce, including our voices, our languages. It can be meditative or troublesome, awakening and healing, depending on what happens. Or it can be just fun.

Programs for Specific Audience(s) Expertise

In the past we have worked with Chicago's south, west, and north sides. We work with children, teens, adults, and seniors to bring creative listening practices to their respective neighborhoods.We engage new audiences by selecting new parks for the annual Night Out In The Parks program, and sustain audiences by holding information sessions throughout the year. Our artistic skills and expertise collectively includes improvised experimental music, field recording and performance, Deep Listening, performance, theater, sound design, film, video, new media, instrument construction, gardening, sound installation, coding, synthesis, hiking, storytelling, and writing.