LINES performance of Biophony.
Photo credit: Quinn Wharton.
Bernie Krause Interview
JF: Tell us about bioacoustics.
BK: ‘Bio’ means life and ‘acoustics’ is sound,
so it’s really the sounds of living organisms. A
few of my colleagues and I have introduced a
new term called ‘soundscape ecology’. It incorporates bioacoustics, but it has a much larger
scope.
Soundscape ecology assumes that natural soundscapes consist of a combination of
biophonies and geophonies—the sound that
comes from the landscape. Among other things,
this articulation provides instant feedback as to
how well humans are relating to the surrounding living environment through the multiple
ways in which vocal organisms collectively
express themselves. Biophony and geophony together make up that voice of the natural world.
That is really important to consider.
SciArt in America June 2015
JF: You’ve stated that conventional recordings
of animals and nature have been reductionist,
that sound in nature is more like an orchestra.
What do you mean by that?
BK: During most of the twentieth century,
field recordings concentrated on the recording of individual creatures—birds, mostly—but
then, mammals, and amphibians, and much
later in the century, even insects. These were
carefully separated out of the context of their
natural acoustic environments, becoming compartmentalized and broken down into individual species. In order to understand and truly
bond with a living system, you have to experience it as it expresses itself holistically—as an
intact structure. That collective creature chorus
that I refer to as the biophony provides us with
a powerful and informative narrative. It conveys
many stories that have inspired at one point or
other in our short evolution, practically every
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