"Nature, Sound Art and the Sacred" by David Dunn describes the struggles of communication that arise when humans listen and speak with the world. I found this reading to be extremely interesting and insightful. I enjoy thinking about the many ways humans and animals communicate not only with each other but with the world. Dunn did an excellent job describing the ways that he explores communication in the natural world through studies and sound.
I find David Dunn's work on the subject of environmental performance to be very creative and inspiring. Dunn's goal is to deconstruct the materials and attributes of music exploring the emergent intelligence of non-human living systems. Mimus Polyglottos was an experiment on interspecies communication, specifically mockingbirds. The result of this experiment showed the unexpected awareness that animals and humans have with one another. I liked that the mockingbirds could engage creatively with other animals and humans recreating their sounds of communication. It is cool that mockingbirds can even imitate washing machine and motor noises. I also enjoyed reading about Dunn's work, Chaos and the Emergent Mind of the Pond. This work was composed entirely from underwater sound recordings made in vernal pools in North America and Africa. Dunn was attempting to articulate the complexities and apparent intelligence of the vernal pool sounds. I like how he described these sounds as, "some sort of alien language." I really want to listen to his soundscape and experience the alien language. Overall, this reading gave me a new perspective on communication and the work of David Dunn.
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