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For over a year leading up to actual event in March 2023, I was part of a team planning and producing an international conference right here in Volusia County. The Listening Pasts – Listening Futures conference marked the 30th anniversary of the founding of World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE) and was the first international conference on environmental sound studies in the United States. It was made possible through Stetson’s continuing partnership with Atlantic Center for the Arts, and literally brought together people representing every continent.

My involvement in the conference took on many forms. Before the conference, my advanced students in Digital Arts helped produce 13 sound installations as part of the artistic program on the ACA campus. The conference began with a panel discussion on our DeLand campus that brought together four leading voices on sound and the environment with me acting as moderator. On the second day, I presented about Listen Pair Share, a group listening activity that was designed to be more inclusive. On the third day, we invited conference attendees to join us on a Young Sound Seekers excursion, which gave our kids a chance to make connections with like minded people from around the world. It was months of planning that culminated in a jam-packed week of presenting, installing, moderating, conversing, and (most importantly) connecting.

This was likely a once-in-a-career opportunity for me to host artists and scholars with similar interests here in my backyard and share with them what makes Stetson and this area of Florida so special. In some ways, I am still trying to mentally process the event. I continue to converse with people I met because of this conference, and they all speak very highly of my students, Stetson, and ACA. I am sure that there will be ample opportunities to collaborate with these people in the future and that the impact of the Listening Pasts – Listening Futures conference will be felt for years to come.

Here are a few links where you can learn more about the conference:

• WFAE conference summary
• Pre-conference panel hosted at Stetson University
  • Video recording – 1 hour, 25 minutes
  • article covering the event by Rick de Yampert
• Keynote presentations – YouTube video playlist

Tags: aca, acoustic ecology, listening, wfae • Posted in general • No Comments »