Last November I accepted an invitation to offer an internet (virtual) lecture in the academic component of the Festival El Aleph, which ran this month of May between the 19th and the 29th. The Festival, sponsored by the National University of Mexico, is a major ten-day event that includes live presentations, podcasts, along with television, radio, and internet components and that features music, theatre, dance and artistic presentations along with scientific and scholarly lectures and demonstrations. All of this is intended to bring together the frontiers of the arts and sciences. In this year, 2022, the theme was Planetary crisis, with particular emphasis on ecology and environment. Most of the presentations came from Latin American scholars, scientists and artists; it was an honor to be one of only three lecturers from the United States.
After preparing my 50-minute lecture, a summary for the general public of my sound ecology project, I delivered it in advance to the Festival via Zoom, last March. They recorded my presentation (in English), letting me know that they would prepare Spanish subtitles, and that it would be broadcast over the internet on May 25th. I watched it then along with the others, and to my surprise and delight found that not only had the Festival provided subtitles, they had also found and edited into it numerous still photos and video clips to provide background illustrations for what I was talking about. Instead of the usual "talking head" presentation, this was far more interesting visually. Friends and colleagues who watched it told me that it was, also, the clearest and most inviting presentation of my project that they've yet encountered. (My first presentation, at an earlier stage of the project, was in 2015; the latest written presentation is the last chapter of my book, Toward a Sound Ecology: New and Selected Essays, published by Indiana University Press in 2020.)
As of this writing, the Festival still has my "sound ecology" lecture on its website and ready for streaming. All are invited to see it, at this link:
https://culturaunam.mx/elaleph2022/eventos-2022/una-ecologia-del-sonido/
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