Peer-reviewed audio paper

H e (a) r

Of an ecological enactive perspective.

Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir

18. december 2019

DOI https://doi.org/10.48233/seismograf2203

An audio paper on H e (a) r; a soundscape connected to ecology, acoustics and embodiment, drawing on encounters and what happens in the connection. A fluctuation between hear-here-hér*-her. Originating in a work for the ensemble Nordic Affect’s concert at Nordic Music Days 2016, the piece has now been developed into both a quadrophonic and stereo version of H e (a) r (2017/18). The work has been released on Nordic Affect’s album on the Sono Luminus label.

This audio paper unpacks the work’s compositional process as well as curatorial strategies, which link to my PhD research project’s ecological-enactive trajectory, including its socio-political backdrop.

The audio paper references H e (a) r in its album version. It also includes Nordic Affect’s performance of Mirjam Tally’s Warm life at the foot of the iceberg. Other sonic material lists as follows: documentation material from H e (a) r’s workshops – field recording by Magnús Bergsson of a crawling glacier - field recording by Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir for a sonic prototype stereo sketch for Davíð Brynjar Franzson’s An Urban Environment as an English Garden (2019) – electronics from To Cairn (2018) by Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir – the performance of Akio Suzuki, Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, Nguyễn Thanh Thủy and Stefan Östersjö of strengur (2019) by Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir - field recordings from the performance of Anders Hultqvist’s Entropic Pleasures I-III/A Shrinking Emptiness (2018), recorded within the project Tapeshavet (2018) in collaboration with Anders Hultqvist, Gunnar D. Hansson and Stefan Östersjö.

Readers in the audio paper are Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir and Elísabet Indra Ragnarsdóttir.

*hér is the Icelandic word for here.

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