Exhibits

tennis shoes
In the field of athletics, there are many elements that go toward shaping a sports experience, for both the athlete and the spectator.  A large part of this experience is sensory: visual, tactile, and even olfactory in some cases.  But sports would be nothing without their auditory component: sounds, and specifically, their impact sounds. An impact sound is that which arises from the collision of one object with another; for the purposes of this project, it is specifically a sound that arises... More
Instructor with Megaphone
This exhibit considers how specific voices command listeners’ attention and compels their response. In so doing, each voice becomes captivating. We include collective and solo voices in a wide variety of contexts like spoken word poetry, motivational speaking, sporting events, and musical styles like opera and blues. Some of the vocalists make their statements compelling through what they say (the referentiality of language), while for others paralinguistic features are especially artfully... More
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Where did your last meal come from? A drive-thru? A vending machine? Maybe you made it in your kitchen, but where did your food really come from? Was it grown on a farm? A local community garden? Was it delivered to the store by train, plane, or truck? We frequently fail to consider the underlying mechanisms inherent in food production, distribution, and consumption, as well as their environmental implications. Approaching food without considering these factors invokes an anthropocentric view... More
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Human food culture today is predicated upon the consumer's lack of evaluation of food origins and disposal. Our consumption habits are generally anthropocentric with little regard for occurrences prior to and following said consumption. For example, we eat animal products and byproducts mindlessly and without bearing in mind the potential impacts on not only the animal but its prior habitat and community. Various ecological organizations and movements have attempted to uncover this... More
Anna Marineko's nature sound waves
This exhibit examines the interaction of human and natural sounds in the naturescape, endeavoring to demonstrate that, in the modern world, it is nearly impossible to separate the two. Despite humanity’s best efforts to remove ourselves from “uncivilized” nature, we are nevertheless ourselves part of the natural environment, for better or worse. Humanity is inextricably linked to nature- we  are just as much a part of the naturescape as a deer bounding through in a forest or lily pads floating... More
Oberlin College
Oberlin College and Conservatory was established in the year 1833 and is well known for its academic and musical excellence. It is a place where people hear and listen in on the world from diverse perspectives. As such, there are many sounds that make up Oberlin College. "Overheard at Oberlin" is a sonic exhibit curated by sound students in the First Year Seminar titled "Soundscapes: Listening the Past/ Hearing the Present."  "Overheard" showcases the aural cultures that define the people who... More
Haitian Flag
This three-pronged exhibit was created by students in Trauma and Global Mental Health in Haiti, a course co-taught by Deborah Jenson and Bonnie Kaiser at Duke in fall 2015. The course explores the genesis of the diagnostic rubric of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its relationship to local cultural context, with Haiti serving as a case study. Bridging global health, medical humanities, and literature, students read fiction and prose by Edwidge Danticat to bring historical and... More
Women's March Protest Image
The Moral March in February, 2014 in front of the State Capitol in Raleigh attracted more than 80,000 people and reflected the political issues that the residents of the state are most concerned about. This exhibit presents the issues with sounds collected from various sources and the fictional viewpoint of a college student at the rally. Some of the sounds were recordings from speeches, songs and interviews at the rally. Some were recorded from every day scenarios such as pencil tapping and... More
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Corn shucking, banjo picking, and a tractor engine starting are among the sounds contained in this exhibit. The three categories of "music," "leisure," and "agriculture" seek to provide a diverse sampling of the iconic sounds one would hear in the American South, though the lines distinguishing these are often blurred. By combining existing audio files from the internet, excerpts from personal music collections, and unique field recordings, this exhibit contains both spontaneously collected... More
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The purpose of this exhibit is to develop an understanding of the sonic makeup of the spaces that students at Oberlin College inhabit. We began with the following definition of a “soundscape”: the organic and inorganic sounds that shape a physical environment, as well as the ways in which the physical environment allows for the production of certain sounds. The sounds and collections that follow are animated by some of the following questions: What sounds do we associate with certain spaces? In... More
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What shape does sound take? How can sound inform our knowledge of a space's shape? Can sound help shape our lives and even influence the world around us? In her book En Abime: Listening, Reading, and Writing, Daniela Cascella continually returns to the interactions between sound, silence, and the world around them. Much like words, sounds can take on many meanings depending on their surrounding context. A scream can mean excitement. Terror. Pleasure. A sigh can signify exhaustion. Sadness.... More
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Aquatic soundscapes are quite different from ordinary soundscapes in air, as the propagation of sound in various mediums is rather different. Underwater acoustics are interesting, as the sonic environment involves interactions between the water and inanimate objects as well as the marine life underneath. Human disturbances would also be worthwhile to investigate as they help shape the underwater soundscape. This project presents collection and qualitative analysis of the sounds of water from... More