Museum of Sound Series

Today, literature is most often read silently. In this talk, Tanya Dalziell will convince you of just how noisy writing can be.

In this talk, Oron Catts will present projects developed at SymbioticA since the year 2000 exploring the impact on and generation of sound in biological arts.

Chris Cobilis will share details of two recent projects: Ghost of Record Store(a city-based installation for the Perth Public Art Foundation) and This Is You: a conceptually driven album concerned with the emergence of user-generated content.

Oron Catts is an artist, researcher and curator whose pioneering work with the Tissue Culture and Art Project which he established in 1996 is considered a leading biological art project. In 2000 he co-founded SymbioticA, an artistic research centre housed within the School of Human Sciences at The University of Western Australia.

Chris Cobilis is a sound maker living and working in Perth. His 20 years toiling as an improviser and playing in bands has informed an ad hoc practice taking in conceptual composition, installation and original music for film, dance and theatre. Cobilis has performed internationally since 2006 and in 2012 undertook an Asialink Arts residency in Taiwan. Since 2011 he has been the administrator of SymbioticA, which has helped shape his current thinking when approaching each new project.

From the invention of the stethoscope to hear the secret sounds of the body, to the contemporary world of ipod and loudspeaker, this talk will trace a history of listening that will make you hear anew the sounds that shape our lives every day.

Sarah Collins works in music history at the UWA Conservatorium of Music. Her research concerns how perceptions of music and sound have shaped ideas about emotions, rationality, national identity and political participation in the past, and what these can tell us about our own soundscapes today.

Do you remember the sound of dial-up internet? What about the whistle of an old kettle or a wine cork popping? Sounds, noise and music are fundamental to our lives.

Join us to explore our sonic past and present and learn how our lives are shaped by sound and listening. Presented in collaboration with the City of Perth Library.

Seeing is Deceiving: The Non-visual Aspects of Rock Art Presented by Dr Sven Ouzman

Sound in the form of language and music make us human. But what is the archaeological evidence for sound? In this talk we will take a global look at sound, music, language, art and human evolution, before focusing on the San or 'Bushman' of southern Africa.

Sven Ouzman is an archaeologist, lecturer and activist at UWA’s School of Social Sciences. Dr Ouzman researches the forgotten worlds beneath and all around us, and is currently exploring areas such as Indigenous rock art in the North Kimberley and the South African colonial circuits of knowledge and heritage. He is a member of the Centre for Rock Art Research and Management at the University of Western Australia.