ISSTA News March 2018
We’ve got a few updates for you about the organisation and some events we have planned for this year.
Firstly we’re cancelling membership fees. You will no longer have to pay to become a member of ISSTA or to retain membership. Simply sign up to our mailing list (which, you already have if you’re receiving this email). Events will still carry a fee, but membership is now free.
We’re also retiring the user profiles on the website. We will focus instead on building the community through our Facebook and Twitter. You can join our FB group here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/326854424457197/
We also have an ISSTA page on FB (as opposed to a group) where we publish announcements and you can follow that too. Our page will be used for updates about the organisation etc, but the group has a more democratic structure where every member can share information like calls for work etc.
https://www.facebook.com/Irish-Sound-Science-Technology-Association-125083110894839/
You can follow us on twitter here:
In a slight change of plan, we’ll be hosting two separate ISSTA events in 2018. One in Limerick in late August, focusing on practice and performance, and the other back in Derry, in early November, which will have the conference strand (along with some concerts). More details will be coming about the Limerick event soon; we’re currently finalising dates and venues!
Details on the Derry event are as follows:
ISSTA 2018 – Who’s Listening? Sound and Public Space
Irish Sound, Science and Technology Association annual conference
Ulster University, Magee campus
Derry, Northern Ireland
November 9th and 10th 2018
Keynotes:
Dr Salomé Voegelin (Listening Across Disciplines group, author of Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art, Reader in Sound Art at the University of the Arts, London)
Prof. Anna Barney (Listening Across disciplines group, Professor of Biomedical Acoustic Engineering at Southampton University)
Contemporary urban society is a contested space. Commerce generates a flurry of signage and advertising jingles. Industry excavates and accumulates, building uniform structures of concrete and steel, and throughout all is the traffic of daily ritual, the friction of tires on tarmacadam. Commercial interests and planners often distill this heterogeneous field down to simplified brands, cultural signifiers designed to encourage investors. What room is left in this complex of power and policy for community? Where is public space and what role can it play in contemporary life? How can sound, in particular, interrogate the urban matrix?
In 2018, ISSTA returns to Derry to explore these issues, relationships and tensions. With the spatial definition provided by its historic walled city and cross–border hinterland, the resonances of its civil rights movement (of which 2018 marks the fiftieth anniversary), its historic conflicts and diverse musical and sonic cultures, from traditional music sessions to marches, we hope that Derry will provide a thought–provoking setting which will support fruitful discussion, debate and listening!
We would particularly welcome contributions relating to sound and urban studies, auditory architecture and design, sonic archaeology and sonic heritage, psychogeography, place-making, activism, soundscape studies, and sound’s relationships with anthropology and human geography, alongside more general topics relating to music technologies, sound art, electronic and experimental music performance and composition.
Deadline for submission is May 16th.
Who’s listening? We are.
Our full call will be released shortly via our website: www.issta.ie