L'Oreille Électrique (The Electric Ear) was a series of radio lectures (in french), broadcast in episodes on π-Node starting in spring 2020.
The objective was to develop a critical anthropology of sound recording practices, by studying the cultural and technological conditioning of mediations, and the way in which sound arts address these issues.
Alternating between theory and sound broadcasts, the series addresses the phonograph, the invention of the soundscape, bioacoustics, electroacoustics, and electromagnetism. It was originally scheduled to run for 10 episodes, but the series was put on hiatus after the third one.
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Episode #1
Phonographies, a brief history of sound recording
Ethnographic and colonial dimensions of the history of the phonograph; comparing phonography and photography. — Athanasius Kircher / Jonathan Sterne / Thomas Edison / Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville / Frances Densmore / Michael Taussig / Alan Lomax / Studs Terkel / Nicolas Bouvier / Alexandre Galand / Vilem Flusser / Roland Barthes / Robert Millis… -
Episode #2
Soundscapes, the invention of the soundscape
A critical approach to the notion of "soundscape" and acoustic ecology. — Raymond Murray-Schafer / Hildegarde Westerkamp / Luc Ferrari / Knut Viktor / Anne Cauquelin / Philippe Carson / Francisco Lopez / Tim Ingold / Thomas Tilly / David Dunn… -
Episode #3
Who does the Great Animal Orchestra play for?
A critique of "naturalism" in sound recording practices for capturing animal voices (ornithology, audio-naturalism, bioacoustics). — Clément Jannequin / Ludwig Koch / Jim Fassett / Philippe Descola / Vinciane Despret / Frédéric Keck / Bernie Krause / Donna Haraway / Yannick Dauby / Douglas Quin / Jana Winderen / Michael Prime…