EUROPEAN ACOUSTIC HERITAGE Detailed description of the project Strand 1.2.1 - Cooperation measures. Culture Programme 2007-2013 September 2010
Contents of the document: Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................... 1 General concept and objective of the Project................................................................................................................ 2 Activities and results ...................................................................................................................................................... 3 Calendar and milestones ................................................................................................................................................ 8 Acoustic Environment as a part of European Culture Heritage ..................................................................................... 8
Introduction “We are what we sound”. This is what the sound environmentalist Murray Schafer has so clearly expressed. And how do we sound nowadays? What is the sound of Europe? How are our memories and history expressed through the sound? According to UNESCO, the “intangible cultural heritage” means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artifacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage. The processes of globalization and social transformation favour the trend of deterioration, disappearance and destruction of the intangible cultural heritage. Within this intangible culture, usually not preserved in tangible media, there is an audible culture. It is made up by the sounds that composed our memories, bringing the atmosphere back from the past as well as “travelling” to innovative contemporary places. This enhances the value of an acoustic space and audible environment in urban context. Paying attention to this aspect of urbanism helps to prevent from its disappearance and gives living spaces a new quality. Defining the audible environment or soundscape as a part of our cultural heritage means, besides the recovery of an important part of it, learning to listen better. Related to this objective it is important to train the audience of the future, by making the children aware of it and training them on how learning to feel the audible dimension of their environment. The coordinator of the idea is Axencia Galega das Industrias Culturais (AGADIC), a regional public agency aimed to support the cultural industry from Galicia, Spain. Together with the coorganisers it will develop a work programme during two years addressed to research on the European acoustic heritage, to preserve it by new techniques and to define and disseminate it. Partners are as follows: the University of Applied Sciences of Tampere, with a wide and important knowledge on acoustic environments throughout Europe; the Centre de recherche sur l'espace sonore et l'environnement urbain (CRESSON) of L'École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Grenoble and member of the International Ambiances Network, with a long research background and publications about the audible dimension of architecture and urban space with multi-disciplinary methods; the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften by the Phonogrammarchiv, with a valuable sound recordings archive and extensive documentation on the