Saturday, May 17th, 2:45 – 3:30pm in Pao Hall 1111

Michael Salvo

Buffalo: hearing the word is not the same as hearing the animal, and hearing the name of the animal is not the same as hearing the animal. These tendrils of sound represent layers of interpretation separating us from the visceral experience of sound, as I am limited here to describing the hair-raising experience of feeling the buffalo’s breath rather than feeling my hair stand on end, my heart pump, the rush of adrenaline, accompanying the realization that here is a buffalo. “If he hears a buffalo, he had better watch out: something is going on. No other sensory field has this dynamism which marks the field of sound.” (Ong, 1970) This experimental session mixes voice, captured sound, ambience, and argument to build an immersive soundscape in which the audience not only hears an argument but is exposed to the sounds that inhabit that argument.