Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Dr Balandino Di Donato's Recognition (31)

Scottish Mountain Soundscapes
2024 - 2024

Description Mountain environments provide an immersive auditory experience shaped by natural forces and human interactions. This seminar presents results from an ongoing project that delves into people’s experiences of mountain soundscapes, with a focus on the intricate world of Scottish ranges. In addition to the presentation of current results, different listening activities will be conducted to deepen the experience of Scottish Mountain soundscapes.
Affiliated Organisations UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO
Research Areas Acoustics
Research Themes Environment
Research Centres/Groups Centre for Interaction Design
Centre for Conservation and Restoration Science
Org Units School of Computing Engineering and the Built Environment

Session Chair at British Academy Anthropocene Conference 2023
2023 - 2023

Description Session Title
Decomposing the sounds of the Anthropocene

Session Description
The arts sector and music play an essential role in our lives and the environment, not only in understanding the impact of climate on our lives, but also on proactively looking for solutions to reduce their impact on climate.
The music streaming business and remote collaborations have increased exponentially in the past 20 years. This shift in the music industry has had a relevant impact on the environment.
The estimated amount of plastic to produce physical records went down from 61,000 tons in 2000 to about 8,000 tons in 2016 (University of Glasgow, 2019). Nevertheless, if we consider the amount of greenhouse gas equivalents (GHGs) that we produce due to the used electricity used to store, process and stream data from the cloud, the impact of music on the environment is still quite substantial. GHGs of online music in the US only in 2016 was estimated to be between 200 million kilograms and over 350 million kilograms. Music streaming companies such as Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, Amazon music currently release sustainability and environmental reports.
However, this is not always the case of companies involved in the music-making industry. With the needs of musicians working remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic, remote online music collaborations and performances are increasing daily. The reduction in travels can have an enormous impact on CO2 emissions. On the contrary, networked music performances have the potential to increase the number of items that each individual will have to have in order to make music remotely, due to not sharing the same technologies and resources when performing physically together. As for the trends we are observing in music consumption, are online and IoT technology transforming positively the ecology and sustainability of the music-making process? The secondary question is, what is the impact of the Anthropocene on musicians’ creativity?
Although we benefit from literature and ongoing research looking at the impact of music consumption, there is little work on the environmental footprint of the music-making industry.
In this session, we will invite speakers to reflect and explore (i) the role of networked music performance in the Anthropocene, and (ii) how online and IoT music technologies can foster lowering the carbon footprint while preserving musicians’ creative process.
Affiliated Organisations Edinburgh Napier University
University of Leicester
Research Areas Acoustics
Biodiversity
Music
Population / Community Ecology / Zoonosis
Research Themes Culture and Communities
Research Centres/Groups Centre for Conservation and Restoration Science
Centre for Interaction Design
Org Units School of Computing
URL https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/british-academy-conferences/aesthetic-enquiry-of-the-anthropocene/