Audio podcast generally refers to a recorded sound file made available for download through a digital broadcasting medium. The objective of the 2013 workshop series at Parsons The New School for Design is to explore how podcasting can be used as a critical urban technique and tool. To achieve this, technical assistance in recording, sound engineering and broadcasting has been combined with inquiries in listening, bodily awareness, qualitative description of sound events and mapping, psychoacoustics, voice qualities, narrative modes, politics. Emphasis has been given on how the process of podcasting can amplify local-relevant urban practices, while providing a sensible understanding on the broader ecological dimensions of places.
Workshop instructor: Themistoklis Pellas, urbanist
pellt631@newschool.edu
Faculty: Dr. Jilly Traganou, Associate Professor, School of Art and Design History and Theory
traganog@newschool.edu
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In the workshop series podcasting is approached as a process with three layers and addressed both as a way of knowing & through its produced output.
A) Audio thread
B) Socio-spatial/acoustics framework
C) Technical prism
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AUDIO THREAD
1 Capture – the direct collection/ production of sound facts (field recording and practitioner’s own voice recording) along with the incorporation/ correlation of secondary data (interviews, audio samples)
2 Edit – the audio processing of the facts
3 Distribution – the dissemination of the audio work
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SOCIO-SPATIAL/ACOUSTICS FRAMEWORK
Drawing from spatial and sensory studies the framework of the workshop builds upon:
1 Reflexivity & immersion of the practitioner in the site/ situation
How the material self (non-discursive/ discursive) engages with the (human & non human) agents
2 Narrative building
The produced output as a place based storytelling & intervention into the ecology of the site/ situation
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TECHNICAL PRISM
The workshop series are exploratory, while keeping a critical stance towards how technical practices are conceived & appropriated, relating more particularly to
– sensory, neurophysiological, societal implications
– political economy of hardware, software, information
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Event at Parsons based on the workshop series: PODCASTING THE URBAN
urbanismpodcasts.wordpress.com 