Sonic University at Cornell
What does a university sound like? For the Fall 2019 semester, we listened to Cornell University. We listened to dorms and dining halls and frats; to a particle accelerator, conversational Latin, and the stomach of a cow; to dozens of 19th-century kinetic machines, the mechanics of a pipe organ, and the stomp of step dancing; to hockey skates, taiko drums, and fencing sabres; to research on mating spiders, vibrating deserts, dying plants, and outer space; to wire recordings, records, film reels, cassettes, and VHS tapes hidden in archives several floors underground; to water in a gorge, the rustle of leaves, a symphony of insects and all the sounds made in an entire day on campus. It will be a university entirely through your ears instead of your eyes.
This project was created during a semester-long artists residency this fall as part of Cornell’s multidisciplinary Media Studies Initiative. While on campus we created an hour-long live audio show featuring our own recordings, work from Cornell professors, and content from Cornell’s archives. We also guest lectured in eight courses, gave workshops, and were selected as fellows at the Hans Bethe house.
Jason Koski/Cornell University