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Voices of the Rainforest in 7.1 Surround Sound


Special Event

Harvard Art Museums
32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA

On Earth Day in 1991, Mickey Hart’s World series on Rykodisc released Voices of the Rainforest, Steven Feld’s acousmatic composition of a day in the life of the Bosavi rainforest and Kaluli people in interior Papua New Guinea. The CD touched multiple audiences concerned with ecological integrity, interspecies art, and cultural survival. The work remains in circulation through Smithsonian Folkways.

From newly digitized high-resolution files of the archival tapes, Feld and Skywalker Sound editor Dennis Leonard have now recomposed Voices of the Rainforest in 7.1 cinema surround sound. Weaving together hundreds of recordings, the new Voices immerses listeners in the sensuous surround sounds of birds and insects along with human voices and instruments in the reverberant rainforest.

The museums’ Menschel Hall is equipped with the most advanced cinema surround sound system on campus, providing the ideal site for such a rich listening experience.

Please also join us before the event, across the street from the Harvard Art Museums, for a reception and conversation with Steven Feld and the Sensory Ethnography Lab’s Ernst Karel about this work and about anthropologies in sound in relation to its construction.
7:30–8:30pm
Sever Hall 416

Co-sponsored by the Film Study Center and the Sensory Ethnography Lab.

The event will take place in Menschel Hall, Lower Level. Please enter the museums via the entrance on Broadway.

Free admission

Complimentary parking available in the Broadway Garage, 7 Felton Street, Cambridge.

Support for this program is provided by the Richard L. Menschel Endowment Fund.