Dr. William W.H. ‘Bill’ Gunn (1913–1984) was a field recordist, conservationist and early populariser of nature sounds, recording landscapes in the Galapagos Islands, East Africa, Sri Lanka and locations across Canada including its Far North. A key technique in his practice and teaching was sound microscopy—slowing down the playback of his recordings to reveal details unable to be perceived at full speed. Matt Rogalsky and Laura Jean Cameron consider Gunn’s slowing in relation to a range of contemporaneous practices of slowing (in speech therapy, music composition, etc.) as well as the context of his field and the ‘slow violence’ of ecological devastation in this presentation. 

Find the full podcast presentation here: https://www.history.ac.uk/podcasts/sound-microscopy-bill-gunns-field-recording-and-ethics-slow 

 

 

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