Listening to Insects with Lisa Schonberg

In this workshop, participants will engage with the insect community in the rooftop garden at the Greenpoint Library. Through a series of exercises, we will listen to insects and insects’ environments, and learn about how insects sense sound. Participants will be encouraged to listen, make sound, and auralize (sound in the mind!) about insect communication. Most insect sounding is beyond our sensory ability, and so much remains unknown about insect bioacoustic communication. We will speculate about these relations. How do you think insects might sense sound, and how might they communicate through sound with other insects and animals? How are plants and fungi involved?

Exercises Include:

Listening + Sounding. Listen to soil soundscapes, vibratory sound, and ultrasonic sound with specialized microphones. Project your own audio communications through the soil and/or plants, and hear it back after it is processed through these sound infrastructures. 

SoundMap-making. Make a sound map from a speculative insect perspective!

Text Scores. We will follow a text score by composer Pauline Oliveros, and another that focuses on insects, by Lisa. We will discuss what a text score is, and then we will each make a text score that is meant to be used at the Greenpoint Library!

Workshop leader Lisa Schonberg is a composer and percussionist with a background in entomology and ecology. In her work, she makes music and sound art based in ecological inquiry, with a focus on insects.