Sonic Geographies is a course from the Department of Geography at UC Berkeley. It is designed and taught by Joel Wanek.
The aim of the course is to investigate how audio recording and walking can be used as methodologies for exploring our environment and the people that shape it. Students make field recordings and conduct interviews as they move through public spaces of the city. They then edit and structure their sound recordings to express their understandings, feelings, and experiences of that place.
For the past two iterations of the class, our walks have been guided by creeks througout the Bay Area. Like many dense urban areas, creeks here have largely been routed underground through cement culverts. However, there are still areas where the creek can be accessed above ground. We let the creek guide us, above ground and below, and tune into the sonic shifts as we follow. Many other aspects of these areas are revealed too - socio-economic dynamics, watershed health, social infrastructure, nature accessibility, etc.
The edited sonic works that students create range from chronologically-structured pieces which create a sort-of condensed sonic map of our journeys to more free-form, poetic explorations of place.