In partnership with Unusual Music Exchange, with host and creator Josh Thorpe.
Annie Dunning, sound artist, discusses object and sound, interspecies encounters, owls, crows, toads, magpies, Chinese spouting bowls, Alvin Lucier, and Maryanne Amacher ‘s “third ear”. The episode begins with a recording of an ornithologist doing an impression of a barred owl. A mated pair of barred owls return the call. We get weirder from there.
Annie Dunning is one of those people who thinks carefully and cares deeply about their practice…without making it fussy or bullshitty. It’s a mini masterclass in knowing a practice intimately while holding space for the unknowable in and around the practice.
Listen to recordings of toads, people rubbing bronze, a recording of the sea resonating through a cast bronze shell form, and the psychoacoustically heavy Dense Boogie 1, by Maryanne Amacher.
Note: the idea of sound being “touch at a distance” which we mention in the episode, apparently comes from researcher Anne Fernald.
Artist Bios
Annie Dunning
Annie Dunning is an artist based in Guelph ON who maintains a transdisciplinary practice, currently focused on sound-sculpture. Conceptually, her work investigates areas of cultural overlap between human and non-human species, with an intent to pursue hybrid ways of knowing. Confusing the expected relationships between species offers new possibilities in sensory understanding of our world and can shift how we imagine possible futures.
With support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, Dunning has produced and shown work across Canada and abroad. Career highlights include the solo exhibition “Echo/Locations” (2016) Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, curated by Crystal Mowry, participation in “City Sonic” (2017) international sound art festival, Charloi Belgium, and group exhibition “Animal Intent” (2017) Apexart, New York City, curated by Emily Falvey. She was selected as a participant in the Ayatana Biophony Research Residency (2019) Chelsea, PQ, and exhibited Cochlea II in “An Exercise in Listening” (2021) at Two Rivers Gallery in Prince George, BC. She holds a BFA from Mount Allison University, NB and an MFA from the University of Guelph, ON. Currently she is researching sound-sculpture as a PhD candidate in the Visual Arts program at York University, with funding support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Josh Thorpe
Glasgow-based Canadian composer, artist, and writer, Josh Thorpe likes to listen to unusual music, and to talk with interesting people about it.