Who's in control of the calendar because no-one was ready for December
Hello friends,
Before 2024 is out, we wanted to share some highlights from our Year-of-Many-Things and extend our love and appreciation for all of your support.
Thanks to Innovate UK Creative Catalyst funding, we’ve been deep in ShapedSound® development from all angles and meeting some phenomenal people in the world of sound, business and technology. What a dream.
2024 highlights
In April, Julie took a new series of wooden sound sculptures to Vancouver for TED 2024, creating a playful, tactile sculpture park for TED fellows to recalibrate, reset and relax in. Julie was interviewed in the park by curator and exec director of ArtScience Museum, Honor Harger. Read Honor’s insightful blog post about the event, there’s a nice bit about the Fellows Park near point five.
Translating Nature hired a new Studio Manager, Grace, who many of you may have met over email, say hello if not – she’s the best!
As you may have seen on our socials, we were awarded a highly competitive Creative Catalyst grant from Innovate UK to develop Shaped Sound – our tactile sonic sound sculptures. We’ve been incredibly excited to meet with experts in the field of sound and listening (including the amazing solo percussionist Evelyn Glennie and one of the most listened to TED talk speakers of all time Julian Treasure - yeeeep)!
We built a shiny new visual identity for Shaped Sound - including a fresh new deck and logo 💅. Shout out to Michael Borosky who helped capture the resonance and gentle calming qualities of the sculptures. He helped us design the sculpture park in Vancouver. Props.
We showcased our Shaped Sound demonstration sculpture at Beyond Conference up in Manchester which was a blast, especially witnessing all the beautiful reactions and positive feedback to the work. More than one person happy-cried! You can read our write-up about our learnings here.
The Centre for Arts and Ecology launched at Goldsmith’s on 27th September. Julie is proud to be invited as a founding member – follow the project for some interesting conversations and cross-pollinations.
Julie became also became member of the Advisory Board for Estuary Festival 2025 which is shaping up to be truly epic.
We’ve been making some silly sound and art-related memes (see below). Follow us on insta to catch them first. We also have a new Shaped Sound insta – give us a follow and connect with us on Bluesky too!
2025, is that you?
Next year might just be as exciting as this one. If you’re going to SXSW Austin in March and would like to connect, please let us know – we’ll be there with the sculptures and the GBIP UK delegation. Again supported by InnovateUK.
Shortly after attending SXSW Austin, Julie will be heading to Svalbard in the Arctic to collaborate with Norwegian musicians, record ice glaciers melting and actively avoid bumping into any polar bears. The work is generously supported by the Norwegian Academy of Music, Arts Council England and Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID).
🗳️ Excitingly, we’ve also submitted a panel discussion proposal for summer 2025 at SXSW London, which will be closely to votes very soon – we’d really appreciate it if you could register then vote for us here! 🗳️
The discussion will be between Julie, Karen Mccarthy Woolf FRSL – poet, Fulbright Scholar, Laurel Prize finalist and TS Eliot Prize nominee and Hannah Catherine Jones – multidisciplinary artist, composer, and founder of the Peckham Chamber Orchestra and Chiron Choir. Moderated by educator, creative director and youth advocate Dan Tsu. It’s going to be very cool, but only if we get voted in, so please vote!
Learn about listening: some readings and videos to ease you through the holidays – from us to you!
‘Quantum Listening is listening in as many ways as possible simultaneously – changing and being changed by the listening’ – Pauline Oliveros
We had the absolute joy and privilege of meeting Evelyn Glennie earlier this month. Watch her discuss ‘opening up your body like a resonating chamber’ to pay closer attention to vibrations, movement and sound.
Learn about composer Hildegard Westerkamp’s process of listening to and recording nature in this beautiful audio documentary by Luis Velasco-Puflea.
We’ve been conducting research into deep and immersive listening experiences, attending talks, art exhibitions and reading some beautiful books, including Bodies of Sound and Quantum Listening, both published by Silver Press, strongly recommend this! Feel free to share any ‘musts’ with us on the subject.
Thank you
Thank you so much for your support, messages and interest in what we’ve been up to this year – we really couldn’t have done it without you. Wishing you a restful and toasty break!
To being less of a stranger, but never less strange.
With love, Julie
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