A human-centered design team navigates between the real and the abstract by uniting acoustics and epistemology in order to "investigate the primacy of sound as a modality of knowing and being in the world.” Exploring biophony, sounds from nature including animal vocalizations such as birdsong; geophony, referring to the sounds of weather and other natural elements; and anthropophony, environmental sounds created by humans such as sound design, language, and industrial sounds leads to understanding and engaging with local natural environments. Students create a polyvocal soundscape that is not merely laid out for prospective listeners but can be an autonomous system that listens and replies to itself. This soundscape is a collage of points and sounds that produce a polycentric soundscape populated by animals, plants, and natural and human-produced phenomena.
