Hear Where You Are

Hear Where You Are

For many animals, hearing is a primary way of knowing and mapping the world. From whales that use sonar to navigate the deep trenches of the ocean by bouncing sound off of them, to owls who use an acute sense of hearing to locate prey through the snow, the world of animal acoustics is a fascinating portal to understanding how we use hearing to know the world and find our place in it. As marine bio-acoustician Michael Stocker, Founder of Ocean Conservation Research notes, we live in a world where we must acknowledge the Hegemony of Visuality–even after talking to someone on the phone was say, "I'll see you tomorrow..." What would it mean if we said, "I'll hear you tomorrow?" What does it mean to identify relationship through hearing, rather than seeing? What happens when we deeply attend to sound, rather than sight? How does this change our experience of self, and of the world? What does it mean to be a good listener in the unfolding of the stories of our lives? In the film above, we have a wide-ranging conversation with marine bio-acoustician Michael Stocker, Founder of Ocean Conservation Research and author of Hear Where You Are: Sound, Ecology, and Sense of Place.