They're All Talking

8 ECHOES

Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States

“Sonder” is an ancient viral hit — a 2010s neologism coined by John Koenig to describe “the realization that each [...] passerby is living a life as [...] complex as your own”. They’re All Talking repurposes Koenig’s now-cheesy term into a soundwalk, merging it with language and the chronology of Boston. Samples of Native American languages, English and the various languages spoken through waves of immigration are specifically tied to locations around the pond, building a linguistic timeline in the city. The incredible language diversity in the Boston area fuels a phone-in-pocket soundwalk that only allows eavesdropping on languages a listener speaks. The multilingual soundscape leaves one very simple impression of most of its conversations: that everyone, just like you, is talking, talking, talking. Presented at the ICMC 2025.

Prehistory to Native American Languages

1 sound

Native American Languages to English

1 sound

English to Immigration Wave 1

1 sound

Immigration Wave 1 to Immigration Wave 2

1 sound

Immigration Wave 2 to Wave 3

1 sound

Immigration Wave 3 to Wave 4

1 sound

Wave 4 to Present Day

1 sound

The Choir

1 sound

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Other walks nearby

Boston Pond walk

Boston Pond walk

: This SoundWalk brings into hearing the fragile and often imperceptible bio-acoustic ecology of Boston’s Public Garden. This experience invites participants to attune their senses to the spectral presence of species that live here in the present and the past

The deathless tempest encroaching

The deathless tempest encroaching

Imagine the pond is a stormy sea. The closer you get, the more intense the gale becomes. Take cover behind monuments—listen to what speaks in their wake—and dare to glean what lies in the eye of the storm.

An Invitation to Play

An Invitation to Play

Instructions: Enter the Garden through the gate at Arlington and Commonwealth Ave. Proceed to the space right between the two fountains in front of the George Washington statue and begin. (Tip: the instructions will guide you around the Garden, but if you are ever at a loss on what to do next... just follow the line) Description: As children we often look at the world through the lens of play - sidewalk cracks invite us to avoid stepping on them under perilous threat; trees for climbing stand out amongst the rest; we determine which house hides the terrifying monster and walk on the other side of the street. However, as we reach adulthood, we often lose this lens of play. This soundwalk invites listeners to adopt a playful attitude toward their natural spaces and the people around them. For fifteen minutes, as listeners stroll around the lake in the Boston Public Garden, we will create the space for a playful interaction with the world. Together, we will explore the positive psychological benefits of play and how a playful attitude affects us and colors our lived experiences. We will hear stories of designers who seek to create playful moments in daily life - designers such as Bernard DeKoven who spent his life inviting others to participate in what he called “the infinite playground.” Finally, by exploring some of the aesthetic elements of play (including imagination, playful objects, flow, and the magic circle), we will create opportunities for playful attitudes towards nature, others, and ourselves.

Whisper in a Lily's Ear

Whisper in a Lily's Ear

A data sonification piece based on five poems written by female poets who lived/worked in Boston over the course of its history: Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1812-1848), Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (1844-1911), Gertrude Hall (1863-1961), and Jadene Felina Stevens (1947-2013). Each poem is tied to a prominent monument or landmark within the Public Garden, over a walking path covering approximately a half-mile from its southeastern to the northwestern points. In addition to recorded readings of the poems, two selections of modern-day sound recordings made in Boston accompany each poem, with varying pitches determined by word and letter frequency data within each poet's body of work, and within the overall English language. Surrounding the monuments/poems, ambient music from each relevant time period plays in the background. 18th Century:"Sodgers Return", by Sturbridge Colonial Militia; Early-19th Century:"Home, Sweet Home (Folk-Song)" by Martin R. Lucas (Producer); Mid-19th Century: "Alexander's Ragtime Band" by Miff Mole And His Little Molars; Late-19th Century: "In a Blue Summer Garden" by Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, & Joe Shulman; 20th Century: "Crystalline Neurons" by PrimalHouseMusic. (All music in public domain/Creative Commons.)

Awake and lift their heads in all their prismatic glories

Awake and lift their heads in all their prismatic glories

MATTHEW AZEVEDO, University of Massachusetts, Lowell USA INGA CHINILINA, Brown University, Providence USA "Awake and lift their heads in all their prismatic glories" merges the invisible worlds of electromagnetic fields and seismic vibration with the auditory environment of the Boston Public Garden and composed score to create an immersive sound experience structured by the listener’s unique path through the work, evoking the yearly blossoming and renewal of the garden. The contours and title of the piece have been drawn from Charles W. Stevens’ article "The Boston Public Garden," published in the 1901 edition of New England Magazine, which provides the reader with a tour of the garden and history of the transformation of the “waste land” left when fire destroyed a series of rope walks into “a public exhibition of horticultural beauty such as can be seen in perhaps no other city of the Union.” Additional Performers: John Popham, Cello T.J. Borden, Cello

Tandem Running

Tandem Running

Tandem Running utilizes both synthesis and manipulated audio recordings to portray the involvement of invertebrates at every stage of plant life from pollination to decomposition. It specifically recognizes invertebrate species typically seen as scary and/or unappealing, such as wasps and worms, whose contributions to the ecosystem may go unappreciated, but are nonetheless critical for allowing human-planned natural spaces like the Boston Public Garden to thrive. Different species found in and around the Public Garden are represented both literally, with manipulated recordings of the sounds they make, and metaphorically, with melodic and rhythmic elements that become denser and more musical as points of interest along the route are approached.

Ephemerospherical walk: Bats of the Public Garden

Ephemerospherical walk: Bats of the Public Garden

This roughly 1/3-mile sound walk should last around 15 minutes, but can be longer as desired, and listeners may pause at any point of the walk, as all sound events are looped (except the last one). Listeners will start at the Ether Monument, following a path from there east towards the pond and then south along its bank. Listeners are invited to take this path as slowly as they like. The action picks up a bit on the bridge over the lagoon, then walk east to finish the walk at the Bagheera Fountain. Bat walking is by necessity an active form of listening: When I’ve participated in bat walks, using my bat detector to make the animals’ calls audible, the other participants - often including young children - looked up in wonder whenever they heard a call, knowing a bat was about to flit by and would only be visible for a few moments. Bats don’t creep into, or come crashing into, your auditory attention. This sound walk is designed to suggest the feeling of a bat survey on foot. Normally a nighttime activity done with ultrasonic detectors, Bats of the Public Garden can be experienced any time of day. Rather than an attempting to be “realistic,” the soundscape is layered, shifted, and processed to communicate the urgency, mystery, and musical rhythm that arises from the joint improvisation of animal and human rhythms. At various points, the sounds of the bats will be combined with sounds from other ephemeral occupants of the garden - frogs, crepuscular birds, amphibians, and fish - along with voices of mythical, imagined, and other-than-nonhuman beings.

jaden piblik

jaden piblik

A collaboration with between Cantabridgian poet Jacques Fleury and Bostonian musician Rachel Devorah Wood Rome. A diverse collection of plants from around the world live together in the Boston Public Garden, embodying the ideals and contradictions of the United States. Heralded as the "first public botanical garden in the United States," this historic site reflects a uniquely American paradox: the aspiration for multicultural democratic inclusivity juxtaposed with the tenants of colonialism. Nature is not left to thrive on its own terms but meticulously curated, shaped to conform to Victorian notions of beauty and order. jaden piblik is an electroacoustic soundwalk setting of Jacques Fleury's Haitian-Creole translation of the English-language poem "Treeness" by Jason Allen-Paisant. The work bridges languages and traditions, resonating with the complex, layered histories embodied in the Public Garden itself. Rachel Devorah Wood Rome is an improvising electronic musician, educator, and labor organizer who machines for their patience and capacity to remember. She is employed as an Assistant Professor of Creative Coding at Berklee College of Music and as Vice President of Full-Time Faculty for MS1140 AFT Massachusetts. https://racheldevorah.studio/ Jacques Stanley Fleury is a Haitian-American Poet, Educator and author of four books. He has a degree in Liberal Arts and is pursuing graduate studies in the literary arts through Harvard University. His first book Sparks in the Dark: A Lighter Shade of Blue, A Poetic Memoir about life in Haiti and America was endorsed by the Boston Globe. Fleury is prominently featured in newspapers, anthologies, libraries and literary journals worldwide.Visit him at: http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury

¡Hola Hipopótamo!

¡Hola Hipopótamo!

Soundwalk based on sound ethnographies from the Magdalena River Basin in Colombia, by Carlos G. Román (LSU) and Alejandra Osejo (Rice University).

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