Fulbright Scholar leaves his mark at UOW
Jun 29, 2007
This week, the Faculty of Creative Arts bid farewell to Fulbright Senior Scholar, Associate Professor Timothy Nohe who is returning to the US after being in residence at the University of Wollongong. Professor Nohe was one of six American academics awarded a prestigious Fulbright Senior Scholar grant to visit Australia in 2006. He has been in residence with the Faculty of Creative Arts since July last year while working on his Fulbright research. Timothy Nohe is an Associate Professor with the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He was joined in Australia by his wife and fellow Fulbright alumnus Lisa Moren and their two children, Amalie and Ruskin. Professor Timothy Nohe is an artist and educator engaging traditional and electronic media in public life and public places. He is internationally renowned for his performance and academic works and during his visit to UOW he has worked in the Schools of Art and Design and Music and Drama to introduce specific technological and conceptual methods to sonic art. “At the University of Wollongong I have completed two visual investigations courses that surveyed interdisciplinary approaches to sonic art," he said. "The student cohorts were drawn from a diverse group studying within new media, fibre, sculpture, photography, painting and design concentrations. I was thus challenged to introduce sonic art practices to students with a diverse range of conceptual and practical tools. The courses introduced a broad history of sonic practices, from Futurism to the present.” The courses offered practical workshops in kinetics, microphone and transducer fabrication, simple circuit development, field recording, postproduction synthesis and editing, electro-acoustic performance and improvisation, as well as distribution via concerts, radio and networked broadcasts. An accomplished artist, composer and performer, Professor Nohe has been involved in an impressive range of professional exhibitions and collaborations. In the spirit of the Fulbright program, during his stay at UOW, he united with fellow Art and Design staff members to send a joint exhibition to Capilano College, Canada, and performed two concerts of new works composed in Australia. “Timothy's expertise has offered the students specific practical, technological and conceptual methods related to sonic art across a number of studios," said Visual Arts Program Coordinator at UOW, Jacky Redgate. "From the outset, Timothy engaged with the teaching program at the University and with the arts community and his professional experience on an international level in the United States and Europe has been of immeasurable benefit to the students. He has been extremely generous in imparting his knowledge of artists, theorists, publications and exhibitions.” While in Australia Professor Nohe’s research focus centered on his project Sounding Botany Bay/Sounding Gamay which explores the sonic environment of one of Australia’s richest cultural and natural attractions. From recordings throughout the bay environs, Nohe aimed to build an aural tapestry of the rich voices and sounds of Botany Bay that heighten and contrast what is and has been there. “Botany Bay is an iconic region of Australia’s nationhood," he said. "In creating Sounding Botany Bay, I recorded, edited and composed the unique sonic environment of this area. My aim was to produce an immersive surround-sound audio experience, which traces the forces of globalisation through human use of Botany Bay.” Professor Nohe said that human presence can be sonically traced in the description of indigenous rock engravings, readings from ships logs, botanical specimen findings, soundings of bay depths, exploitation of natural resources, etc. By interweaving the voices of past and current uses of the bay, he sais he wanted to interpret the use of this land by humans of diverse histories and cultres through sound. The Fulbright program is aimed at promoting mutual understanding through educational exchange and is the largest educational scholarship of its kind. Professor Nohe is one of twenty distinguished American Fulbright Scholars who have been undertaking study and research in Australia during 2006/2007. - By Tanya Barton-Saad (Faculty of Creative Arts) For more information on Timothy Nohe’s research see: Blog: http://mtod.tumblr.com Research site: http://www.research.umbc.edu/~nohe/GAG/
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