A Sonic Portrait featuring Skyler Cooper, a Gulf War veteran, transgender artist, filmmaker, and activist who has received critical acclaim for his gender-bending performances. He is currently developing his next film project, Worthy of Survival. 

http://www.skylercooper.net/about/

In this episode we talk about othering and being other(ed). Being made out to be an "other" as if one differs from a norm or normative social convention.

Each episode features one or more guests talking about social issues, their life experience, and story. To make their ideas more tangible we’ve included historical sounds and voices—it’s what we call a Decibels Sonic Essay.

Guests: Stephane Magloire, Elijah Peters, Tobirus Newby, Vien Truong, and Terri Kempton

A series of sonic portraits and essays highlighting myriad voices and perspectives for a deeper understanding of our world.

In Season 2 our guests talk about their personal life experiences and how it intersects with social, political, and economic equity.

Decibels is a resonance of ideas resounding a sonorous vision for the future.

We are in San Francisco's Presidio Park, a piece of land preserved by its military history. There we find the Nike Administration building that used to house a central command for the coastal defense missile systems, before a secret intelligence organization took it over, and now it was opened up for the first time in decades to the public through an art exhibit entitled "Home Land Security." Artists from around the world engaged with ideas and concepts of national security, protection, and fear of the other within these military structures at the pristinely beautiful edge of the pacific coast.

Flâneur with us in this episode through some of the notions most relevant today through an archaeology of the present moment and its history.

*Featured in the episode's cover image is a photo of a small part of Tirtzah Bassel's artwork "Concourse" from the Home Land Security exhibit in the Presidio of San Francisco, 2017.*

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Decibels is a collaboration between Blue Egg Media and The New Asterisk Magazine and is produced by Robin Gianattassio-Malle, Alexander Winter, and Jeremy Joven.

Our gratitude goes out to Cheryl Haines with the FOR-SITE Foundation, Kate Bickert with the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, Robyn Wise with Streetwise Communications, Monica, Anne-Marie Leitak, Curran White, Tyler, Avi, and Tobirus Mozelle.

In this episode, Decibels returns to Alcatraz and encounters voices of the island's past. Former guards and residents confer their first-hand experiences of living and working on Alcatraz during the Rock's use as a prison.

(Warning: This episode contains some more graphic audio content than usual, please be advised and listen at your own discretion)

Decibels is a collaboration between Blue Egg Media and The New Asterisk Magazine and is produced by Robin Gianattassio-Malle, Alexander Winter, and Jeremy Joven.

Our gratitude goes out to Former Alcatraz Correctional Officers Jim and Catherine Albright, George DeVincenzi and Former Alcatraz Resident Jolene Babyak for sharing their reflections and memories with us.

Thanks also to The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy Team as and the Alcatraz Island National Park Service for their support in the making of this episode, to LN Lurie for contributing to the sound design, and to Tobirus Newby for lending his voice.

In this episode the Decibels team takes the ferry out along the bay to a unique national park; Alcatraz Island in the San Francisco Bay.

We captured sonic glimpses of the post-prison years, from the flourishing growth of the flora and fauna, the explosion of avian residents and their nesting habitats, and momentary memories of the occupation by the Native Americans. We also include a most unlikely reunion of former island residents and correctional officers sharing memories of the most notorious murders on the island as well as reflections on the evolving role of Alcatraz in the quest for social justice.

Decibels is a collaboration between Blue Egg Media and The New Asterisk Magazine and is brought to you by Robin Gianattassio-Malle, Alexander Winter and Jeremy Joven.

Our gratitude goes out to David Shaw and Nicki Phelps at *The Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy Team* as well as to John Cantwell, Ranger and Historian at the *Alcatraz Island National Park Service* for lending their voice and support to this episode. Special thanks to LN Lurie for additional sound design contributions, and to Tobirus Newby for lending his voice.

After a three-year hiatus due to the construction of a larger space, the San Francisco MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) is once again fully open to the public. New curations await, a gigantic fern plant wall, novel vantage points, and publicly accessible hang-out spaces; in this episode, we journey through the sonic, emotional, and psychological aspects of these spaces. What's the meaning of a dedicated art space like this to our society, to the individual? How do we critically question and analyze what's presented to the public and to whom does it speak?

The San Francisco Ferry Building opened in 1898, but fell out of favor after the 1950's when it became entangled by freeway noise. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake put an end to the waterfront freeway nonsense and in 2002 the Ferry Building was renovated and revived as a public space with farmers markets and stores representing some of the greater Bay Area's culinary, produce, and craft offerings.

Cultural Frequencies // Sonic Essays

A series of sonic essays exploring diverse landscapes. Decibels reveals the vibrancy of common places through sound. Being aware, being quiet, and just being transforms cacophonous monotony into symphonic relationships.

Credits: This program is a collaboration between THE NEW ASTERISK & BLUEEGG MEDIA and is produced by Robin Gianattassio-Malle, Jeremy Joven, and Alexander Winter.

Cacophony transforms into euphony in the cathedral-esque architecture of Grand Central Station

Cultural Frequencies // Sonic Essays

A series of sonic essays exploring diverse landscapes. Decibels reveals the vibrancy of common places through sound. Being aware, being quiet, and just being transforms cacophonous monotony into symphonic relationships.

Credits: This program is a collaboration between THE NEW ASTERISK & BLUEEGG MEDIA and is produced by Robin Gianattassio-Malle, Jeremy Joven, and Alexander Winter.

Cultural Frequencies // Sonic Essays

A series of sonic essays exploring diverse landscapes. Decibels reveals the vibrancy of common places through sound. Being aware, being quiet, and just being transforms cacophonous monotony into symphonic relationships.

Debut Episode:

Listen to the impact Lake Merritt has on the city and inhabitants of Oakland, CA.

Lake Merritt is America’s first wildlife preserve located in Oakland, California. Named after a figure from the 1800s who bore the name Merritt, it is a place of natural beauty with merit for the soul. The Ohlone people were the original inhabitors of the area surrounding this beautiful body of water. They were brutally impacted by the arrival of new “settlers” who are still grappling with how to harmoniously live with their surroundings. What might all their aural perception of the lake have been? The rhythms, defined by the forces of an interwoven and connected field of natural environment, with the beats of tides; what does it sound like today, contextualized by a melodic metropolitan soundscape?

Credits: This program is a collaboration between THE NEW ASTERISK & BLUEEGG MEDIA and is produced by Robin Gianattassio-Malle, Jeremy Joven, and Alexander Winter.