Timothy Nohe

Timothy Nohe

U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar

Media Profile

“Botany Bay is an iconic region of Australia’s nationhood. In creating ‘Sounding Botany Bay’ I will record, edit and compose the unique sonic environment of this area. My aim is to produce an immersive surround-sound audio experience, which traces the forces of globalisation through human use of Botany Bay.”

Associate Professor Nohe is one of six Americans to be granted a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award to Australia in 2006. Through his Award Nohe will produce a research work entitled ‘Sounding Botany Bay” and teach Sonic Art at the School of Art and Design at the University of Wollongong.

Nohe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Maryland – Baltimore County. Nohe is internationally renowned for his performance and academic works. He has produced numerous exhibitions in sound recordings, produced video and sound for dance and performance, and live performances in the U.S. Australia and Europe.

At the University of Wollongong (UOW), Nohe will work in the School of Art and Design and the School of Drama and Music; introducing specific technological and conceptual methods to sonic art such as digital imaging, live audio and video processing.  He will also collaborate with the Aboriginal Education Centre, Warlyungah.

“Nohe teaching” stresses observation, the development of hand-eye co-ordination, critical engagement with the history of visual cultures and the development of peer-to-peer execution. His experimental learning techniques include subjects such as sound scores for dance and linear media, body-made sounds, and landscape sounds. Nohe ensures that all works are reviewed by a panel of faculty and guest curators. This process will allow UOW students to engage in a ‘real world’ look at their creative works and professional presentation skills. In the U.S. this process resulted in broadcasting of student works that were critically acclaimed and garnered reviews in the media drawing positive attention to both the students and university.

“I want to produce a sonic environment that wraps around the listener, producing an experience of immersion in the sounds, cultures and histories of Botany Bay. Human presence can be sonically traced in the description of petroglyphs, readings from ships logs, botanical specimen findings, soundings of bay depths, exploitation of natural resources, recreation, trade, etc. I will be interweaving the voices of that past use of the bay, as logged in archives and remembered in oral poetries, with contemporary field recordings and electronic radio frequency intercepts. I want to interpret the use of this land by humans of diverse histories and cultures through sound.”

Nohe hopes to build an aural tapestry of the rich voices and sounds of Botany Bay that will heighten and contrast what is - and has been - there through researching the full scope of the bay, inclusive of the airport and city, as the nexus for the forces of globalisation. He will focus on three sites around Botany Bay incorporating aspects of their history including; a colonial cow pasture that used to exist on the Sydney Kingsford-Smith airport site; forty different languages spoken by the ethnic communities that migrated to this area; and indigenous cultures of the Gweagal and Goorawal peoples.