Angus Tarnawsky   ︎    b. 1988 in lutruwita (Tasmania, Australia)    

︎    angustarnawsky (at) ubc (dot) ca
︎    @incontextmusic

Angus Tarnawsky is a researcher whose work examines the social and political dimensions of hearing and listening through situated and embodied processes of research-creation. His research contends that how we listen is never neutral; it is shaped by historical and cultural circumstances specific to places, communities and sonic bodies of all kinds. His multimodal approach combines archival analysis, ethnographic interviews and media archaeology with self-developed methods including sensing-in-motion, amplifying (a) place (via listening), sound fishing and contact reception. His work also draws from research into sound system cultures in Canada, Jamaica and the UK, incorporating dubplate cutting, place-responsive audiovisual performances and the investigation of dub as a sonic-spatial research methodology. He is currently a Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Music at the University of British Columbia.


︎︎︎ CV - June 2026 (PDF download)


Research Areas

︎︎︎

Sound Studies: Expanded modes of hearing and listening in urban sonic environments; Everyday listening practices vis-a-vis colonialism and settler colonialism; Location (field) recording; Soundwalking; Sound mapping (and counter-mapping); Disc cutting lathes; Sound systems.

Research-Creation: Practice-based and practice-led approaches to research; Sound art projects and musical performances in mixed-used and shared urban spaces; Participant engagement and practices of co-creation.

Media Production: Audio recording, editing, arranging and mixing; Creative use (and strategic misuse) of analog and digital audio technologies; Micro-FM radio broadcasting; Lathe cut records, dubplates and experimental record making.