Resonant Becomings –

March 23, 2026 Mickey Vallee presented research based on his forthcoming book Resonant Becomings, which approaches vibration as a material condition of existence and develops a sustained account of how oscillatory processes generate the forms, relations, and transformations through which beings persist over time. The book advances a vibrational ontology in which organisms, environments, and technologies emerge as coordinated patterns of resonance within shared fields of modulation and intensity. The presentation introduced this framework and explores its ethical implications, framing responsibility as a practice of attunement within a shared vibrational commons shaped by ecological and technological forces alike.

bio
Mickey Vallee holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Sound Studies at Athabasca University. He uses traditional qualitative methods to understand the personal and collective experiences that researchers, cultural producers and people in everyday life have with emerging sound technologies. He is also experimenting with “inventive” methods to test the value of creative interdisciplinary research and collaboration, including the use of digital apparatuses and storage, and analysis software. He has published three books and over 30 academic articles and chapter contributions on how sound contributes to knowledge in science, philosophy, and the arts. His current research project involves a novel approach to bioacoustics as a lived experience between humans, animals, and the environment, and is situated entirely in the wilderness of Southwest Alberta, Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot/Niitsítapi.