The symposium opens by exploring the question of what relevance field recordings, bioacoustics, and the sonification of measurable data from a wide variety of living organisms have for our understanding of the environment, as well as for our actions and our relationships with that environment. For what specific purposes do artists, artistic researchers, or scientists record environmental sounds and noises? What happens during and as a result of these recordings and data processing? What knowledge is generated and made available through this sonic
dimension?
In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in sound art works that use field recordings of “natural” and urban habitats. In the scientific community as well, bioacoustics is once again coming to the forefront in research on health—particularly that of animals.Both stem, among other things, from an examination of current climate change and its resulting consequences for various ecosystems. What do these recordings or sonified data mean? What do we really hear when we sit or stand next to the recording device wearing headphones, or when we listen to the recordings in their entirety later on elsewhere? What political and ethical tensions arise in the creation and processing of these recordings/ data?
With contributions by: Cathy Lane, who explores field recording as a feminist practice; Tess Gridley; Claire Homewood and MAK1ONE, who, as part of Sea Search (https://seasearch.co.za/) and in collaboration with, among others, the African Bioacoustics Community (https://www.africanbioacoustics.org/), are researching the health of marine life off the coast of Cape Town and fostering environmental awareness and community through artistic workshops; and Dagmar Šubrtová and Miloš Vojtěchovsky, who will reflect upon the project Frontiers of Solitude (2015/16) that focused on contemporary transformations of the landscape and the close connections between post-industrial civilization and nature.
Discussion
Cathy Lane
Tess Gridley with Claire Homewood and MAK1ONE
Moderated by: Janine Eisenächer
Symposium exhibition
Lílian Campesato & Valéria Bonafé
Verena Lercher
Kamila Metwaly & Jasmina Metwaly (with Lorenzo Sandoval)
Frontiers of Solitude (Miloš Vojtěchovský and Dagmar Šubrtová)
Symposium: October 2, 3 pm / Flutgraben – Projektraum