Quiet Urgency: disturbing sonic ecologies
Wednesday 5 June 2024, 9.30 AM - 6 PM, Central Saint Martins (N1C)
Registration. Please register here. Please note that space is limited, so please register only if you are sure to attend. There are separate tickets for morning and afternoon.
The symposium will ask what it means to think about sound through an ecological framework, and about ecology through a sonic framework. It will ask how urban design has shaped ecologies of sound, but also how the sonic agency of non-human life exceeds and disturbs what can be planned. Should green spaces be considered quiet zones, as they are in urban sound policy, when this imaginary is disturbed by the vibrant sonics of non-human life? Are the sounds of infrastructure and technology part of this ecological vitality, or themselves disturbances to it? How can refuge from sonic disturbance be designed if we think beyond silence as an acoustic ideal?
09.30 Arrival
10:00 Welcome by Gascia Ouzounian, John Bingham-Hall, and Diana Ibáñez López
10.30 Jacek Smolicki – Technologies and Techniques of Deterrent Listening. On Ecotones of Białowieża Forest
The talk focuses on past, present and future soundscapes of Białowieża Forest, an ancient ecosystem located at the border of Poland and Belarus recently highlighted due to the political stand-off between the two countries and their violence against migrants crossing the forest. The talk brings attention to how various forms of sonic and listening techniques are mobilized and immobilized in and around the forest, in order to exert control over its vulnerable ecosystems of humans and other species. Discussion moderated by Gascia Ouzounian.
11:30 Panel: Sensing more-than-human soundscapes. Chaired by John Bingham-Hall
Ella Finer – Acoustic Commons and the Wild Life of Sound
Drawing on her ongoing work, thinking through what a commons is in sonic terms, Ella will briefly illustrate a productive tension--some necessary agitations--across the idea of the commons and the idea of the wild. Even discussing such terms necessitates definition, some boundaries drawn around meaning; who makes the boundaries of the commons, and for whom?
Catherine Clover – Languaging with the birds of King’s Cross station
Sound and location are deeply intertwined for birds as for all species including ourselves. In advance of her workshop on Thursday, Cath will discuss her work on participatory voicing.
Alex de Little – Tentacular Listening
Alex will discuss ideas around Tentacular Listening, an extended listening and reading walk that engages cross-pollinating practices of collective reading and extended listening.
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Maan Barua & Mriganka Madhukaillya – Amphibious: three surrounds
In this lecture performance Mriganka Madhukaillya and Maan Barua aim to formulate a different optic and account of urban life to those on record in mainstream theory. From an ongoing discussion they develop the concept of the amphibious – or life (bios) in its surrounds (amphi-) – to delineate the space-times and practices of urban habitation within and beyond capture. Discussion moderated by John Bingham-Hall
15:00 Panel: Designing just sonic ecologies. Chaired by Gascia Ouzounian
Nathalie Harb – Silent Room: designs for sonic justice
Nathalie will discuss ideas around Silent Room, exploring what it means to design structures offering access to sonic rest and retreat for those most affected by the city's noise. The project has been evolving since 2017 as a series of public space interventions, and its fourth version commissioned by SONCITIES will be installed at LJ Works in London throughout June.
Sarah Lappin – Quiet Rooms in Belfast: An Architectural Design Project in Undergraduate Education
The paper details a history of sound + design projects at Queen’s University. Inspired by Nathalie Harb, the most recent project asked students to consider sound and their environment, culminating in a design for an "Urban Quiet Room" in two of Belfast's loudest public spaces.
Ellie Ratcliffe – The value of nature's sounds for psychological wellbeing
Ellie will discuss findings from past and current projects regarding benefits of nature sounds (especially birdsong) for psychological wellbeing, including the ability to recover from everyday stress and fatigue, and implications for urban planning.
Adriana Cobo Corey – Maintenance Joy
In this presentation Adriana will critically inspect the impact maintenance labour has on iconic public spaces, using projects tailored to Granary Square in King’s Cross as examples. She will ask: Who maintains public spaces? And what are the intersections between maintenance, ethics and joy?
16:30 Countersonics: Radical Sonic Imaginaries: A Conversation between Gascia Ouzounian & KMRU
17:00 Closing remarks and conversation chaired by Diana Ibáñez López
18:00 End
PARTICIPANTS
Adriana Cobo Corey is an architect, spatial practitioner and educator. She researches on contemporary public space and architectural taste. Her work draws intersections between maintenance, ethics and joy in spatial practice. She is Senior Lecturer in Ethical Practice at Central Saint Martins - UAL.
Alex de Little is a sonic artist and researcher based in Leeds and London. His artistic practice involves listening as a practice of world-making, a way of thinking through social, material and ecological relations. He is a Lecturer in Performance and Creative Practice at the University of Leeds and a certified Deep Listening facilitator.
Catherine Clover’s multidisciplinary practice addresses communication across species through voice, language and the interplay between hearing/listening, seeing/reading.
Diana Ibáñez López is an urbanist working at the intersections of spatial practice, policy and design strategy. They are Course Leader of MA Cities at Central Saint Martins, pioneering city-making practices that centre social and climate justice.
Eleanor Ratcliffe is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Psychology at University of Surrey. Her research focuses on how physical environments can support wellbeing, including experiences of nature, natural sounds, and favourite places.
Ella Finer’s work continuously queries the ownership of cultural expression, through sound; often through collaborative projects centring listening as a practice of deep attention, affiliation and reciprocity.
Gascia Ouzounian is a sonic theorist and practitioner whose work deals with questions of sound in relation to space, technology, urbanism, and violence. She is the author of Stereophonica: Sound and Space in Science, Technology, and the Arts (MIT Press, 2021), and the forthcoming The Trembling City (MIT Press). At Oxford she leads the Sonorous Cities project (soncities.org).
Jacek Smolicki, PhD, is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher and educator. His work explores temporal, existential and technological dimensions of listening, recording and archiving practices in human and more-than-human contexts. He is affiliated with Uppsala University and works across multiple ecotones between academic and non-academic realms.
John Bingham-Hall is an independent researcher engaging performance, infrastructure and ecology to understand how bioclimatic urbanism is transforming the public cultures of cities. His work unfolds through teaching, writing, and creative practice in London, Paris and Marseille.
Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU, is an experimental sound artist and ambient musician, raised in Nairobi, Kenya, and currently based in Berlin. His works engage with field recording, improvisation, noise, ambient, machine learning, radio art and expansive hypnotic drones.
Maan Barua is an urban and environmental geographer whose work examines the politics, economies and ontologies of the living and material world. He is the author of Lively Cities: Reconfiguring Urban Ecology (University of Minnesota Press, 2023) and the forthcoming Plantation Worlds (August 2024, Duke University Press).
Mriganka Madhukaillya is an artist and film-maker. He is an assistant professor of New Media Technology and Cinema, as well as the founder of the Media Lab within the Department of Design at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.
Nathalie Harb is a multidisciplinary artist and designer. She creates public interventions, installations, and set designs, that question the notions of home, shelter and agency by proposing an alternative use of our daily habitat.
Architect Dr Sarah Lappin is past Head of Architecture at Queen’s University, co-founder of the All-Ireland Architectural Research Group and past Chair of the Architectural Humanities Research Association. With Gascia Ouzounian, she co-founded the Recomposing the City research group.
Sven Anderson is an artist, researcher, and architectural consultant. He is Director of the Masters in Digital Arts and Intermedia Practices at Trinity College Dublin. Between 2021 - 2023 he developed the project Sound-Frameworks with Theatrum Mundi.