Listening To Ecological Interference:Renewable Technologies And Their Soundscapes

The sounds of modernity are increasingly moving into natural habitats. With an influx of new technologies designed to utilise and extract material from nature, the natural soundscape is becoming masked by the mechanical and technological. This article addresses an experience of listening and recording which took place in the summer of 2015, within two different natural landscapes: the southern region of Iceland and the north eastern region of Spain. The field trip exposed a significant keynote sound within each space; a sound produced by renewable technologies. The sounds produced by these technologies, wind farms and hydroelectric power stations, were significantly louder than had been expected. This lead to an analysis of whether the soundscapes of environmentally friendly technologies can or should be critiqued, even if they have a demonstrable impact on the ecosystem

Sonifying Memory:Creative approaches to representing socially constructed soundscapes

This chapter examines an artist residency at the Leitrim Sculpture Centre in Ireland which culminated in the construction of a solo exhibition in 2014. The work was an attempt to represent artistically the soundscape memories of a collection of five older adults who had lived in or near the Smithfield area of Dublin from the 1940s, and sonic data collected by 84 teenagers age 15-16 living in or around Smithfield today. These participants were part of a large PhD research project, which was examining the co-construction of an urban soundscape. The study was interrogating the potential of sound to shape communities' perception of place. Further the research found that the users of space play a part in the co-construction of space, not in an actual physical re-design but in the re-imagining of spatial use and meaning, through the deployment of their own sounds. This research was never intended for installation; instead, the focus was on an examination of the sound as a social construct. However, in reimagining the findings as a work of art, new ideas and questions emerged about how one can represent sensory knowledge through creative practice. This paper will look at both the collection and some of the findings from the research, and how this was translated into a sound installation

The Sound Wars: Silencing the Working Class Soundscape of Smithfield:Silencing the Working Class Soundscape of Smithfield

The concept of sounds associated with a social class is not new, Emily Thompson and Hillel Schwartz both present historical evidence of the segregation of communities because of the soundscapes they produced, from ancient Greece where noise was often linked with production, madness, and poverty, and was often used as a method for the segregation and suppression of certain groups, to New York City where anti noise campaigns, led by the upper classes, have fought historically for the suppression of unnecessary noise. However, contemporary classifications of noise as a quantifiable and verifiable phenomenon in cities have created what seems like an unambiguous and non-judgmental critique of sound pollution based on statistics. This suggests that we have progressed from the classification of loud sounds as associated with social classes to one connected to pollution. In this paper I expand on a body of work conducted between 2009 and 2014, which examined the social construction of urban soundscapes in the Smithfield area of Dublin city, Ireland. The research was conducted with a group of participants, 84 teenagers and 5 older adults. These participants helped identify, through a series of research methods, concepts and ideas about the meaning of noise and sound and how certain sounds are often linked to social class

Ecological Interference: Hybrid Soundscapes

This artwork responds to the ideas raised during a time of research and recording in 2015, it explores the way in which humans adapt to technological soundscapes but perhaps ignore how other creatures respond to new sounds in their environment. Sound and noise are subjective, they are experienced different depending on culture, however, there is little research examining how the biophony responds to the anthrophony. This work, an immersive soundscape, intermingles this constant friction between the noise of humanity and the soundscape of nature. It uses the audio and video recordings from these two different spaces, the human voice and the sounds of technological interference to create a human/nature hybrid soundscape

Art as a Strategy for Living with Utopias in Ruins

The term ‘utopia’ is problematic. Originating in the Greek for ‘no place’ or ‘good place’ it suggests an ideal that can only be imagined. To imagine utopias could be seen as an unrealistic orientation to a future in which the local impacts of global change will be severe. However, utopian thinking also includes the pursuit of a transformation, it is about how we might strive towards a better future and find strategies for living with dystopic situations. Anthropologist Anna Tsing suggests that we need imagination to grasp the precariousness and unpredictability of contemporary life. She does this through both a metaphorical use of the Matsuke mushroom to imagine the possibility of life in a ruined landscape, and through detailed observations of the lives of mushroom pickers surviving economically in the ruins of capitalism. This parallel practice of imagination and observation also characterises the works in the Mobile Utopia exhibition. Through the works we see utopian plans and ideas come up against the frictions of physical place; where ideas are not only imagined, but attempted, enacted and grappled with. Although all the art works are distinctly mobile, they are grounded by the frictions that the artists unearth, enact and perform through investigations of situated and spatial practices. We suggest that the processes and journeys that produced the art works can be thought of as strategies for living and making meaning in the ruins of capitalism. We have grouped the works into three themes: an exploration of infrastructures that enable particular kinds of mobilities; the negotiation of identity on the move and in relation to changing geographies; and the questioning of veracity of or within distributed, networked and mediated mobilities. The themes often overlap within the works as the artists navigate between material geographies, mobile lives and distributed networks. The works are not propositions for the future, they are all explicitly grounded in the way that past, present and future are entangled in a complex relation to each other and to the frictions of location. While reminding us of past ideas of utopian planning they also offer new ways to make critical observations

Mobile Utopia:Art and Experiments

The exhibition of 13 international artists, 12 Experiments, a catalogue of essays,and Mobile Utopias conference hosting 180 delegates, launched a new platformfor Art and Mobilities. The exhibition was developed in connection with the world leading Centre for Mobilities Research. In this context, the exhibition aimed to encourage artists, participants and spectators to take a fresh look at experiences of mobility, their connection with each other and space. To consider ways in which the artistic interventions contribute to the reconfiguration of spaces for experimentation, critique, and political communication, creating new organisational forms, and potentially the reformation of mobility regimes. Artworks were selected for the exhibition from an open call, through a rigorous selection process. The artists were from 4 continents: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal & UK and are established and internationally renowned artists. The exhibition included works in video installation, sound art, data sculpture, walking art, book works, performance, networked art and participation. It included the following artists: Kaya Barry, Tess Baxter, Valentina Bonizzi, Fernanda Duarte, Michael Hieslmair & Michael Zinganel, Vicki Kerr, Clare McCracken, Peter Merrington & Ilana Mitchell, Nikki Pugh, Max Schleser, Gerda Cammaer & Phillip Rubery, Samuel Thulin, Christina Vasilopoulou, and Louise Ann Wilson. Published in conjunction with the exhibition a catalogue of critical essays underpinned the concepts. This included an essay by Southern, J., Rose, E.E., O Keeffe, L., Art as a Strategy for Living with Utopias in Ruins and The Mobile UtopiaE xperiment by Bȕscher, M., alongside images and statements by the artists addressing the Mobilities theme.The project attracted a range of funders and sponsors. Followingthe exhibition, the curatorial team Southern, Rose, O Keeffe with Kai Tan established an international network in Art and Mobilities with a further symposium: The UK Art & Mobilities Network Inaugural Symposium held on 3rd July 2018, with 22delegates

2018: Art & Mobilities Network Inaugural Symposium Instant Journal (Peter Scott Gallery)

"Mobilities has been gaining momentum through networks, conferences, books, special issues, exhibitions and in the practices of artists, writers and curators. In recognition of this activity we are forming an Art & Mobilities network through which to consolidate, celebrate and develop this work.Inspired by the recent foregrounding of Mobility and the Humanities (Pearce & Merriman, 2018) and drawing on last November's successful Mobile Utopia Exhibition amongst others, the Centre for Mobilities Research (CEMORE) at Lancaster University are pleased to hold a UK Art & Mobilities Network Inaugural Symposium 2018 on the 3rd of July 2018. The aim of the symposium is to bring together people in the UK who are active in the field of mobilities and art in order to discuss the distinctive contribution that art makes to mobilities research and vice versa. We would be delighted if you can join us for this one-day event to help shape the network, particularly in the context of a fast-changing world, not just socio-politically but in terms of the place of art in the academy and vice versa. There are nearly 30 key international artists and researchers gathered on this day both locally and via Skype. We invite all participants in the symposium to bring with them an artwork, artefact, written statement or quote that can be displayed as a ‘pop up’ exhibition. These artefacts will be used during the day to focus discussion around different facets of mobilities and art." (Jen Southern, Kai Syng Tan, Emma Rose, Linda O'Keeffe Editors

Thinking through new methodologies:sounding out the city with teenagers

This paper explores the place for sound within social theory, more specifically, how sound as a subject can be interpreted methodologically. The paper examines the various methods implemented within a PhD research project. The research adopted a participatory approach, examining the missing voices in the post design of place. In this way the research focused on those groups often excluded in the design of urban space, teenagers. The methods included participant documented soundwalking, sound mapping, focus groups and ethnographic soundwalks. This paper argues that a closer attention to sound, when examining the urban, will help shape one’s understanding of the everyday. Methods that explore sound as part of the make up of social life, either as place building or space making, whether they are politically intentional or historically relevant, need to be advanced

The soundscape of youth

This paper explores the voice of teenagers in the experience of sound within the urban landscape and is part of my PhD research exploring the youth experience of urban soundscapes. It focuses on the methodological approach adopted by the researcher in examining the phenomenological experience of sound. The methods used in this project were influenced by previous research within the arts, music and acoustic ecology, as well as traditional qualitative sociological methods. The area chosen for the research was a space, which has undergone significant redevelopment in an attempt to rejuvenate it, both economically and socially. In exploring this space, which many argue has failed in both design and social inclusion, I wished to have the voices of teenagers, formerly under represented in discourse on urban design, heard. I wanted to highlight how sound can impact on teenagers use of and relationship to, space primarily because they have to adapt to spaces created around them