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| start [2025/10/03 05:42] – scc | start [2025/12/15 00:40] (current) – scc |
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| **Websites**: | **Websites**: |
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| [[https://www.nodegree.de| Kerstin Ergenzinger]] & [[https://www.uni-weimar.de/en/art-and-design/structure/disciplines-staff/media-art-and-design/jun-prof-kerstin-ergenzinger/| Acoustic Ecologies & Sound Studies BUW Weimar]] \\ | [[https://www.nodegree.de| Kerstin Ergenzinger]] & [[https://www.uni-weimar.de/en/art-and-design/chairs/acoustic-ecologies-and-sound-studies/| Acoustic Ecologies & Sound Studies BUW Weimar]] \\ |
| [[https://www.Kaddari.net| Bnaya Halperin-Kaddari]] \\ | [[https://www.Kaddari.net| Bnaya Halperin-Kaddari]] \\ |
| [[https://archipelagoarchives.com| Kiran Kumar]] \\ | [[https://archipelagoarchives.com| Kiran Kumar]] \\ |
| ====== Common Grounds ====== | ====== Common Grounds ====== |
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| **Common Grounds** is a multidisciplinary research sustained by profound artistic-scientific exchange, exploring strategies for sonifying environmental data and listening to the ecologies of our shared planet. This research asks how a long-term collaboration between climate science and sonic arts practices can be translated into public experiences that communicate and offer embodied, sensorial connections to the fragile complexity of planetary systems. | **Common Grounds** explores strategies for per-sonifying environmental data and listening to the ecologies of our shared planet. Sustained by profound artistic-scientific exchange this multidisciplinary research asks how a long-term collaboration between climate science and sonic arts practices can be translated into public experiences that communicate and offer embodied, sensorial connections to the fragile complexity of planetary systems. |
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| Climatic changes occur on spatial and temporal scales much larger and slower than those we humans can sensorially perceive. Therefore even in the face of palpable damages to the earth's atmo-, hydro-, cryo- and geo-spheres, the climate crisis still remains for many but an inaccessible, looming threat. Drawing on detailed instrumental datasets starting 1998 from the fastest warming place on earth - the circumpolar region of the Arctic, the collective & collaborators develop sonic and choreographic instruments, custom software, listening and storytelling strategies and participatory somatic practices towards realising a constellation of outputs including by now a sonic environment **Twenty Springs** made of sounding sculptures and stories, **Instrumentalities for Common Grounds** a participatory performance in form of a concert-lecture and **BayelvaMic** a permanent live listening station. | Climatic changes occur on spatial and temporal scales much larger and slower than those we humans can sensorially perceive. Therefore even in the face of palpable damages to the earth's atmo-, hydro-, cryo-, geo- and biospheres, the climate crisis still remains for many but an inaccessible, looming threat. Drawing on detailed instrumental datasets starting 1998 from the fastest warming place on earth - the circumpolar region of the Arctic, the collective & collaborators develop sonic and choreographic instruments, custom software, listening and storytelling strategies and participatory somatic practices towards realising a constellation of outputs including by now a sonic environment **Twenty Springs** made of sounding sculptures and stories (more [[#About the installation Twenty Springs]]), **Instrumentalities for Common Grounds** a participatory performance in form of a concert-lecture (more [[#About the performance Instrumentalities]]) and **BayelvaMic** a permanent live listening station (more [[#About the listening station BayelvaMic]]). |
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| This environment establishes an analogous, artificial ecology that maintains an underlying connection to the distribution of sensors installed at the Bayelva research site. The physical-spatial relations of its sound sources stand for the sensors at the arctic station. Spread in space three-dimensionally, they establish relations with the visitors' moving and listening bodies on both horizontal and vertical planes. In addition, a CO2 sensor measures the local atmosphere and includes the effect of the visitors’ breath, incorporating the installation space and the visitors into the sounding data stream. | This environment establishes an analogous, artificial ecology that maintains an underlying connection to the distribution of sensors installed at the Bayelva research site. The physical-spatial relations of its sound sources stand for the sensors at the arctic station. Spread in space three-dimensionally, they establish relations with the visitors' moving and listening bodies on both horizontal and vertical planes. In addition, a CO2 sensor measures the local atmosphere and includes the effect of the visitors’ breath, incorporating the installation space and the visitors into the sounding data stream. |
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| Bringing together distributed and localized sound sources, electro-acoustic techniques are used, mainly of sound transduction onto layers of tensed paper membranes and foam boards. They are excited by self-developed instruments made of transducer units: bone-conductors, exciters and bass shakers and are joined by one active subwoofer, a ring of near-field audio-monitors and DMX controlled ambient lights. | Bringing together distributed and localized sound sources, electro-acoustic techniques are used, mainly of sound transduction onto layers of tensed paper membranes and foam boards. They are excited by self-developed instruments made of transducer units: bone-conductors, exciters and bass shakers and are joined by one active subwoofer, a ring of near-field audio-monitors and DMX controlled ambient lights. |
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| Operating at different scales, other spatial and musical mappings are at play in Twenty Springs. The data stream of each sensor is modulating the wavetable positions and filters of a synthesized tone. The local CO2 sensor's data stream is the only one that modulates not a synthesized sound but recordings of freezing and melting processes taken in the geophysical lab of the permafrost research group. When all these voices are joined together, the installation sounds as a fluctuating chord whose tones are also mapped to the relative position of the sensors within the station: High pitched sounds are mapped to the changing conditions of the air, lower ones play the layered ground(s) and the bass sonifies the underground. In addition, this drone’s tuning is heard as a very slow rise: Climbing 192 cents during the sixty minutes loop, it is the sounding analogy to the measured 1.92°C mean temperature rise at the Bayelva site in the last 20 years. | Operating at different scales, other spatial and musical mappings are at play in Twenty Springs. The data stream of each sensor is modulating the wavetable positions and filters of a synthesized tone. The local CO2 sensor's data stream is the only one that modulates not a synthesized sound but recordings of freezing and melting processes taken in the geophysical lab of the permafrost research group. When all these voices are joined together, the installation sounds as a fluctuating chord whose tones are also mapped to the relative position of the sensors within the station: High pitched sounds are mapped to the changing conditions of the air, lower ones play the layered ground(s) and the bass sonifies the underground. In addition, this drone’s tuning is heard as a very slow rise: Climbing 192 cents during the sixty minutes loop, it is the sounding analogy to the measured 1.92°C mean temperature rise at the Bayelva site in the last 20 years. |
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| | {{vimeo>932925919?}} |
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| Joining the sounds, in order to better navigate the spectrum of active agents and possible perspectives within this environment, other orientation mechanisms assist the visitors. A visual ‘time anchor’ aids the orientation by connecting the polar day-night rhythm, manifesting in the arctic as a one long ‘polar day’ and one long ‘polar night’ through every solar year, the ambient light intensities correspond to the sun’s position within the dataset. | Joining the sounds, in order to better navigate the spectrum of active agents and possible perspectives within this environment, other orientation mechanisms assist the visitors. A visual ‘time anchor’ aids the orientation by connecting the polar day-night rhythm, manifesting in the arctic as a one long ‘polar day’ and one long ‘polar night’ through every solar year, the ambient light intensities correspond to the sun’s position within the dataset. |
| These scalings allow us to sense a macro-global phenomena and to be affected by it, in our meso-local being, in our here and now, and in our whole undivided soma.” | These scalings allow us to sense a macro-global phenomena and to be affected by it, in our meso-local being, in our here and now, and in our whole undivided soma.” |
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| | {{vimeo>908730340?}} |
| | Instrumentalities for Common Grounds - Trailer |
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| </WRAP> | </WRAP> |
| ===== About the listening station BayelvaMic ===== | ===== About the listening station BayelvaMic ===== |
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| [[https://radio.earth/bayelva/|BayelvaMic]]is a permanent listening station realised in collaboration with and through the participatory [[https://radio.earth/|radio.earth]]project by Udo Noll The radio art project focuses on the ecological crisis, its impact on the environment, and potential courses of action. | [[https://radio.earth/bayelva/|BayelvaMic]] is a permanent listening station realised in collaboration with and through the participatory [[https://radio.earth/|radio.earth]] project by Udo Noll that focuses on the ecological crisis, its impact on the environment, and potential courses of action. |
| Link [[https://radio.earth/bayelva/|live-stream BayevaMic]] | Link:[[https://radio.earth/bayelva/|live-stream BayevaMic]] |
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| {{:photo_2025-07-23_14-58-36.jpg?800| BayelvaMic July 2025. Photo by Niko Bornemann}} | {{:photo_2025-07-23_14-58-36.jpg?800| BayelvaMic July 2025. Photo by Niko Bornemann}} |
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| The project aims to establish a collaborative network between individuals and organisations interested in these subjects and their respective practices, ranging from art and science to activism. To increase knowledge and awareness of changing natural conditions, the shared radio.earth listening streams encourage critical listening to live soundscapes from natural environments, curated by its participants. This collaboration is also part of the chair of [[https://www.uni-weimar.de/de/kunst-und-gestaltung/professuren/akustische-oekologien-und-sound-studies/|Acoustic Ecologies]] at Bauhaus-University Weimar. | radio.earth aims to establish a collaborative network between individuals and organisations interested in these subjects and their respective practices, ranging from art and science to activism. To increase knowledge and awareness of changing natural conditions, the shared radio.earth listening streams encourage critical listening to live soundscapes from natural environments, curated by its participants. This collaboration with radio.earth is also part of the chair of [[https://www.uni-weimar.de/de/kunst-und-gestaltung/professuren/akustische-oekologien-und-sound-studies/|Acoustic Ecologies]] at Bauhaus-University Weimar. |
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| ===== Support ===== | ===== Support ===== |
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| Up to now Common Grounds has been supported by HIDA - Helmholtz Information & Data Science Academy, The Academy for Theater and Digitality, the Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, the Malmö City Cultural Council and the Sound Environment Center at Lund University. | Up to now Common Grounds has been supported by [[https://theater.digital/|The Academy for Theater and Digitality ]], [[https://www.helmholtz-hida.de/|HIDA - Helmholtz Information & Data Science Academy]], [[https://www.awi.de/|Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research]], the Malmö City Cultural Council and the Sound Environment Center at Lund University. |
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| {{:projects:commongrounds:logos_hida_akademie_helmholtz.png?200|}} | {{:projects:commongrounds:logos_hida_akademie_helmholtz.png?200|}} |