Sustain RBL Radio: Harmonizing Sound and Sustainability

Sound and music are in many ways ethereal and, quite literally, float through the air with no environmental impact. But, especially in the electronic music world, the gear that makes sound, transmits sound, records sound, and drives the dance floor does have an environmental impact. What does that mean for a sustainable electronic music scene? Today we talk with Priscilla Haring-Kuipers of This is Not Rocket Science in Amsterdam about all this and more. Together with her husband Stijn, they design, make, sell and perform with modular synthesizers. Her background is in marketing, social sciences, media psychology and game-based-learning. I have had the chance to talk with Priscilla over the years about their company’s approach to sustainability and I’m excited to go deeper with that conversation today.​

Bio

Juan C. Duarte Regino is an artist-researcher, currently a Ph.D. candidate
at Aalto University. Central to his investigation is the relation between the atmosphere, the act of listening, and the profound concept of attunement. His background is in New Media, Design & Production, and Audiovisual Communication. His artistic endeavors over the last decade have gained recognition and have been showcased at prestigious events
and venues internationally.
His mission looks beyond conventional, extractive, or deterministic approaches to understanding the relationship between nature and technology. Instead, it ventures into ancient and indigenous knowledge that harmonizes with ecological perspectives on our weather systems, giving voice to the natural agencies at play within the realm of weather.
His research revolves around the exploration of the symbiotic relationship between nature and technology through environmental sound. His work presents artifacts to resonate with atmospheric energies. In his approach, he proposes diversified technologies for attuning to nature. By doing so, Duarte Regino pushes the boundaries of artistic expression and enables a deeper understanding of our environment and its intricate interplay with technology.

 

 

Links

www.juanduarteregino.com
https://juanduarte.bandcamp.com/
 

 

Hildegard Westerkamp - Kits Beach
https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/sound/comp/3/kitsbeach/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg96nU6ltLk

Sterne, J. (2019). Multimodal scholarship in world soundscape project composition: Toward a different media-theoretical legacy (or: The WSP as OG DH). Sound, Media, Ecology, 85-109.

John Durham Peters - The Marvelous Clouds
Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo20069392.html

Augury:
https://juanduarteregino.com/Augury

Sound is one of our most powerful senses. But it is just one of our senses. Sight, touch, smell, and taste are powerful too. And even more powerful when they are combined with sound. Today we talk with Melissa Ingaruca Moreno about her work with light, fungi, meditation, and sound. Melissa is an award-winning futurist and researcher in multispecies design based in Berlin. Her project ‘Endarken’ integrates fungal bioluminescence and sonification of nature with glimpses of darker futures. This is a future of designed light-darkness for multispecies cohabitation with a focus on healing and I am excited to chat with Melissa about how all of these ideas – and senses – fit together.​

Bio

Award-winning futurist and researcher in multispecies design. Endarken is a research-through-design project of Melissa Ingaruca Moreno´s PhD “Multispecies Cities and Emerging Technologies”, that re-imagines the future of nocturnal urban light for more-than-human wellbeing in Berlin via a series of participatory design workshops

Endarken Futures: Darkness as Healing https://melissa-ingaruca.medium.com/healing-in-darkness-endarken-futures-part-i-0d680189ea55

Endarken project description https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lU7Elq6W2ZzZJMHAKe_IJvEYliCPB0Y4/view

Instagram @endarken_cities

Floating University

 

Falchi, F. et al. The new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness. Sci Adv 2, (2016).

Dunn, N. Dark Design: A New Framework for Advocacy and Creativity for the Nocturnal Commons. International Journal of Design in Society 10, 9–23 (2016).

Falchi, F., Cinzano, P., Elvidge, C., Keith, D. & Haim, A. Limiting the impact of light pollution on human health, environment and stellar visibility. J Environ Manage 92, 2714–2722 (2011).

Falcón, J. et al. Exposure to Artificial Light at Night and the Consequences for Flora, Fauna, and Ecosystems. Frontiers in Neuroscience vol. 14 Preprint at https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.602796 (2020).

Yang, L., Xiao, L., Guo, Y. & Yan, Y. A review of the effects of artificial light at night in urban areas on the ecosystem level and the remedial measures. (2022).

Gallan, B. & Gibson, C. New dawn or new dusk? Beyond the binary of day and night. Environment and Planning 43, 2509–2515 (2011).

Zielinska-Dabkowska, K. M. & Xavia, K. Protect our right to light. Nature 568, 451–453 (2019).

Pollastri, S. et al. More-Than-Human Future Cities. in ACM International Conference Proceeding Series 23–30 (Association for Computing Machinery, 2021). doi:10.1145/3469410.3469413.

Sound and music are in many ways ethereal and, quite literally, float through the air with no environmental impact. But, especially in the electronic music world, the gear that makes sound, transmits sound, records sound, and drives the dance floor does have an environmental impact. What does that mean for a sustainable electronic music scene? Today we talk with Priscilla Haring-Kuipers of This is Not Rocket Science in Amsterdam about all this and more. Together with her husband Stijn, they design, make, sell and perform with modular synthesizers. Her background is in marketing, social sciences, media psychology and game-based-learning. I have had the chance to talk with Priscilla over the years about their company’s approach to sustainability and I’m excited to go deeper with that conversation today.​

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Bio

Priscilla Haring-Kuipers of This is Not Rocket Science in Amsterdam. Together with my husband Stijn we design, make, sell and perform with modular synthesizers. My background is in marketing, social sciences, media psychology and game-based-learning. Will sing.

Links

TINRS https://www.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/this-is-not-rocket-science/

TINR Sustainability https://www.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/sustainability/

Mastadon https://priscillaharing.info/

Articles at Elektor Magazine https://www.elektormagazine.de/authors/167432/priscilla-haring-kuipers

Vocal pack https://thisisnotrocketscience.bandcamp.com/album/vocal-pack-boom-link-to-zip

Club Synth https://www.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/clubsynth

Sound is an interesting thing. Sounds can evoke emotions like happiness, anxiety, hope, and calmness. But what I find most interesting is how sound can evoke memories. One of my first memories of sound is my Mum playing the organ at church, laying down on the wooden pew and feeling bass in my whole body. Strong memories of family, connection and childhood – all from sound. In the latest episode of sustain, we are talking with Monica Sand – an artist and researcher based in Stockholm and Gothenburg. Monica has a long history of working with sounds and space. And most recently a project in Gothenburg exploring art, buildings, and human bodies as carriers of cultural memory. Today we chat about sound, memory, art, science, buildings, and bodies.

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Bio
Monica Sand, artist and researcher with a PhD in artistic research, from the School of Architecture, KTH, Stockholm. Sand holds a position as Research Adviser at the Artistic Faculty, and affiliated researcher at the Academy of Music and Drama, at Gothenburg University. From 2011 until 2019 she was coordinating research at ArkDes, Stockholm. At KTH and during a postdoc at Konstfack (University College of Arts Crafts andDesign, Stockholm) she produced courses, walk-shops and lectures based on art and artistic research projects with a focus on collective actions in public space. Earlier art work took place in collaborations with different physics laboratories in Sweden and at CERN, the largest particle laboratory in Europe, Geneva: In between art and science and Acting Physics

Links
Playing the Space
Matter Matters – Art, Buildings and Human Bodies as Carriers of Cultural Memory
Matter Matters Sound Archive by Louisa Palmi
Important message to the public, VMA
Forest Improvisations in the Uppsala Cathedral
City Experiments with students in an exhibition hall: Färgfabriken
 

It sounds simple, but what is noise? Is it unwanted sounds? Is it a set of frequencies? Or is it something that is always around us but something we don’t usually notice? Today we talk with Felipe Vareshi about their compositions and performances that give voice to the quietest and most hidden forms of noise pollution that affect us as individuals and as groups coexisting within urban spaces. We talk about sound, noise, listening, and the potentials of sound as a medium for “possible” futures and of the artist as the enabler for these kind of possibilities.

 

Bio​

Felipe Vareschi is an Experimental Electronic Musician, Performer and Mastering Engineer based in Berlin. Their work explores the way people interact with each other through objects, with a particular focus on the interactions between individuals, technology and nature. 

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Felipe Vareschi is developing a new musical language where interactions between electronics, sound objects, performers, and installation sites mimic social interactions and human-object networks. Inspired by the physical and imaginary sounds of everyday life, Felipe aims to empower listeners to value and participate in the soundscape around them and embrace the noise of interconnected life.

 

Links

https://www.felipevareschi.com/

https://www.vareschimastering.com/

https://www.instagram.com/frmvar/

So what is trash really? What is waste? How do we cut down how much we throw away? And what happens when we throw things away? Is that really the end of things? Many groups like Bye Bye Plastic and Clubtopia are thinking about questions like these; how to reduce waste in clubs and festivals, get rid of plastic water bottles and so on. But a different approach is to completely rethink the idea of waste and trash. Today I talk with Veerle Pennock and Etta Harbar from Utrecht in the Netherlands. They are live performers, teachers, makers, and hackers exploring the crossover between e-waste, art, music, and instruments and I am happy to talk more with them about their work and approach to sustainability. And we hear a recording of their heavy-hitting noisy trash music live at Voltage Control Amsterdam.

 

Show notes and links

Performance recordings featured:

Modulation, 16.07.2023, de Nijverheid Utrecht, NL

Voltage Control Amsterdam, 21.01.2024, Paradiso Amsterdam, NL

 

Parallel Problems

Veerle Pennock

Elektrotek

Etta HarBar

Acid Solder Club

Intergalactic Cyber Trash Collective

Voltage Control Amsterdam

Modulation Utrecht

Bye Bye Plastic Foundation

Clubtopia ​

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Today we talk about the intersections of sustainability, health, data and sound in drusnoise’s techno composition ‘We are but dust and shadows’. The composition investigates how sonification of air pollution data can be used for modulation of sound, mirroring the ways that unseen particles in the air affect humans and the environment – usually in ways we do not notice or understand. The live experimental techno set features analog and digital modular synthesizers, samplers, FX pedals, iPad granular synths, and analog drum machines. Additional sounds and modulations come from public air pollution data, live sample and loop manipulation, field recordings, and scientific lectures.

 

Guest host JacqNoise (host of the Hijack show on RBL Radio) interviews drusnoise and we talk about sustainability and sound, data sonfication, improvisation, geek out on gear, and more.

 

 

Show notes

Links and references

• Data artist: Lisa Knolle

• Data sources: World Air Quality Index - Graz Air Pollution: Real-time Air Quality Index (AQI), | Das Serviceportal des Landes Steiermark,

• European Environment Agency report on Air quality in Europe

• Link to performance at Institut für Elektronische Musik und Akustik, Kunst Uni Graz 23.11.2023

• Link to artist talk

• JacqNoise

• Hijack RBL Every 1st Saturday at 9pm

 

Gear mentioned

• Eurorack modules

  • Intellijel MIDI – CV interface

  • Mystic Circuits 3DVCA

  • Worng Electronics Soundstage

• Elektron Octatrack

• Elektron Analog Rytm

• Borderlands granular synth iPad app

• Eowave Quadrantid Swarm

• Bastl Instruments Softpop SP2

• Error instruments Cloud Busting

• Ableton Live

• Dust granular synth plugin

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When we talk about sustainability, what often comes to mind is climate change, CO2 emissions, wind turbines and solar panels. And of course these are important. But also important are questions of justice, power, and politics – who makes decisions? Who wins and who loses in a more sustainable world? And what are the promises and perils of technical solutions? Today I talk through some of these questions with Verónica Mota. Verónica is a Sound Artist, Musician, Writer & Academic Researching Emancipation & Philosophy of Technology. Born in Mexico City and now based in Berlin, they explore sound as a fundamental inherent human experience and works conceptually researching the political and social impact sound art has.

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Links and references

Antonio Negri & Michael Hardt: "Empire" (2000).

Octavia E. Butler: "Parabel of the Sower" (1993).

Donna Haraway: "Simians, Cyborgs, and Women : The Reinvention of Nature" (2013).

Chela Sandoval: "Methodology of the Oppressed" (2000).

 

Isaac Asimov - Geschichten aus der Zukunft - Arte HD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFKhheiCTKM

 

Veronica Mota music

https://www.instagram.com/777antigona/

https://linktr.ee/veronicamotaberlin

“NIHIL” https://camembertelectrique.bandcamp.com/album/nihil

UTOPIE & WIDERSTAND https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIgzulaEwa8/

In the 1950s, Charles Keeling started measuring carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere at the Moana Loa Observatory in Hawaii. These measurements showed for the first time how the planet itself is breathing as forests in the Northern hemisphere grow leaves in the Spring absorbing CO2, then release it back into the atmosphere in the Fall when leaves drop off the trees. In this episode we talk about ‘Can you hear the Earth breathing?’ a composition and performance translates this climate data into sound, that brings to life these sustainability cycles and the natural (and un-natural) systems that lie beneath the production and absorption of carbon dioxide. The performance includes both sonified data representing CO2 concentration along with field recordings, modular synthesizers, samplers, biofeedback pads connected to plants, FX pedals, and looping feedback. We talk with Lisa the data artist on the project as well as Erbse, a movement artist collaborating on the project and discuss data sonification, translating sustainability concepts and data for audiences, creating space for improvisation, decentering the human, and more.

 

Performance videos

First solo performance at ACUD Macht Neu, Berlin School of Sound, Berlin 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHjAWOhPSDk&ab_channel=aliveBLN

First performance with Erbse at ACUD Macht Neu, Berlin Modular Society, Berlin April 2023 https://youtu.be/Pp9wYbpaQAU

Second performance with Erbse at Liebig12, Berlin with sustain.berlin October 2023 https://youtu.be/r3zS9dDX-Gg?si=C-7zxidcaXmD4WgH

 

Links and references

Lisa Knolle - https://www.instagram.com/lisas_learnings/

Erbse - https://www.instagram.com/ochjoa/

‘Can you hear the Earth breathing?’ background https://www.drusnoise.com/can-you-hear-the-earth-breathing

Sustain.fm research https://www.sustain.fm/research

 

CO2 data used in ‘Can you hear the Earth breathing?’:

C. D. Keeling, S. C. Piper, R. B. Bacastow, M. Wahlen, T. P. Whorf, M. Heimann, and H. A. Meijer, “Exchanges of atmospheric CO2 and 13CO2 with the terrestrial biosphere and oceans from 1978 to 2000”. I. Global aspects, SIO Reference Series, No. 01-06, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego, 88 pages, 2001

https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/

 

More on data sonification

Å, Stjerna, Before Sound: Transversal Processes in Site-Specific Sonic Practice, University of Gothenburg. Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts, 2018.

Hermann, T., Hunt, A., and Neuhoff, J.G. (2011). The Sonification Handbook. Logos Publishing House, Berlin. Download free PDF at https://sonification.de/handbook/download/TheSonificationHandbook-HermannHuntNeuhoff-2011.pdf

 

Williams, S. (2022). Can you hear the Earth breathing? Translation and disclosure in sound art data sonification in Pauletto, S., Delle Monche, S., and Selfridge, R. 2nd Conference on the Sonification of Health and Environmental Data (SoniHED 2022, pp. 44-48). https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bwgn58sl6iggymksxo41u/Williams_SoniHED.pdf?rlkey=05ragquau26wova3ucn7vzqzy&dl=0

 

Kudos to Tim Wedde who created the py_midicsv library that we used https://github.com/timwedde/py_midicsv

 

New Materialism: https://newmaterialism.eu/almanac/a/agency.html

Alexis Shotwell: Against Purity. Living Ethically in Compromised Times (2016)

Jane Bennett: Vibrant Matter. A political ecology of things (2010)

Further reading:

Petra Kuppers: Eco Soma. Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters (2022)

Anna Tsing: The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (2015)

In this episode we dig into how sound and music can fit together with sustainability transitions – how can we change whole parts of our society to become more sustainable? Earlier this year, I had the chance to compose and perform with some colleagues to open the International Sustainability Transitions conference in Utrecht, Netherlands. I also played a live sustainable techno set at the conference party at De Helling and performed a sound art composition based on turning climate data into sound.  It was quite the week and we had a lot of fun bringing sustainability to life through music in a few different ways.  This episode dives deep into how sound and music can represent, challenge, and inspire new imagination for the future through interviews and excerpts from the live performance.

 

Featuring interviews with, and live performances by, Josephine Chambers and Joost Vervoort from Utrecht University, Noor Noor from the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, and Dan Lockton from Eindhoven University of Technology.

 

Links

• International Sustainability Transitions Conference 2023 https://ist2023.nl/

• "The role of sound and music in reimagining sustainable futures" - Academic paper with three case studies on how sound and music can support/facilitate sustainability. Presented at the International Sustainability Transitions conference in Utrecht NL August 2023 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/97343h5131h435gc0jf1n/Williams-et-al.-2023-Reimagining-Futures.pdf?rlkey=fxx4jif59io9e5ef2qmhidtda&dl=0

• Creative Practices for Transformational Futures https://creaturesframework.org/

• Chambers, J. & Noor, N. (2021). Co-productive agility for sustainability transformations (musical abstract). YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JfwUJZL4wo – Musical abstract for academic paper

• Terzij de Horde – Joost Vervoort’s black metal band https://www.terzijdehorde.nl/