Sustain RBL Radio: Harmonizing Sound and Sustainability

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/