Thu 22/5 16:00
Tuning the Space: Acoustic Ecology from its Origins to the Present (Polina Khatsenka, Jan Krtička)

The workshop will introduce acoustic ecology as an interdisciplinary field that bridges sound art, ecology, and social sciences. Its goal is not only to provide participants with an overview of the theory and practice of this discipline, but also to engage them in active listening and reflection on the environment around us.

The workshop will begin with an introduction to acoustic ecology, whose foundations were laid by first-wave authors such as R. Murray Schafer, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Barry Truax. This part will provide insight into how acoustic ecology emerged as a response to the increasing noise pollution and what tools were used to map sound environments. We will then move to contemporary challenges and authors such as Salomé Voegelin, Brandon LaBelle, and Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, who explore issues of the climate crisis, acoustic justice, and the political potential of sound. We will also focus on Eastern European authors who are active in this field.

Participants will practice focused listening in an interior space. We will work with the concept of deep listening, focused on awareness of the spatial arrangement of sounds, the dynamics of silence, and the relationships between different layers of sound.

Next, we will embark on a listening walk in an outdoor environment, where participants will explore biophony (sounds produced by living organisms), geophony (natural sounds of the non-living nature), and anthropophony (sounds produced by humans) of the given location. We will focus on questions such as: What do the sounds tell us about this place? What changes in the soundscape can we observe? Where do the natural and civilizational sounds intersect?

After returning to the indoor space, there will be a reflection and analysis session, where we will share experiences and discuss the differences between aural perception in various environments. We will explore how sound perception changes depending on context and what sounds can reveal to us about the ecological and cultural state of the environment.

The final listening exercise in the interior: we will return to deeper listening in the indoor space, attempting to find new ways of interpreting and understanding the captured sound traces.

Polina Khatsenka is a visual artist, sound designer, and sound curator (mʊdʌki) from Minsk, Belarus, currently based in Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic. Her work focuses on various aspects of sound, including audiovisual performances, site-specific installations, and composition. She collaborates with non-profit organizations such as CENSE, phonon~, and Auxig, with an emphasis on collective projects and self-organized approaches. Since 2021, she has been leading the Silence. Pause. Quiet. course at Kunstuniversität Linz as part of Co.Lab Acoustic Ecology.

Jan Krtička is a Czech artist and educator, often working with sound, with a focus on concept and spatial arrangements. His interests are centered around landscapes and documenting human interventions within them, utilizing planned randomness and drawing from the diversity of nature in conjunction with the human element. In 2019, he was the main coordinator of the international conference Murmurans Mundus: Sonic Ecology and Beyond, which addressed acoustic ecology and its intersections with art, design, music, and education. Along with Pavel Mrkus, he is an editor of the collective monograph Sound and Environment: Contemporary Approaches to Sonic Ecology in Art, published in 2020, which reflects the current developments and thoughts in the field of sonic ecology in a European context.

www.instagram.com/mudaki_sound
www.jankrticka.com

This event is organized by Kateřina Kůtková as part of the "Rozjeď to" project with financial support from the City of Pardubice and the University of Pardubice, in collaboration with the Electroconnexion 2025 project of the Divadlo 29, which is supported by the City of Pardubice, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, and the Pardubice Region.

 

Free Entry / Limited Capacity
Reservation is required in advance by email at katerina.kutkova@student.upce.cz
The workshop is expected to run from 16:00 to 21:00.
The workshop will primarily be conducted in Czech. Individual questions in English are welcome.