forestscapes listening lab at Science Gallery London, 21st March 2025

How can soundscaping prompt reconsideration of the lives, cultures and futures of forests?

To explore this we’re organising a forestscapes listening lab at Science Gallery London, as part of Pulse of the Planet on 21st March 2025 from 6.30pm. You can find out more and register here.

The listening lab is part of the forestscapes project, which examines how soundscaping can surface different ways of knowing, imagining and experiencing forests.

As part of this project we are developing generative arts-based methods for recomposing collections of sound materials to support “collective inquiry” into forests as living cultural landscapes.

At the listening lab we will be using supercollider for live algorithmic recomposition of collections of forest related sounds – including field recordings from forest research and restoration projects, as well as sounds associated with forest sites and forest issues on online platforms such as YouTube and TikTok.

In contrast to listening as individual immersion in curated recreations of nature – the lab will explore listening as a collective practice of unsettling and reconsidering nature-culture relations and how ecologies are mediatised, commodified, laundered and contested.

If you’d like to get updates on the forestscapes project you can sign up here. If you’re interested in collaborating or hosting a forestscapes workshop you can find contact details here.

forestscapes listening lab at re:publica 23, Berlin, 5-7th June

As part of the forestscapes project we’re organising a listening lab at re:publica 23, the digital society festival in Berlin, 5-7th June 2023:

How can generative soundscape composition enable different perspectives on forests in an era of planetary crisis? The forestscapes listening lab explores how sound can serve as a medium for collective inquiry into forests as living cultural landscapes.

The soundscapes are composed with folders of sound from different sources, including field recordings from researchers, sound artists and forest practitioners, as well as online sounds from the web, social media and sound archives. They are composed using custom scripts with the open source supercollider software as well as open source norns device, a “sound machine for the exploration of time and space”.

The re:publica installation will include soundscapes from workshops in London and Berlin – including some new pieces from the Environmental Data, Media, and the Humanities hackathon last week.

Cross-posted from jonathangray.org.