Projektmodule

Bison Link

Event number: 326120003

What are instruments, actually – and what can they be? What happens when we begin to consistently think of everything in terms of interrelationships and translate “ecological thinking” into sonic practice?

Both courses, titled “Instrumentalities for Acoustic Ecologies”, explore the mediating tools – perceptual, technological and conceptual – through which we encounter, analyze and intervene in sonic environments.

The project module unfolds a playful process of concrete investigation and creative practice. The academic module develops critical and theoretical frameworks. Both modules mutually enrich each other: practical encounters with instruments, places, and materials generate questions that reorient theoretical discourse. At the same time, critical frameworks open up new possibilities for creative intervention. 

We are working towards the joint Summaery Sound exhibition program.

The courses are designed to complement each other. Students who choose the project module should also attend the research module.

Instruments beyond music:

The term “instrument” extends far beyond its conventional musical meaning. An instrument is any device that expands, focuses, or transforms perception and action. The ear itself is an instrument: a biological transducer with specific sensitivities, thresholds, and blind spots that shape what we can perceive of the acoustic world. Scientific instruments—sound level meters, spectrographs, microphone arrays—further expand and limit this knowledge by making certain phenomena perceptible and obscuring others. Even notation systems, field-recording practices, and analytical frameworks function as instruments: they are not neutral windows to sound, but active participants in the construction of what “sound” becomes for us. Following thinkers like Don Ihde and Jonathan Sterne, we understand instruments as relational—they do not simply reveal a pre-existing world, but rather bring forth the phenomena they measure.

Acoustic ecology as a discipline and practice:

Acoustic ecology emerged in the 1970s from R. Murray Schafer's World Soundscape Project as an interdisciplinary field concerned with the relationship between living beings and their sonic environments. It encompasses analytical work (soundscape studies, bioacoustics, urban sound research), artistic practice (soundscape composition, phonography, sound installation), and activist dimensions (noise abatement policy, sound design, preservation of threatened soundscapes). Contemporary acoustic ecology has evolved beyond Schafer's sometimes nostalgic framework to incorporate postcolonial ways of listening, more-than-human acoustics, and political questions, including whose ears and whose instruments determine the quality of environmental sounds.

Both courses ask: What instruments do we need – and which instruments do we need to critically examine – in order to listen ecologically?

Learning outcomes:

Practical competence in field-based sonic research, including experimenting, playing, and tinkering with material, digital, conceptual, and embodied instrumentalities. Developing work that demonstrates both technical skill and critical reflection. Key competencies include:

- Advanced recording techniques and experimental use of microphones as instruments

- Analytical listening, reduced listening, casual listening, semantic listening, listening over longer and shorter periods of time.

- Considering the extended acoustic sensory system (not just the ear), but the body as an instrument; working with measurement and visualization tools: spectral analysis, sound level mapping, spatial documentation

- Formulation of artistic research questions that connect sonic practice with ecological and political issues

Examination performance:

An independently developed project in which you use a chosen "instrumentality"—a tool, technique, or conceptual framework—to investigate a specific acoustic environment and achieve a practical result, such as a composition, an installation, or an intervention. All participants are invited to bring work they have already started and develop it further within the framework and context of the project module. Regular attendance and active participation in the seminar are expected.

Additional information:

The course takes place in the form of regular meetings: plenary sessions, input lectures, and exercises, as well as partly in block format: workshops or excursions . Individual projects and semester assignments are additionally supported through individual consultations. The first meeting will cover the detailed semester schedule and dates.