Copenhagen Climate Sound Series #3: Listening Underwater

Performance lecture by artist Jana Winderen (Norway), a livestream from aboard a Norwegian research vessel somewhere between Svalbard and Greenland from Michael Kjær (University of Copenhagen) and audio-visual artist John Grzinich and discussion with Holger Schulze (Sound Studies Lab, University of Copenhagen). Moderated by Kara Oehler (Institute for Climate Sound & Society).

In our third event for the Copenhagen Climate Sound Series, we are very excited to host artist Jana Winderen. Jana will give a performance lecture about her work, where audience members will hear about her process, including the concept of “vertical listening” and experience a multi-speaker sound performance.

Winderen’s practice pays particular attention to audio environments and to creatures which are hard for humans to access, both physically and aurally – deep under water, inside ice or in frequency ranges inaudible to the human ear. She often records the hidden soundscapes of underwater ecosystems, amplifying them to draw attention to biodiversity and the urgent issues facing marine life. By making these sonic worlds audible, she often highlights how human activity—from engines to industry—interfere with the delicate communication networks of fish and other species. Most recently, Winderen is focused on deep water coral. While much is known about tropical coral reefs, which she describes as the rainforests of the sea, less is known about deep water coral reefs, their role in ocean health and what is at stake with practices like deep sea mining.

Following Jana’s performance, we will have a livestream from aboard a Norwegian research vessel somewhere between Svalbard and Greenland from art historian and KU Assistant Professor John Kjær and audio-visual artist John Grzinich. The two are traveling as part of a new project called “Extremes”.

The Extremes project aims to develop and disseminate a transformative interdisciplinary approach to studying Extreme Environments in the Arctic regions and beyond. Extreme Environments are places where conditions are very harsh and challenging for life, especially from a human standpoint. These areas can be incredibly hot, cold, deep underwater, or have high levels of chemicals that most living organisms would find toxic. Examples of Extreme Environments are cold seeps and hydrothermal vents, areas on the ocean floor where fluids and gases seep out of the Earth. The leading hypothesis of the project is that extreme environments like these present very potent opportunities to become exposed to geobiological forces, matter and milieus, that can actively redistribute the habitual and cognitive hierarchy of the human senses and their perceptions of the Earth. Hence, sensory encounters with extreme environments can potentially efface our inherited colonial and extractive geographical imaginaries and open us to earthly agencies anew. Such qualities are unfortunately mostly ignored by geocapital interests. Not only are environments like these sources of interest to current oil and gas industries, but they are also places of potential exposure to future practices of deep-sea mining. These extractive undertakings only stress the importance of exploring the extra-human significance of extreme environments.

Given the interdisciplinary nature of the Extremes project itself, Michael Kjær and John Grzinich are keen to foster dialogue to understand how scientific inquiry in this context contributes to broader contemporary environmental imaginaries in the wake of ongoing crisis. Offering access to artists allows a unique opportunity to broaden the research discourse through various modes of representation, interpretation and aesthetic encounters. While on board the Norwegian research vessel Kronprins Haakon we can offer a brief report of our activities and some current insights into this ongoing process.

The project is funded by UArctic and it is a collaboration between UiT The Arctic University of Norway (Department of Geosciences),  the University of Copenhagen (Department of Arts and Cultural Studies) and the University of Iceland Research Centre in Þingeyjarsveit.

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About the Copenhagen Climate Sound Series

We are very excited to announce a new partnership with Institute for Climate Sound & Society at metaLAB Harvard, whose founder and executive director Kara Oehler is now based in Copenhagen. Our initial project together is the Copenhagen Climate Sound Series, a three-part event sequence hosted by Oehler that brings together pathbreaking scholars and artists working with sound, which has taken on an increasingly crucial role as a medium and research tool for understanding the impacts of climate change, and also as a way for people to engage with and listen to the nonhuman world, expanding our relationship to nature.

Combining the potential of new technologies like passive acoustic monitoring and AI with centuries of Indigenous knowledge and decades of work in fields such as bioacoustics, ecoacoustics, and sound studies, sound is being used to monitor species, support conservation justice, and explore new arenas of human and nonhuman relations. The series will feature pathbreaking leaders across these fields, including Joycelyn Longdon, Jana Winderen and Elodie F. Briefer. 

About The Institute for Climate Sound & Society

The Institute for Climate Sound & Society (ICSS) brings together sound-based practices entangled with the climate crisis, offering new ways to sonically gather, analyze and represent data to understand changing ecosystems and decenter humans in public culture. The Institute for Climate Sound & Society supports this growing community and is engaged in innovative research, publishing, and gatherings with the mission to advance new forms of knowledge and expand research impact. We are based in Copenhagen and at the metaLAB at Harvard University.