2023
sonic footprints
"Sonic Footprints" is an investigative project that seeks to explore the impact of industrial sound emissions on the environment, viewing them as an ecological footprint. The investigation centers on the question of how mass-produced objects may interfere with ecosystems through the sounds that are generated during their manufacturing.
To examine this issue, the project focuses on the production of a PVC-toy-dolphin as a case study. Through field recordings obtained both in air and underwater, the complete sonic landscape of the toy's supply chain is captured, uncovering sound emissions that interfere with the habitat of real dolphins.The project takes into account the ultrasonic hearing range of dolphins, recognizing that sounds that are inaudible to humans may still impact them. As technology exists to bridge this perceptual gap, a debate on the agency of such technology opens up, since the information that such technology produces remains subjective to its design.
The culmination of the project is the creation of a vinyl record that hold engraved the toy-dolphin's sonic footprint. This record, made from the same material as the toy-dolphin, reproduce the sounds of its production both above and below water. The records serve as a tangible and enduring artifact of the project's exploration into the interconnectedness between mass-produced objects and ecosystems.In search for the acoustic traces of the production of a toy dolphin, several fieldrecordings were collected. Both with a hydrophone as well as a stereo microphone, the supply chain of this product was captured acoustically both above as well as under water.
Since sound has different properties under water than in air, the recording technology as well as it’s assesment differ quite a lot from classical atmospheric recordings.
listen to the both the podcast (with Christopf Zürn) and the interview (with Dagmar Kleemann) about sonic footprints on Spotify:
the harbor of Rotterdam, where part of the fieldrecordings were collectedthe atlantic ocean, where fieldrecordings were capturedcapturing fieldrecordings with a hydrophone from the shorerecordings were both collected above as well as under water to juxtapose the two different soundscapesrefinery and PVC production. The absence of animal sounds in this space showcases the absecnce of life faders allowing visitors to compare both the soundscapes of underwater and airexhibition during DDW 2023exhibition design with soundproofing foamsubwoofers were specifically designed to play the low freqiencies of the recorded noisetwo vinyls containing the soundscape of above and under waterhornspeaker setup designed for directional sound dispersion in the exhibition spacenoise cancelling headphones allow listeners to listen to the recorded interviews while being exposed to the noise of the vinyl