The Research Networking Day provides a platform to exchange ideas and experiences for students and researchers from different European graduate and postgraduate programmes traversing the fields of audio, arts, media, design and related theoretical disciplines. A yearly initiative co-organised with Humboldt University’s Department of Musicology, the RND sought submissions from students, junior researchers and persons pursuing higher levels of research and studies to present projects and findings connected to the CTM 2018 Turmoil Theme.

Introduction

The third module within the 2018 Research Networking Day is hosted by Jin Hyun Kim, PhD, who is an assistant professor of Systematic Musicology at the Humboldt University of Berlin with a research focus on musical aisthesis and interaction, embodied and situated music cognition, interactive music, and digital media art, among others.

How to Use Music as a Tool for Understanding Urban Space in Everyday Life?

Banu Çiçek Tülü (Hochschule für Künste Hamburg, DE)

In this lecture, I will talk about acoustic ecology and Lefebvre’s Rhythmanalysis (1992) in order to understand how sound affect us in urban space. My focus will be on the essential characteristics of sound in the context of urban space, as well as its interaction with people. The idea comes from my PhD research, where I aim to establish a systematic framework for soundscape design and acoustic ecology using techno music DJing as an aesthetic tool. Recognizing urban acoustic space as shifting, heterogeneous, and emerging, space generates questions about how urban design and sound can be actively used in the investigation and formation of cities (Wunderlich 2013). My presentation suggests that music (in this case DJing and techno music) can be a useful tool to understand the sound in urban space, which I see clearly as an antidote for traditional/classical methods of understanding sound in urban space.

Banu Çiçek Tülü is a researcher, urban designer and DJ based in Berlin. For the past years, she has been developing her ideas and research through extradisciplinary praxis by acting as an initiator of diverse research projects that utilise editorial, curatorial, artistic and academic methodologies. Her academic and artistic research interests include: urban design theory, urban commons, acoustic ecology, sound studies and interdisciplinary methodologies. She is currently a PhD student at Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg holding a Heinrich Böll Foundation-scholarship.

Underwater Noise – What’s Next?

Francisca Rocha Gonçalvez (University of Porto, PT)

While awareness of the impact of urban sound on our society is growing, we are facing the problem of increasing noise in cities. According to studies in emerging fields such as soundscape ecology, we can observe how animal sound communication has been changed due to a soundscape transformation caused by increasing anthropogenic noise. This also applies to the underwater ecosystems. Pile driving, shipping, and renewable energy systems are some of the sonic threats that oceans face today.

While exploring the value of acoustic ecology as an interdisciplinary field, we can focus on oceanic soundscapes to understand, explore, and further interpret the marine environment. Recording such soundscapes can help us understand the evolution of their environments, and create awareness in society through an artistic approach. Oceans are a pivotal factor in determining the planet’s climate. The study of ocean sound dynamics could reveal useful information regarding our planet’s health. What ́s the future for underwater noise? Can we predict it?

Francisca Rocha Gonçalves has a background in biological sciences with a degree in Veterinary Medicine at ICBAS – University of Porto and a Multimedia Master in Interactive Music and Sound Design from FEUP – University of Porto. Combining her interests in sound, technology, art and science, she aims to raise aural and environmental awareness, promoting environmental education through artistic practices and sound art. In 2017, Gonçalves enrolled in a Digital Media PhD at FEUP – University of Porto under the program UT Austin | Portugal CoLab, where she focuses on acoustic ecology as tool for environmental awareness by studying the ocean soundscape. She is co-founder of the collective, Openfield Creative Lab.

Environmental Media: Sensing Tools for Techno-Ecologies

Juan Carlos Duarte Regino (Aalto University, FI)

The existing scientific proof of planetary issues such as global warming still seems trivial to an important sector of the population. Thus a data platform for environmentalist art could support scientific research by bringing attention to environmental degradation. Artistic research could help reconcile society with a planetary vision through citizen initiatives that empower us with tools that help with making decisions, such as monitoring pollution levels or mapping relations between technological footprints, and planetary cycles.

My research is around technologies on location, to be used for open environmental data sensing in an intermedia context. The sensing devices developed will follow an Interaction Design process focusing on principles of sustainability and maker culture. The outcome of the research expects to collect field experiences from a community of creators, specialised on potentialities of locative media, in order to serve environmental queries through artistic and scientific procedures.

Mexican-born media artist Juan Duarte Regino works on interaction as a tool for generative art experiments. He is part of Pixelache - art and activist group based in Helsinki. Currently a doctoral student in New Media in Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland, he reflects on the information society paradigm from the point of view of his background in media art, with a special focus on open source technologies developed in DIY communities and grassroots initiatives. Duarte’s work has been presented in IAMAS, Spiral Gallery, AAVE Festival, Bonniers Konsthall, Rundum Showcase, Ljudmila, Radio and TV Museum of Lahti, Centre for Contemporary Art - Ujazdowski Castle, Mänttä Art, Generate! Festival.