Amid the never-ending human-made acoustic sources, there are parts of the sonic world that will inevitably be lost. Traffic noise, construction sites, industrial sound pollution – our soundscape is shaped by the Anthropocene. We leave busy cities for a short trip to relax while forest bathing or use artificial nature sounds to help us concentrate. With advanced technologies such as wireless in-ear headphones that are easy to use in our everyday lives, constant background music, podcasts or noise-canceling eliminate the sounds of our outside world. So, what do we even register at the audible level? What is our sonic truth (or sooth)? Which sounds of the more-than-human sphere are we obscuring, repressing or have we already erased?

Fragments of Sonic Extinction (FOSE), founded by Kalas Liebfried, is dedicated to archiving such sounds. Developed primarily around a hub website, the project started in 2022 with its first edition, which included eight commissions from artists, researchers and musicians. They use acoustic signals of endangered or already extinct species and threatening human-made sounds, placing them in a context of eco-social justice. By using field recordings, instruments, and digital sound processing, they compose unique pieces that draw attention to ephemeral ecological phenomena.

The interactive digital space changes its shape and design with each edition and new commissions. In the first two editions, the main page consisted of our contemporary eurocentric world map with pinned locations leading to the various audio works. As for the current page, the map shows Pangaea Proxima, a possible future configuration of a supercontinent. Cryptic symbols, in a heraldry specially created for the website, indicate the different sound pieces and guide the visitor to the sub-pages. The map splits into different areas when the customized cursor is moved, which also changes with each redesigned edition. Users navigate through the current web page using an icon that looks like a fossil print. Upon clicking, the icon transforms into its counterpart, indicating the reactivation of extinct species.

Interactive components are key to the website. Users can freely choose focus points, read the accompanying texts or watch the videos, all while listening to the audio works. In the first two editions, the interaction took place within the audio tracks of the selected piece. With the interactive tool of this edition, layers and fragments of sound can be mixed across the eight sound works. There are two to four tracks for each piece, which are fed into a database. The page randomly generates two tracks that can be mixed with the selected work. The heraldic symbols indicate to which sound work the selected tracks belong. This tool allows an individual experience and depth of exploration, as well as an interaction and simultaneity between the pieces, creating cross-references. An interplay of the individual works is also possible in the physical space.

The third edition of FOSE, co-curated by Kalas Liebfried and Jol Thoms, expands the digital sphere with the exhibition Recovery of Reconnection at NEBYULA in Munich. [1] It complements the digital space, as it is connected to the platform and cannot be experienced fully independently. The website serves as the superstructure with the actual works and exhibition texts. In contrast, the physical room is more closely connected to the accompanying programme which includes performances, concerts and a text release. Visitors can listen to the eight sound pieces using provided headphones that play them in shuffle mode, while moving around the exhibition room. The website can be accessed simultaneously via personal devices or a provided online access. By simultaneously listening to the sounds and moving around the room, visitors establish further links with the exhibited works.

All eight works from the website, plus a commissioned text by writer Daniel Falb that was subsequently added after the opening, are represented in the exhibition. While embedding sound pieces on a website is straightforward, translating these into the physical space requires careful consideration. Some can be visualized through screens showing the same videos as the website, while others require different mediums. This process has benefitted from the dialogue between the curators and artists, according to Kalas Liebfried. For instance, Pedro Oliveira’s work, A Song Was the Length of the Night and a Map of the World involved collaborative efforts to find appropriate visualizations.

The Brazilian sound artist composed a song of thunderstorms using acoustic instruments and analogue oscillators. The piece addresses the environmental threat posed by the climate crisis and human interference in Southern Brazil, the region most affected by storms and resulting ecological menace. In the exhibition, the legacy of wild electricity in a post-apocalyptic world is referenced by three vertical metal pipes with a paternoster tree planted in each end. The installation plays with the literal meaning of the Brazilian Portuguese name of the plant, “para-raio", which translates to “lightning conductor", emphasizing the impact of human-made threats on the ecological system.

The map of Pangaea Proxima in the front window functions as a membrane between the outside world and the exhibition space. It mirrors the design of the website while offering a glimpse into a distant future. Seen from inside the space, there is a speaker behind the textile, connected to the glass window. Katatonic Silentio’s Everything and Nothing explores vibrations as crucial stimuli to the formation of life and oscillations between opposites. The movement caused by the acoustic output resonates with the glass, breaking the rigid separation between inside and outside, between our everyday lives and the sonic world affected by our way of life.

In our daily routine, we get used to background noise and can easily ignore disturbing sounds. By using headphones when interacting with the website or visiting the exhibition, we also block out our actual sonic environment. However, these otherwise suppressed sounds are specifically played back here. For example, in Michael Akstaller’s 20hz – 20.000hz, we are confronted with the unbearable noise of a construction site on the river Elbe, to which fish are exposed and whose habitat is threatened as a result. The sonic emissions are captured by hydroacoustic recordings.The auditory threshold of fish differs from ours. But the unsettling disturbance that noise inflicts on us gives us a sense of what we are doing to our environment. Also, there are sounds that we simply cannot register. Akstaller’s work emphasizes the domination humans have over the sonic world, creating a human-made sound veil that engulfs everything else.

Following the general idea of fragmentation, which aims to generate a multi-perspectivity while gathering everything in one space, the three editions of FOSE come together to form a whole rather than being successive entities. According to the founder, the focus on the digital space is closely linked to the idea that thinking about environmental phenomena is a global issue. Thus, the digital realm enables a wider communication network of people engaged with these topics. With each edition, new perspectives are brought to light and added to the archive. 

Thinking of an exhibition through sound – both in digital and physical spaces – one must adapt to the volatility and fluidity of the medium. FOSE is a dynamic platform that accommodates the layers of the sonic sphere. The fragmentation into varied editions, a collection of unique sounds, and their interconnectedness through a central page as well as in the exhibition space, allow for a recovery of sonic multiplicity. With the educational approach of the interactivity, FOSE seeks to activate participation in an eco-political discourse, finding a way out of passivity by exploring sonic spheres. This Interaction with the works opens an interface through which one can experience the possibility of actively shaping the narrative of sounds and encourages a critical perspective on one's own space for action within these sonic realities

[1] NEBYULA is a Munich based art space run by Rosa Stern Space e.V., a non-profit association, which serves as a dynamic artistic field, transcending institutional and market constraints.



RECOVERY OF RECONNECTION
by Fragments of Sonic Extinction
14/06 - 31/07/2024

With works by Lia Mazzari, Lisa Schonberg, Katatonic Silentio, Paul Valentin, White Boy Scream, David Goldberg, Wild Terrier Orchestra feat. The Witches of Westend, Michael Akstaller, Pedro Oliveira, Kalas Liebfried, Josua Rappl, Alexander Scharf and a text by Daniel Falb

Co-curated by Kalas Liebfried and Jol Thoms

Rosa Stern Space e.V.
c/o NEBYULA
Schleißheimerstr 42
80333 Munich