WHAT SOUNDS DO: New Directions in an Anthropology of Sound

Sounds are ever present: They continue to envelop and move through you and me in every single moment. But what agencies drive those sounds, what sort of personae are performed, in historical periods as well as today or in the near future? What social relations occur as a result of sound? And how might our embodied experiences and sensibilities create new bodies of knowledge?

To which forms of experiences with our bodies, with objects, within social relations and with peculiar situations and sensibilities might this lead? Which sonic fictions escort us and how do we listen with our sonic corpus?

In this four-day conference, researchers from the Sound Studies Lab at UCPH and international scholars such as Andrey Smirnov, Jordan Lacey, and artists like Niels Lynne Løkkegaard invite you to explore these questions of an anthropology of sound.

The conference includes keynote lectures by Salomé Voegelin and Dylan Robinson, research workshops by Jenny Gräf Sheppard, Ania Mauruschat, and Giada Dalla Bontà, sound works and performances as well as roundtable discussions that contribute to the work on an Encyclopedia of Sound Studies, currently conceived by Michael Bull, Holger Schulze, and Jennifer Stoever.

Join us, the Sound Studies Lab, into these sonic experiments of sensing and thinking.

See contributors and abstracts.

Programme

Tuesday September 13th at RMC: 13-19

WHAT SOUNDS DO

Chair: Søren Kjærgaard (Copenhagen/DK)

13:30 Holger Schulze (Copenhagen/DK): What is an Anthropology of Sound? Conference Opening
14:00 Salomé Voegelin (London/UK): Sonic Possible and Impossible Bodies: uncurating knowledge
15:00 Niels Lyhne Løkkegaard (Copenhagen/DK): Softening the Piano: Are Instruments Parasitic? Are Instruments Contagious?
16:00 Coffee break 
16:30 Dylan Robinson (Kingston/CAN): Indigenous Listening Kinship with Non-Human Relations
17:30 Brief break
17:45 Roundtable discussion: What Forms of Knowledge Are Fostered in Sound Arts? Towards an Encyclopedia of Sound Studies Jennifer Stoever (Binghamton/US), Kristin Moriah (Kingston/CAN), Michael Bull (Brighton/UK), Sanne Krogh Groth (Lund/SWE), Dylan Robinson (Kingston/CAN), Ania Mauruschat (Copenhagen/DK)

Wednesday September 14th at RMC: 10-12.30

SOUNDING CRISIS

Chair: Holger Schulze (Copenhagen/DK)

10:00 Ania Mauruschat (Copenhagen/DK): The Enduring Power of the Qilaat or the Frame Drum as the Key to the Universe
11:00 Public research workshop: Sounding Crisis in Greenland. Sonic Agency in Times of Climate Change (guided by Ania Mauruschat and Dylan Robinson)
12:30 Lunch break

Wednesday September 14th at RMC: 14-20

HOW DID THE USSR SOUND?

Chair: Vita Zelenska (Regensburg/DE)

14:00 Giada Dalla Bontà (Copenhagen/DK): Sonic Fictions of Cosmism
15:00 Stas Sharifullin (Basel/CH): Becoming-Resonant: Indigenous Sonic Practice in 'the Prison of the Nations'
16:00 Coffee break
16:30 Public research workshop: Vibropolitics. Intermaterial vibrational experience between cultural and relational practices (guided by Giada Dalla Bontà, Vita Zelenska and Stas Sharifullin)
17:30 Brief break
17:45 Roundtable discussion: What Are the Limits of a Political Agency of Sound? With Jennifer Stoever (Binghamton/US), Vita Zelenska (Regensburg/DE), Stas Sharifullin (Basel/CH), Giada Dalla Bontà (Copenhagen, PhD)
19:00 Martin Daughtry (New York/USA – via Video): What Sounds Do to Wartime Auditors: A Primer for Ukraine

Thursday September 15th at RMC: 10-17 & at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art: 17-19

COMMUNICATING VESSELS

Chair: Jennifer Stoever (Binghamton/US)

10:00 Jenny Gräf Sheppard (Copenhagen/DK): Sonic Orientations: A Practice of Dis-Orienting
11:00 Public research workshop: Corporeal Sensibilities (conceptualized and guided by Public research workshop: Corporeal Sensibilities (conceptualized and guided by Jenny Gräf Sheppard, Giada Dalla Bontà – With Salomé Voegelin, Juliana Hodkinson)
12:30 Lunch break 
13:30 Open Sound Space [TBC]
15:30 Coffee break 
16:00 Sharin Foo & Louise Foo (Copenhagen/DK): Søstr Voicing Spatial Songs
17:00-19:00 Ambisonic Nights I (at the Ambisonic Chamber of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art): Sound works from artists and composers from Copenhagen and abroad, presented by the Sonic Orientations KUV research project. NOTE: Due to limited seating, reservations will be required. (list of artists to be announced in time)

Friday September 16th at RMC: 9-18 & at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art: 18-20

SONIC THINKING

Chair: Walter Gershon (Glassboro/US)

09:30 Juliana Hodkinson (Berlin/DE): Getting Sounds to Do as They Say: Conversations as Sonic Material
10:30 Jordan Lacey (Melbourne/AUS): Sonic Rupture & the Urban Roar: as told through the meeting of a vital object
11:30 Coffee break
12:00 Kristin Moriah (Kingston/CAN): That Men Might Listen Earnestly To It: Listening, Canonization, and Black Print Culture
13:00 Lunch break 
14:30 Søren Kjærgaard (Copenhagen/DK): Traversing Sonic Territories: Towards Diffractive Listening
15:30 Holger Schulze (Copenhagen/DK): Sensologies of a Sonic Vernacular. Conference Closing
16:30 Coffee break (45 minutes)
17:15 Jenny Gräf Sheppard (Copenhagen/DK): The Pidgin Choir. Closing Performance
18:00-20:00 Ambisonic Nights II (at the Ambisonic Chamber of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art): Sound works from artists and composers from Copenhagen and abroad, presented by the Sonic Orientations KUV research project. NOTE: Due to limited seating, reservations will be required. (list of artists to be announced in time)