Independent magazine about art in the age of pollution.

What does it mean to listen – not just to hear, but to attentively attune to the world around us? Building on Sonic Acts’ 30-year legacy, the seventh edition of Ecoes – a special, double issue (300 pages thick) – delves into the art of sound and presence. From Salomé Voegelin’s remixing of the ‘curatorial order’ to maximalist composer Charlemagne Palestine and Loma Doom’s cerebral DJ sets, this magazine reimagines listening as a form of attention – at once a method, an ethics, and a poetics.

A continuation of the Sonic Acts Biennial 2024 project Touched by Sound, Sève I.V. Janssen excavates the media archive of Dutch performer and instrument maker Michel Waisvisz. Meanwhile, Elias Anastas of Radio alHara discusses the Palestine-based station’s efforts to sustain (inter)national solidarity amidst escalating Israeli violence. In their collaboratively written article, Shortwave Collective proposes another (radio) listening exercise, asking: ‘Do we listen to the same things, differently?’

The landscape too becomes a sonorous body, resonating with its own rhythms. Along the Wadden Sea, Cocky Eek reflects on the subtle acoustics of the mudflats; researcher Sarah Agerbaek evokes the silencing magic of snowfall; and, by listening to the soil, Juan Cortés uncovers the devastating impact of monocultural farming in Colombia.

Martina Raponi, operating as noiserr, examines how audism has shaped society, drawing on Deaf researchers and artists to develop a theory of ‘the unheard.’ This edition also includes a contemplative report on The Listening Room – Sonic Acts’ 8.2-channel sound exhibition and online spatialised platform. Additionally, NTS resident Elena Colombi speaks to raving futures, sonic fictions, and the queer avant-garde.

In What Can’t a Body Do? Indigenous scholar M. Murphy reminds us that bodies are entangled in the messy affairs of history. Through her visual essay Models of Maintenance, Alina Schmuch uncovers hidden infrastructures beneath our feet – sewage, riverbeds, water storage, and testing samples.

Spread across several pages, Sammy Lee’s psychedelic contribution Cymatics translates auditory phenomena into vibrant, intricate patterns. Mobilising listening against borders and across temporalities, Jacek Smolicki walks into Białowieża forest, an ancient woodland straddling Poland and Belarus. Finally, sibling duo Hannah and Charlie Pezzack’s collaboration concludes with a Welsh folk song, lingering in the ears.

Contents

Hear, hear… – Mirna Belina, Hannah Pezzack

Five Ways to Unperform the Curatorial – Salomé Voegelin

Charlemagne Palestine: Connecting to Divinities and Childhood Fantasy – Interview by Maud Seuntjens

Loma Doom: The Art of Listening – Interview by Hannah Pezzack

A Walk in the Forest: Transversal Listening to Białowieża – Jacek Smolicki

Elias Anastas: Echoing Struggles and Solidifying Solidarities through Radio alHara – Interview by Lucas Nessim Snaije

Plural Radio-Listening – Shortwave Collective

Elena Colombi: Raving and Radical Futures – Interview by Hannah Pezzack

Cymatics – Sammy Lee

We’re All Ears? – Martina Raponi/noiserr

Under this Falling: Snow, Silence, and Attention – Sarah E. Agerbaek

Juan Cortés: Sounding Out the Subterranean – Interview by Anton Spice

Listening Together – Hannah Pezzack

★ Cocky Eek: Mud, Air and Tidal Rhythms – Interview by Dominika Mikołajczyk

★ The Gestures’ Sound: A Stroll Through Michel Waisvisz’ Archive – Sève I.V. Janssens

What Can’t a Body Do? – M Murphy

Models of Maintenance – Alina Schmuch

Past Echoes: Women, Horses, and Celtic Folk Traditions in Post-Industrial South Wales – Hannah Pezzack