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[polyphoniclandscapes]

Artistic Research Project  by ArtEZ professorship Theory in the Arts  in cooperation with Zone2source 

Landscaping A growing number of scientists, scholars and artists agree that we have entered the Anthropocene, a geological era in which humankind has become a major force in shaping the Earth. In this context the concept of landscape acquires a new urgency, as well as a new meaning: Where landscape historically has often been thought of as a picturesque vista or a passive backdrop for human protagonists, contemporary artists and theorists conceptualize landscape not so much as a noun but as a verb. The latter expresses a continuous flux of becoming in which both human and more-than-human agencies are entangled in a polyphony of 'world making', i.e. landscaping. 

Listening as research The artistic research project Polyphonic Landscapes inquires the question how sound and the act of listening can contribute to a more active understanding of landscapes. In other words: How can our sense of hearing foster a more embodied, inclusive, relational, and reciprocal connectivity to our environment, the latter being ecologically understood as a process, in which various life forms, materials, energy flows and temporalities are involved? 

The underlying goal of the project is to gain more insight into the processes as of how artistic research(ers) produce new entrances to specific layers of knowledge that are not or hardly touchable by regular academic practices. In tandem with this, the ways in which the researching artists will give shape to their investigations and how they substantiate the public character of research, are an important point of focus.

Polyphonic Landscapes operates at three levels: 

Sonic research into the urgent problem of the relation between nature and culture

Research into the agency of both theory and practices in artistic research

Research into the ecology of the senses and the multisensorial

Researchers and location In Polyphonic Landscapes these questions will be enquired into by four internationally acclaimed sound artists: Budhaditya Chattopadhyay (IN, NL), Yolande Harris (UK, US), Teemu Lehmusruusu (FI) and Lia Mazzari (IT, UK). Their one year long artistic research will display all along their process of creating new sound art works that facilitate embodied and situated ways of knowing and experiencing landscape. To foster a fruitful cross-pollination between artistic practice and critical theory, researchers of the ArtEZ Professorship Theory in the Arts (led by Peter Sonderen, project leader Joep Christenhusz) and Zone2Source director Alice Smits will act as a theoretical sounding board, besides other experts.

In close collaboration with the Amsterdam based platform for art, nature, and technology Zone2Source, the research activities are to take place in and around the fifty-year-old Amstelpark, a hybrid environment in which the urban and the natural are closely intertwined. The participants will explore the sonic environment of the location by self defined research questions. The progression of their investigations will be shared during three public research seminars (see agenda). As a conclusion of the project, the connected sound art works will be exhibited by Zone2Source between mid-September and mid-November 2023.

National Research Agenda (NWA) Polyphonic Landscapes is part of the Art Route NWA-project Bit by bit, or not at all within the scheme ‘Small Projects’ which is financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). In this project several cluster questions will be addresses that were posed by the National Research Agenda. For instance: ‘What is quality of life?’ and ‘What does art mean to people?’. 

Polyphonic Landscapes seeks to find new perspectives on these questions by means of artistic research that concentrates on inquiring the relationship nature and culture, and the place of the human and non-human in particular. It endorses the NWA Art Route’s view that, in the face of global climate breakdown, art can be an alternative way of knowledge production, that sidesteps dichotomies between subject and object, knowing and experiencing, human and nonhuman, in the face of climate breakdown. 

Participants

Initiative, coordination: Professorship Theory in the Arts, ArtEZ University of the Arts Dr. Peter Sonderen, responsible professor Joep Christenhusz, MA, project leader Zone2Source Alice Smits, artistic director

Artistic Researchers: Budhaditya Chattopadhyay (IN, NL) Yolande Harris (UK, US) Teemu Lehmusruusu (FI) Lia Mazzari (IT, UK) Project partners: Zone2Source Educational partners: Honours Lab, ArtEZ University of the Arts

Contact Joep Christenhusz (Jo.Christenhusz (at) ArtEZ.nl)