Berlin Sonic Places
Berlin Sonic Places – A Brief Guide by Peter Cusak
Tuesday March 20, 7pm
Peter Cusack will discuss about his recent book and the Berlin soundscape with Sam Auinger and Carsten Stabenow.
Followed by two performances:
Katharina Bévand – Iranian Tanbur
Peter Cusack – Field Recordings/Visuals
Berlin Sonic Places – A Brief Guide
By Peter Cusack
Edited by DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program 2017
Published by Wolke Verlag
Audio & photos available on favouritesounds.org website.
Berlin Sonic Places: A Brief Guide is an appreciation of, and an enquiry into, Berlin’s sounds and soundscapes in all their moods of noise and quiet. It asks why does Berlin sound the way it does and what makes one neighbourhood sonically different from another. It pays attention to the aural character of particular buildings, streets, squares and green spaces, listens to the city’s public transport system and celebrates the importance of nature to Berlin’s acoustic environment. Briefly it attempts to find out what Berliners think and feel about the sounds of their city and how Berlin’s soundscape compares with those of other European capitals? Berlin Sonic Places: A Brief Guide raises the question, “How do we hear the cities in which we live?” and offers some thoughts and responses from Berlin’s point of ear.
With contributions by: Pascal Amphoux, Peter Cusack, Max Dixon, Anna Fritz, Eva Kietzmann, Petra Kübert, Valeria Merlini, Udo Noll, Martyna Poznańska and Fritz Schlüter.
Peter Cusack (UK) is based in London and Berlin. He is a field recordist and sound artist with a long interest in the sonic environment. In 1998 he initiated the ‘Favourite Sounds Project’ to discover how people interact with the sounds of the places where they live. It has been carried in cities worldwide including, London, Beijing, Prague and Berlin. His project ‘Sounds From Dangerous Places’ (described as sonic journalism) investigates the soundscapes of sites of major environmental damage such as the Caspian oil fields and the Chernobyl exclusion zone. He is a research fellow at the University of the Arts, London and in 2011 was a guest of the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm. http://
Carsten Stabenow works as independent curator, producer, communication designer and artist on the intersection of artistic production and mediation. He studied communications and postgraduate interdisciplinary studies in berlin and is initiator of diverse festivals, formats and initiatives within the context of new media, art + science and sound art. Carsten Stabenow is the founder of the German media art festival garage, initiator and artistic director of Tuned City and co-founder of the Berlin art and media production platform Dock. As a member of the Staalplaat soundsystem (2001-2010) and solo, he has realised several installations and performed internationally. In his work he is interested especially in physical, social and political parameters of space.
http://
Sam Auinger – sonic thinker, composer, sound-artist. Together with Bruce Odland he founded O+A in 1989. Their central theme is “hearing perspective”. Their work is known for large scale, public space sound installations. Beside his artistic work he was a guest professor at the University of the Arts in Berlin, an associate at the GSD in Harvard and in 2017 he was giving a course on “thinking with your ears” at the ACT at MIT in Cambridge. He is collaborating with city planners and architects and is a frequent participant of international symposiums on the topic of urban planning, architecture, media, the senses and sound in specific.
Katharina Bévand recently gained a M.A. in Sound Studies at UdK, Berlin. Her background in visual arts is integrated in her work through the use of space and light for the creation of atmospheric sound installations. She is interested in the exploration of space, objects and the experience of the body through sonic perception and listening practices. In 2017, her piece Transorchestra received an honorary mention from the Sonotopia-Bonn Hoeren contest for Sound Art and as member of the Klangtour she took part in the residency at Vierte Welt. She is particularly interested in Middle Eastern music and plays the Iranian Tanbur.
