On 30 April 2025, Arctic Auditories organized the online workshop “Merging with Waters” together with the Environmental Humanities Research Group (UiT). The aim of this workshop was to provide information about the current research processes and invite participants to reflect critically on them. There were presentations and discussions on three working packages as well as a joint listening to our sound stream.
Although the working packages consist of individual parts, there are various connections and overlaps between them. The diverse backgrounds of the researchers in the Arctic Auditories project team enabled each member to view their own working package from new, inspiring perspectives and learn from each other.
Making these mergings visible, and audible, were the focus of this afternoon.
Mapping Arctic Waters
In the first part, Britta Sweers talked about the soundwalks conducted in collaboration with diverse groups in and around Tromsø/Romsa which serve as a basis for many further processes of the project, in particular a multi-layered detailed soundmap. The evaluation of the huge amount of qualitative data collected, ranging from interview to photographs to recordings, is still in progress.
This working package is full of interdisciplinary aspects which, as became clear in the subsequent discussion, were found to be challenging but above all highly enriching. Which methodologies and methods do we consider to be scientifically valid? Generosity, curiosity and openness to learning from the perspective of others enable us to expand our own expert knowledge.
At the same time, this working package has shown how complex listening is, but also how much we know through bodily sensory experiences. To learn from this knowledge, we need dialogue and interpretation.
Sound Archives
The second presentation focused mainly on sound maps. How can you organise sound recordings and merge them into a system that others can access? Angus Carlyle presented different formats of sound maps, and presented the various layers that informs the Arctic Auditories soundmap. In the workshop, we listened to some sound recordings made at the locations where the soundwalks had taken place.
An important aspect that was discussed is the connection between sound and text. Text itself can be a possible form of listening and sounding. Regarding the sound map – when is a textual description of a sound recording a useful guide, and when is it a limiting restriction? The question of how much textual description one wants to offer also arose during the planning and the realization of the soundwalks. The conductors were free to decide how much information they wanted to provide in advance, such as about the location or specific sounds.
Another point that was discussed is the visual representation of sound maps. A sound map is always just one possible way of representation and never displays actual reality. What do we want to convey to the listener? And what decision do we therefore make about what and how we filter, or what and how we represent it on the map?
You can dive into these questions and some places in and around Tromsø/Romsa yourself while listening to the Arctic Auditories sound recordings: https://aporee.org/maps/work/projects.php?project=arcticauditories
Flowing, flushing, freezing, streaming: Audio zine workshop
Part of working package two is also the three-day “Experimental Audio Zine Workshop”, which will take place from 23 to 25 May 2025 at Tromsø Kunstforening in collaboration with the artists Andreas Kühne and Polina Medvedeva. The workshop is open to researchers, writers, artists, musicians, creators, students and anyone interested in storytelling, sound poetry and experimental publishing. Further information about the workshop and the sign up form can be found via this link: https://uit.no/tavla/artikkel/878919/arctic_auditories_experimental_audio_zine_works
Listening to the Soundstream
In the middle of the workshop, we immersed ourselves for a few minutes in the soundscape of Tromsø through our sound stream, which streams live from the roof of a building at the University of Tromsø. Pleasant sounds, such as birds heralding the arrival of spring, but also annoying sounds, such as an indefinable deep drone, moved us as listeners.
The stream transmits what the microphone picks up directly without any further sound manipulation. But as with the sound recordings, the stream does not reproduce reality, but rather translates the sound environment through technical processes. Every listening situation, whether listening in the physical space around us or listening to sounds from loudspeakers, is a unique bodily experience in its own way.
Online Writing League
In the last part of the workshop, Elizabeth Barron and Paula Ryggvik Mikalsen talked about the Online Writing League, which is part of working package three. In the Online Writing League, participants in two groups, one English-speaking and one Scandinavian-speaking, met digitally once a month over half a year. Based on the concept of emplacement (Barron et al., 2020) and inspired by prompts, key questions and keywords, the participants created artistic works in a wide variety of formats, from poetry to video to audio, and in various languages.
As demonstrated by the OWLs symposium the day before and the few works presented in the workshop, the intensive engagement with place, water and sound from different perspectives gave rise to an infinite variety of works that inspire further rich reflection and exchange. Based on these artistic explorations and further research on text and language, a glossary will be compiled, collecting ideas and thoughts on terms that have proven essential in all working packages throughout the project.
Connections, the focus of our workshop, emerged at various levels throughout the afternoon. Together, we were able to trace connections within the project between the individual working packages and recognize that each task is related to and influences the others. By listening together and to each other, we were able to establish connections between us that enabled a rich exchange. By listening to sound recordings and the sound stream, we were able to create connections to places, to our imaginations and to our bodies. By listening to our thoughts and perceptions, we were able to connect different water identities conceptually and think about how they are related and what role we play in this.
And what role can this project play? How can looking at climate and other environmental crises through a feminist lens and using the methods of our project lead to new, actionable changes?
Thank you to all participants for this inspiring afternoon!
Some links to resources shared by participants during the workshop:
- Hoover, K.C. (2021). Sensory disruption and sensory inequities in the Anthropocene. Evolutionary Anthropology, 30(2), p.101-158. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/evan.21882?saml_referrer=
- Pétursdóttir, Þ., Sørensen, T.F. (2023). Archaeological encounters: Ethics and aesthetics under the mark of the Anthropocene. Archaeological Dialogues, 30(1), p.50-67. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/archaeological-dialogues/article/archaeological-encounters-ethics-and-aesthetics-under-the-mark-of-the-anthropocene/1583B342DE0677878A8B62E679362F96?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=bookmark
- Rights of Rivers: https://loveourouse.org/rights-of-rivers/
- Speight, E. (2013). How dare you rubbish my town!’: place listening as an approach to socially engaged art within the uk urban regeneration contexts. Open Arts Journal, 1, p.25-35. https://openartsjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/oaj_issue1_speight.pdf
All images and artistic works are displayed with the permission of the artists. Copyright: all individual artists