To know the Arctic rather than believe in the Arctic requires an ontological politics that makes space for the land, the climatic and hydrological processes taking place on that land, and the beings who choose to inhabit it. Through the Arctic Auditories project, we have worked to open up new conceptual spaces for the sounds of the land, these processes and these beings. Over the coming months we are making exciting plans to work with the city of Tromsø, to audibly transform urban space so that it may be known in a new way. Is there a map that could express that transformation? And if so, what would it look like?
See what I did there? I assumed that a map must look like something. Maps show us a representation of something, and even if that something is ideas or concepts (e.g. concept mapping), the one thing all maps have in common is that they are visual. As a geographer with training in cartography and GIS (geospatial information systems and science), I have always known that maps are tangible and material items. My additional training in critical cartography taught me to question maps in terms of what they represent, who they are for, and how they are used for political aims, which is to say I can tell you all about how maps are biopolitical tools that make landscapes and places governable and controllable. I never questioned this idea of what maps are in the ways I have done since joining Arctic Auditories, but now I will. For, in thinking about the nature of sound and its co-constitutive relationship to place, I would like to suggest that we proceed very carefully with soundmaps; that we need a critical cartography of soundmapping to make us aware of, attentive to, even provoked by, the biopolitical nature of the soundmap.
Arctic Auditories began with the foundational premise that the Arctic soundscape has value through the presence and in relationship with humans and Earth kin; that the soundscape itself is co-constituted and given meaning through the co-creation of relational value with other beings. In this articulation, sounds of wind blowing through towns, the churn of electric cable cars, the hum of electric wires, all convey meaning and presence. This premise is in contrast with the mainstream normative understanding of the Arctic soundscape as one that has traditionally aligned with a European understanding of Pristine Nature, one in which the Arctic is either quiet and silent, or filled with the deafening sounds of nature itself – wind blowing snow, ice cracking and squeaking, birds crying. As natural sounds, birds, wind, and even silence remain representation of a Pristine soundscape.
What continues to draw so many people to the Arctic is the attraction of both pristine nature and its assumed companion, the pristine soundscape. Yet, when seen through a biopolitical lens we can interpret sound as an expression of bodies alive and otherwise, of sensibilities, of preferences and tastes. And like (sense of) place, sound is somehow both ephemeral and constant. We know we are in a place, but what are the boundaries of that place? How are these boundaries determined, accepted and socially reproduced? For if a place has no boundaries, how can it be defined, and if it cannot be defined, how can it be known? Like the horizon, argued Casey, place is always there but somehow can never be fixed. Sound is always there, even in its absence. “If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” goes the old saying. Of course it does, and the idea that if no humans are there to hear it then a sound does not exist disallows all the bodies that are there, their sensibilities, preferences and tastes.
Here is the crux of the soundscape, and in association, the soundmap. To fix the soundscape onto paper in the form of the soundmap is to create boundaries around something that is fluid and ephemeral, to determine that sounds increase in value (or become at all) by making them visible to humans. Like landscape mapping was a way to know the land in order to govern it, soundmapping can be understood as a biopolitical act meant to elevate, standardize and normalize the human senses, creating a pathway to govern them.
Maps are an important biopolitical tool because of their ability to fix and make material/visible what can otherwise only be experienced. Visual representations of space, maps of landscapes are contested for what they include or exclude, yet they are recognized nevertheless most often as snapshots which accurately, if at varying levels of precision, inform action because they are interpretable. Following Sterne’s definition of the audiovisual litany, maps are objective representations of a spatial (visual) reality. A landscape map can show roadways and neighborhoods, powerlines and business zones. It can convey elevation and slope, land cover, wind direction, vegetation and soil types. The biopolitical dimension of these maps is that they enable governancebecause these things are understood as relatively static until a new map is created. Decisions are made based on what these maps show, which may or may not accurately reflect what exists in the world at a given time. While they are useful and interesting for lots of reasons, it is critical to remember that they are representations of a set of situated knowledges collected for a specific purpose. A side effect of that set of choices is that the map fixes place to become a place, at a point in time. Through this process a place becomes a location, which is to say the richness of place is lost.
Sound and soundscapes, by their very nature are constantly changing at a rate at which the idea of mapping them, at the very least requires serious consideration as to the epistemological value of such a tool, and at most could be considered as a form of ontological violence to the relational value otherwise created through experience. The ephemerality of sound means that like place-making, sound could in fact better be understood as sound-making, an epistemology of sound in which it is always becoming as an expression of a dialogue between a place and all of its abiotic and biotic inhabitants.
To go one step further, and in alignment with the ethical positionality of Arctic Auditories, through a critical cartography of soundmapping we introduce here the idea that audio recordings could be understood as counter-soundmaps. Angus Carlyle’s recent LP Powerlines, a recording of sounds in and around Tromsø/Romsa, could then be considered a counter-soundmap of the Arctic soundscape. While the cd still represents a series of snapshots in time, it rejects the idea that the sounds captured in the cd are elevated in meaning only once they are spatialized onto a visual map. This logic would suggest that to know the sound of a waterfall as a moment in time when water is liquid, falling, crashing, gurgling, spraying and playing is as much an expression of an objective reality in its own right, without the need to “place it in space”. It still informs us about climate, environment and the like. To hear other layers of sound – children playing, electric lines humming, cars honking – allows us to build a relational understanding and value for the waterfall where sound becomes a dialogic expression of a place and its sustainability (Barron and Losleben 2025).
In the last blog post Angus Carlyle introduced the concept of the audiovisual litany, and he reflected on how the sensory and intimate personal experiences of the soundwalks, a core part of our project, were transformed into more objective, statistical operations through the creation of the soundmap he later generated. We did this work intentionally and thoughtfully and we stand by it. At the same time, the feminist epistemological stance at the core of our project encourages us to question our own motivations and the outcomes of our work. In this post I have reflected on the nature of sound and its relationship with human ideals of pristine Nature and place, and how soundmaps can be interpreted as biopolitical artifacts which in fact deconstruct and transform sound into something else in ways that, upon further reflection, we may not actually want or agree with. I have suggested that soundmaps do to sound what landscape maps do to place, they are transformative in making the complex and experiential more simplistic and fixed. For better and worse, maps make sound and place knowable, shareable, governable. As a team of interdisciplinary academics, we want to know more about sounds and places, and we want to share that knowledge. As feminists, we know that that knowledge is powerful and always partial. As a geographer, I know that maps are the same, and as a person I want to use that partial, powerful knowledge for good.
Elizabeth Barron, 2025
Further reading:
Barron, E.S. and K. Losleben. 2025. “Emplacing watery encounters: Listening, care, and embodied knowledge in places of climate change.” Progress in Environmental Geography 4(2): 190-207. DOI: 10.1177/27539687251342262
Sterne, J. 2003. The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Duke University Press.
A group of twenty people. Different backgrounds, a shared interest in sound, water and creative experimentation. Three days of discovering, trying things out and creating together.
Curiosity.
Water flows, both independently and influenced by external factors. Where does water come from? Where does it go? Where do we encounter water? It is a give and take, a constant exchange.
Equipped with hydrophones, contact microphones and electromagnetic microphones we search for sounds within this cycle. From the freshwater water source to the sewage plant. From snowfields to kelp forests. We are amazed, intrigued, disgusted, surprised. We fluctuate between discomfort and fascination. We attempt to share our auditory experience and put it into words. It is movement that we perceive. We feel vibrations with our bodies. We try to make connections, to recognize relationships. An in-between. Rhythmic beats. Invisible humming. If we cannot see, hear of feel it without the aid of technical devices, does it exist?
We think about space. How do sounds spread? Where are we in this space? Exploring perspectives. Seemingly clear boundaries between spaces. What sounds can be heard underwater and how do they travel through water? What does the transition between different aggregate states of water sound like?
We collect ideas, thoughts, sound recordings, photos and videos. These are collaged into a one-hour collective audio work, a polyphonic assemblage[1].
A collection of experiences,
a space to dive into.
[1] Tsing, A. L. (2017). The mushroom at the end of the world : on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Photos by Anders Eriksen
During these three days, we listened closely to the waters that flow in and out of Tromsø/Romsa, responding to the streams that enable our daily existence and infrastructure. The programme included soundwalks, a sound meditation, a guided tour of local wastewater treatment facilities, a reading group and an editing session.
The resulting collectively improvised audio zine was streamed live on the last day of the workshop. It will additionally be broadcast on Resonance FM’s Clear Spot and published in partnership with Radio Arctic.
Resonance FM https://www.resonancefm.com/ – broadcast on Monday 16th June 8-9pm, repeating the next morning 10-11am
Flowing, flushing, freezing, streaming: Listening at the intersection of human interference.
How do we attune to our surroundings and care for the lives in it? How do we negotiate with beings that communicate in other languages?
Through exercises in improvisation, relational listening and sounding, the 3-day workshop invites participants to develop experimental sonic assemblages through listening closely to the waters that flow in and out of Tromsø/Romsa and responding to the streams that enable our daily existence and infrastructure.
What is the memory of the water that gushes into our sinks, warms pathways, drains through tubes and gutters, shifts from icy lakes to artificial snow? How have the currents witnessed the change in life around them, the waters always already listening? And what does it take to sustain a city like Tromsø in a warming sub-arctic environment?
Thinking through the prism of water, the workshop will engage with the concept of ‘listening at the bundling of trajectories’ through intersectional methodologies and the writings of Dylan Robinson, Liisa-Rávná Finbog, Anna Tsing, Pauline Oliveros, and Susan Schuppli.
Participants will work individually and in groups with a recording device, various microphones, a vibrotactile feedback setup, and a computer with audio editing and effects processing software. Please bring your preferred headphones (with wire) as we have only a few sets available. You’ll decide whether your focus for the audio zine will be on sound collage or writing and reciting in your language(s) of choice. We’ll conduct soundwalks and visit local heating and wastewater handling facilities. The resulting sound works will be shared as a live collective broadcast on the last day at Tromsø Kunstforening.
*There are no stipends available for travel and accommodation, unfortunately. However, participation in the workshop is for free for all.
About us
In our collaborative practice creating storytelling experiences from transdisciplinary assemblages, sound artist Andreas Kühne and artist, filmmaker Polina Medvedeva engage ways of listening-with landscapes and its agents to produce a feedback of the patchwork of historical, geopolitical and socio-economic layers.
Arctic Auditories
This workshop is part of Arctic Auditories, a collaborative project engaging scholarship and methods from feminism, sound arts, human geography and applied ethnomusicology to develop strategies for understanding environmental change through sound. Focusing on water environments, the ultimate aim of the project is to deliver innovative inter-disciplinary, empowering, and democratic listening strategies to help individuals and society cultivate radical imaginations of futures beyond environmental anxiety.
Our programme includes internationally recognised artists and new, emerging artists, giving special attention to projects that are rooted in the region. We strive to collaborate with, support and give space to other local independent arts initiatives.
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?
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:
Amid the winter snows and flurries of March in Tromsø/Romsa the Arctic Auditories-team prepares for our fourth workshop – Merging With Water on April 30th 2025 at 14:00-17:00 (CET). Our friends in the UiT Environmental Humanities research group, and invited guests, colleagues and other interested will join us for our discussion on interdisciplinary merging and workflows.
This is an important moment as we dive into how the various activities and results of the interdisciplinary project relate to, and inform each other, and create new knowledges.
Together with you, the project members share and explore the merging of outcomes and aspirations of their assigned work packages: data collection, sound recording, and our online writing collective, the OWLs. Jointly we will listen to the stream that broadcasts the sounds of Tromsø/Romsa in real-time, before rounding off with an open discussion with all invited parties.
We include here the link to the soundstream in case you want to listen before the gathering, and our Instagram.
Reach out if you like to join us, either on Instagram (@arcticauditories) or write us an e-mail (see the About us page).
