SONIC ALLEGORIES
(lecture & listening session)
dr. Lena Ortega (MEX) & Robertina Šebjanič (SLO) with special guest prof. dr. Victoria Vesna (USA)
Wednesday, 13th July at 6 pm
Computer museum Ljubljana (Računalniški muzej Ljubljana)
[Celovška cesta 111, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia]
Online Zoom link: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/97468819607
Lena Ortega and Robertina Šebjanič will give a lecture and present listening session about their ongoing research and sound project SONIC ALLEGORIES.
Victoria Vesna will join the event as a special guest and respondent by addressing interspecies’ communication with focus on birds and presenting her project Bird Song Diamond.
SONIC ALLEGORIES:
This series of sound projects seeks to explore the sonic atmosphere of barely perceptible transitional spaces. These environments in transition are places from which one can rethink margins, limits and borders. The first project from the series is entitled AviaAquatoCene and it presents the sonic space of The Cantera Oriente Reserve in Mexico City. The second project is TerraAstroCene, a sonic walk in Evora Portugal at The Crómlech de los Almendros. The new upcoming composition in the making deals with urban nature, the sonic spaces of Ljubljanica riverside and its inhabitants. These are invisible environments between water and air that are made audible through their subtle soundscapes.
More about the project:
https://www.leenalee.net/sonic-allegories
Bird Song Diamond:
This project is a collaboration with an evolutionary biologist mapping acoustic networks of bird songs using a unique methodology of understanding the language of birds with modern advances in computing, linguistic analysis. This research led to a newfound appreciation of how sophisticated other creatures can be, and opened the possibility of the grammar (and perhaps meaning) of bird song being attainable.
More about the project:
http://birdsongdiamond.com
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Sonic Allegories was part of Festival El Aleph 2022 at the Jardín Sonoro de la Fonoteca Nacional in Mexico City, between 19 and 29 of May 2022: https://culturaunam.mx/elaleph2022/sedes-e-instalaciones/jardin-sonoro-de-la-fonoteca-nacional/
Currently, it is part of the group exhibition Alter(acción) 2.0 at MEIAC Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo Badajoz (26 May – 18 September 2022): http://meiac.es/exhibiciones/alteraccin-20-49/.
The project is co-financed by the City of Ljubljana, Department of Culture
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About the artist:
Lena Ortega (aka Leena Lee) is a sound artist, researcher, designer, and teacher whose line of inquiry explores the intersections between natures/cultures with a special interest in bioacoustics, soundscape ecology, and composing with field recordings. Member of the Art+Science interdisciplinary research group of The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) who has been working in the intersection of art, science, and humanities.
More: https://www.leenalee.net/
Robertina Šebjanič is an artist whose work explores the biological, (geo)political, and cultural realities of aquatic environments and the impact of humanity on other organisms.
In her analysis of the Anthropocene and its theoretical framework, the artist uses the terms “aquatocene” and “aquaforming” to refer to the human impact on aquatic environments. Her works received awards and nominations at Prix Ars Electronica, Starts Prize, and Falling Walls.
More: https://robertina.net/
Victoria Vesna is an Artist and Professor at the UCLA Department of Design Media Arts and Director of the Art Sci center at the School of the Arts& Architecture and the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). With her installations, she investigates how communication technologies affect collective behavior and perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific innovation. Her work is focused on environmental issues and involves long-term collaborations with composers, nano-scientists, neuroscientists, and evolutionary biologists, and she brings this experience to students. At the Art Sci center, she organizes and hosts symposia and exhibitions.
More: http://victoriavesna.com/