Resonant Ecologies: Sound, Art, and Cultural Heritage

Abstract

Resonant Ecologies: Sound, Art, and Cultural Heritage explores how sounds shape cultural memory, urban life, and creative practice. Bringing together students, scholars, producers, and musicians, the symposium invites participants to listen more closely to their environments.

Keynote speakers include media and sound scholar Jan Torge Claussen who will examine ways to hear climate change through media technologies and sound art, and Jelmer Althuis, who through his project Oorlog Dichtbij, integrates history into the present through sound.

Podcast researcher Stacey Copeland, will lead a guided soundwalk engaging directly with the soundscapes of downtown Groningen, while ethnomusicologist Kristin McGee continues with a reflection on practices of attentive listening amidst the urban forest (Listen Here Now).

Scientific perspectives on binaural beats in art are presented by Olivia Shkreli and Hannes Arvid Anderson (Harmonic Minds) and Kirsten van den Bosch (ReCharge & ReCharge), offering insights from neuropsychology and psychoacoustics into how sound influences perception and emotion.

Artistic encounters include Anice Hut’s and Andres Fouché's film Nightlife (2025), introduced by the composer, and a concert by the Listen Here Now collective (Prins Claus Conservatoire), celebrating artistic practice as a force of creativity and connection. Together, the symposium highlights sound as a vital medium for research, artistic expression, and cultural heritage—resonating across disciplines and communities.

Presentations Titles and Abstracts

1. Jan Torge Claussen

Listening to Climate Change through Media Technologies and Sound Art

In an environment shaped by digital media, natural ecosystems form diverse representations that can be assigned to a media ecology of knowledge: Natural scientists use so-called Eco Acoustic Monitoring to analyze the soundscapes of the forest and gain an overview of the biodiversity and constitution of the ecosystem based on data from countless microphones. Field recording is spreading as an aesthetic practice across disciplinary boundaries and creating new forms of perception of the acoustic environment. Music productions by Dominik Eulberg, Pantha du Prince and Cosmo Sheldrake, for example, have been recognized for their nature-oriented aesthetics. Media Artworks are diverse in the face of climate change and include field recording of soundscapes, sampling, audio hacking, machine learning, electronic sound synthesis processes and sonification. Drawing on the scientific concepts of ecomusicology, soundscape ecology and sound studies I will present some of those diverse aesthetic strategies that reflect on the biodiversity loss and manmade climate change. 

2. Jelmer Althuis

Transported by Sound: Immersive Audio for Cultural Heritage and Wellbeing

Sound has the unique ability to transport audiences beyond their everyday reality, turning them into participants in history, stories, and calming environments. In heritage and museum contexts, immersive audio can transform static objects into living experiences that resonate emotionally and intellectually. Drawing from projects such as Oorlog Dichtbij (Akerk, Groningen) and international VR wellness applications like VRelax, I will explore how spatial sound design creates presence, evokes empathy, and opens imaginative pathways that visuals alone cannot achieve. This talk examines the challenges of reconstructing authentic soundscapes in difficult environments and shows how artistic composition, scientific research, and technology intersect to bring cultural heritage closer to its audiences. By positioning sound not as background but as the connective tissue of cultural storytelling, I argue for its role as both a vessel of memory and a sanctuary for mental restoration.

3. Kristin McGee

Slow Listening in the Urban Jungle

The 2023 participatory soundscape project Listen Here Now at the University of Groningen involved the multidisciplinary study of biodiversity and well-being in relation to the urban forest. During one year, ornithologists, physicists, cultural geographers, and music scholars/performers combined analytical and creative approaches such as sound appraisal, birdsong analysis, soundwalks, and artistic soundscape performances. Our design developed and adapted key concepts including slow listening, response-ability, and interspecies kinmaking through sound. This presentation explores how soundscape performances can stimulate defamiliarized aesthetic expressions of wildness (and ‘wild’ music genres), while drawing attention to the sonic identity and heritage of Groningen’s urban forest. Rather than othering and exoticizing nature in musical transformations akin to the 1950’s studio-driven, high fidelity genre of exotica, I’ll offer strategies for more inclusive and responsive connections to local forms of wildness. These straategies seek to situate urban forest-engaged and improvisatory performances as sonic attachments which can stimulate interspecies worldmaking for more sustainable and liveable cities.

4. Olivia Shkreli and Hannes Arvid Andersson

Harmonic Mind: Exploring Sound Beyond Hearing

In Harmonic Mind, Olivia Shkreli and Hannes Arvid Andersson present an open-ended, interdisciplinary exploration into composing with binaural beats on both structural and emotional levels. Moving beyond the static tones commonly found online, their research investigates how resonance, harmonics, and frequency interactions—through pulses, pitch variation, drones, and recordings of instruments and choir—can form more organic and human-friendly soundscapes.

Using custom-built software in Max/MSP to generate and manipulate tones, they explored frequency relationships and examined how different sonic qualities—steady versus irregular pulses, gradual versus abrupt pitch changes, and layered harmonic textures—shape subjective listening experiences. Early findings suggest that steady rhythms and gradual modulations may enhance focus, emotional resonance, and embodied listening, while abrupt shifts can disrupt entrainment. Rather than seeking definitive answers, Harmonic Mind remains an ongoing investigation into how compositional and psychoacoustic strategies can expand the role of binaural beats in therapy, meditation, and experimental sound design.

5. Nightlife (Anice Hut & Andres Fouché, 2025)

Nightlife is a film which explores the intersections between art, ecology, and scientific inquiry. It explores themes such as light pollution, biodiversity in the city, and the relationship between people and nature. The film offers researchers and students audiovisual insights relevant for the fields of  environmental sciences, biology, spatial sciences, urban studies, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and arts, media and culture. The film seeks to raise reflection and social awareness on Groningen’s urban nightlife, in all its human and more than human forms. Voice overs are provided by local artist Skits Vicious (Dope D.O.D.) and the film features a soundtrack brimming full with nocturnal sonic energy and local music genres including ambient to techno.

About the Speakers

Kristin McGee

Kristin McGee is Senior Lecturer in Popular Music at the University of Groningen and Senior Lecturer in Jazz and Contemporary Music Performance at the School of Music at the Australian National University. Her research projects and publications span topics and approaches including ecocritical studies of soundscapes and urban ecologies, to popular music, jazz performance practice, and audiovisual media through the lens of intersectionality. Publications include Some Liked it Hot: Jazz Women in Film and Television, 1928-1959 (Wesleyan University Press 2009), Remixing European Jazz Culture (Routledge 2020), and a co-edited volume Beyoncé in the World: Meaning Making in Troubled Times (Wesleyan 2021). McGee is also a saxophonist and has performed with groups in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Groningen.

Kirsten van den Bosch

Kirsten van den Bosch is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences at the University of Groningen. Her research focuses on the relationship between people and their soundscape and the psychological effects of sound.

Stacey Copeland

Stacey Copeland is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Heritage & Identity in the Research Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen. Copeland’s work on sound and media cultures has been published in top-ranking journals, including Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media and Emerging Media. She actively works to produce publicly accessible sonic scholarship that bridges research and creative practice. https://staceycopeland.com/.

Jelmer Althuis

Jelmer Althuis is an immersive sound designer and founder of Sphere of Sound, creating award-winning spatial audio experiences for VR, exhibitions, and cultural heritage. His projects, from international Audiotours and Exhibitions to wellness collaborations, explore how sound can transport audiences into stories and environments that foster both connection and calm. He regularly speaks on the role of immersive audio in shaping meaningful cultural and mental wellbeing experiences.

Jan Torge Claussen

Jan Torge Claussen is a postdoctoral researcher and media artist. He conducts research at the intersection of music and digital media and experiments with the perception and production of sound in various contexts. As part of his research and teaching activities at the University of Oldenburg, the Leuphana University of Lüneburg and the Hamburg Media School, he focuses on music production, sound studies, artificial intelligence and digital education. For further informations visit https://gegenwaerts.com/

Film makers

Anice Hut

Anice Hut (1999) is a Dutch scriptwriter and film director born and based in Groningen. She creates artistically rendered nature films — films that aim to inspire, educate, and spark wonder and especially for young audiences. Hut began drawing and writing at a young age and later developed her skills in filmmaking and photography. Her work often explores nature and art from fresh, imaginative perspectives. She has directed several artistic music videos and currently focuses on nature documentaries, including her first nature film Nightlife, which reveals the hidden lives of urban wildlife in the city of Groningen. More about her work can be found at anicehut.com.

Andres Fouché

Andres Fouché (1988) is a French award-winning director, known for his visually powerful music videos and short films for artists such as Onyx, Dope D.O.D., Torre Florim, and Noisia. With over 25 million views on YouTube, his work reflects a deep fascination with the mysteries and hidden beauty of the world. He has received several awards, including 'Best Music Video' for De Staat – Firestarter at the Netherlands Film Festival. In addition to his success in the music world, Fouché has always maintained a strong passion for nature filmmaking. Over time, his desire to tell meaningful, nature-driven stories continued to grow. When colleague Anice Hut shared her idea for Nightlife, it reignited that passion. Together, they combined their creative strengths to explore Groningen’s vibrant nightlife and its often-overlooked natural world — aiming to foster a deeper appreciation for nature in urban environments. More on Fouché ’s work can be found at https://www.andresfouche.com/

Programme