Is it alive — Sono Sensing
Sono Sensing is a collective project of Alifiyah Imani & Vladimir Razhev
Category: sound installation, group exhibition
Exhibition Opening: November 18, 2022 | Duration: November 19 - November 22, 2022
Curated by: Rhizome Laboratory (Stephanie Fenner & Miguel Canal)
Venue: Hilbertraum, Berlin
Link: https://hilbertraum.org/2022-ich-spuere-was
Ich spüre was, was du nicht spürst - Group Exhibition
Image Courtesy: Rhizome Laboratory (Stephanie Fenner & Miguel Canal)
Curatorial Statement
Rhizome Laboratory (Stephanie Fenner & Miguel Canal)
What can we learn from plants, fungi, animals, water bodies, and their ecosystems? How can we relate and attune to
them through diverse media? How could we implement such learnings into our daily lives and allow ourselves to rewire
with what we have overlooked?
The human body's perception seems to be limited and sometimes overwhelmed by contemporary cityscapes. Consequently,
for many, there is an unawareness and a disconnection towards the relational worlds humans are part of. There are plenty of
phenomena on the planet that we tend to ignore but to which we could connect through diverse sensorial mediums.
By submerging in the ecosystems and paying close attention and care to plants, animals, fungi, and other vibrant entities
such as water bodies, we expand and open up our perceptions of the world we are part of. In this sense, we can become
aware of the many ways through which we are a 'complex we'. Networks of multi-species 'we,' through both human and
more-than-human relationships, in which 'we' is in an infinite composition. In this sense, as Marisol de La Cadena (2019)
describes the 'anthropo-not-seen', in a 'more-than-human' intraconnection, with bios and geos alike.
In this exhibition, we aim to engage with these questions through spatial, visual, sonic, and motion processes and learn
with these diverse organisms. Non-human communication, cooperative survival strategies, perception expansion, and
interspecies communities are some topics the participating artists navigate in their works.
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Is it alive
Details
10 x 10 x 30 cm
Tesla coil, microcontroller board, circuitry, and sound
Is it alive is a speculative listening prototype and thought experiment based on sound, life, and electromagnetic induction. It explores the potential for sound to influence both the external environment, and of the relation(s) between sound, and the concept of a soul.
Through the plasma speaker of a DIY Tesla coil placed inside an enclosed object, listeners are provoked to wonder, whether what they are listening to can be considered a living entity? When you take something out of its presumed context, can it still have a soul? The experiment does not aim to clarify an ambiguous reading with a straightforward yes or no. It asserts the change of what exists and asks us to reflect on our own nature in order to comprehend the peculiarities between the material and immaterial forms.
Through the plasma speaker of a DIY Tesla coil placed inside an enclosed object, listeners are provoked to wonder, whether what they are listening to can be considered a living entity? When you take something out of its presumed context, can it still have a soul? The experiment does not aim to clarify an ambiguous reading with a straightforward yes or no. It asserts the change of what exists and asks us to reflect on our own nature in order to comprehend the peculiarities between the material and immaterial forms.
