Voice recordings at the Reichenau memorial site

From 18 to 20 September, the ÆSR Mobile Lab was in operation in Innsbruck. As part of a research trip, we made the Mobile Lab available to Ricarda Denzer, a lecturer at the University of Applied Arts (KKP department), so that she could take photographs on site for her project in the context of the Reichenau memorial site (Gedenkorts Reichenau).

The memorial site will be located directly on the banks of the Inn River east of the Grenoble Bridge, in the immediate vicinity of the former camp complex. An open pavilion with a roof sculpture will mark the beginning of the memorial and provide space for reflection. Visitors will be able to obtain information about the ‘labour education camp’ (1941–1944, around 8,500–8,600 prisoners) and the ‘Camp North’ (around 700 prisoners). Along timelines on the ground, concrete and glass terrazzo ‘name stones’ will be created bearing the names, origins and ages of the 114 people known to have been murdered. Additional floor elements will visualise the total number of prisoners, while an accompanying audio trail and digital content will provide additional information.

During the research trip, 114 people agreed to participate in voice recordings, which were recorded in the mobile lab. Each voice becomes part of an audio tour and is intended to help keep the memory of the victims alive. The voices represent the sound melodies of the victims' countries of origin – including Italy, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Croatia, Slovenia, Belgium, France, Great Britain, China, the Netherlands, Czechia and Serbia – and allow referring to the individual biographies of the victims.

With this research trip, the ÆSR Mobile Lab was able to support artist Ricarda Denzer in making an important contribution to the implementation of the audio tour and in making the connection between artistic research, historical reappraisal and participatory remembrance visible.

ÆSR Public Lecture with ANNIE GOH und MARK PETER WRIGHT

Date: 22.05,2025

Start: 17:00 Uhr 

Location: Zentrum Fokus Forschung, Rustenschacheralle 2

ÆSR Public Lecture is a co-operation of the ÆSR Lab and the seminar Auditory Cultures by Kristina Pia Hofer.

Annie Goh: The Whiteness of Echo: the always already colonial in archaeoacoustics

In this talk I will play and talk through sounds collected from my fieldwork observing the field of acoustic archaeology, or archaeoacoustics. I propose understanding the figure of echo as a material-semiotic figuration of sonic knowledge production, which analysis thereof can help us understand contemporary assumptions about sound and sonic matter. I aim to outline how the echo is shaped by coloniality, whiteness and cisheteropatriarchy and on the basis of its limitations, I seek to re-conceptualise echo as a feminist and decolonial sonic figuration. 

Mark Peter Wright: Micologies

Whether recording the sound of environments or voices, the microphone is a key actor for sound arts practice and research. It is part of an assembly of media and senses that participate and interpret place. Yet for all their integral performance in the construction of knowledge, microphones are rarely heard in the recordings they capture or referred to in textual accounts. They are surreptitious actors that slip by unnoticed; absent yet utterly present.

This presentation will reconfigure the role of recording technology within sound arts/studies via an investigative aesthetic approach (Weizman and Fuller, 2021). I will present an ‘autopsy’ of a specific microphone that aims to deconstruct and follow its elemental and political flows. It is vital to consider these medianatures (Parikka, 2012) in the chain of sonic thinking and doing; from microphones, cables, recording devices, SD cards, and batteries; to copper, neodymium, PVC, rubber, silicon, silver, gold, palladium, aluminum, zinc, manganese, and potassium. These are just some of the natural resources that facilitate digital investigations. What are the consequences of such entanglements? What are we not hearing when we grip the plastic casing of a microphone? What footprint is going unheard?

About:

‍Dr Annie Goh is an artist and researcher. Her work, in its numerous forms from sound installation, composition and computer music to writing, performance and social practice, takes a critical approach to contemporary debates in the fields of digital technologies, media arts, generative and computational processes and communication studies, with a particular focus on sound, intersectional feminism, decolonial theory and the politics of knowledge production. She co-curated the discourse program of CTM Festival Berlin 2013-2016 and is co-founder of the Sonic Cyberfeminisms project since 2015 with Marie Thompson. She is currently Course Leader of BA Sound Arts at LCC, UAL and a member of CRiSAP (Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice). 

Mark Peter Wright is an artist and researcher working at the intersection of sound arts, experimental pedagogy, and critical theory. His practice blends the field and lab, site and gallery, amplifying forms of power and poetics within the creative use of sound and documentary media. He is the Director of CRiSAP (Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice), UAL, and the author of Listening After Nature: Field Recording, Ecology, Critical Practice (Bloomsbury, 2022/23). https://markpeterwright.net/

WORKSHOP INVITATION

Artificial Echoes: Sonic Explorations with Artificial Intelligence

Dates: 10.-12. March 2025 / daily 10-16H

Registration Deadline: Fr. 14.02.

Announcement of accepted candidates: Fr. 21.02.2024

Number of Participants: 12 

Language: English / German

Prior Knowledge: basic knowledge in Music Production Software (Audacity, Reaper, Ableton, …) beneficial but not mandatory

Tech. Requirements: Laptop, Headphones, Field Recorder (not mandatory), Audio Material you want to work with (min. ~30 min)

ÆSR LAB invites you to join this 3-day workshop that explores AI’s role in sound generation, focusing on voice cloning, dataset creation, and innovative sound workflows. Participants will use state-of-the-art tools for voice cloning and sample-based training for sound generation. The workshop emphasizes creativity, allowing attendees to train custom datasets and generate unique soundscapes. Open to Angewandte and mdw students, the course is free of charge, but no ECTS credits are allocated. The workshop is held at Zentrum Fokus Forschung, University of Applied Arts Vienna by Moritz Haberkorn and Stefan Maier. First-come, first-served selection with a gender-balanced approach.

We kindly request that only participants register who are able to attend all three days of the workshop. 

Registration process: 

Send a mail to aesr-info@uni-ak.ac.at with the subject: REGISTRATION Artificial Echoes. The email should include your name and the department in which you are studying.

Until Fr. 21.02.2024 you will receive a message if you have been accepted

For the ones accepted, ÆSR Lab will send you further information

ÆSR Sound Projection Lab at Festival Medienfrische

The ÆSR Sound Projection Lab will support the course for electroacoustic and experimental music (ELAK) from May 30 to June 5 at the interdisciplinary art festival Medienfrische in Bschlabs, Tyrol. During the festival, the small community will be transformed into a platform for experimental art.

On June 1, students from the course will put on a concert evening, and Thomas Grill will perform “Dirty Space 2” on June 2. The technical infrastructure for the residency and these events will be provided by the ÆSR Sound Projection Lab.

ÆSR Sound Projection Lab – Kulturhauptstadt Salzkammergut 2024

Das ÆSR Sound Projection Lab präsentiert sich im Rahmen der Kulturhauptstadt Salzkammergut 2024 mit einer Vielzahl an Kooperationen vom 5. bis 11. August 2024. Das Programm umfasst von Field-Recording-Workshops über Klanginstallationen bis hin zu Konzertabenden.

Cooperation with Johanna Schindler, University of Applied Arts Vienna

As part of the ÆSR Lab, students of the MA Expanded Museum Studies were guests at the Phonogrammarchiv on March 3. Kerstin Klenke, Conny Gruber, Bernhard Graf and Jasemin Khaleli were involved as lecturers to provide insights into the history and working areas of the archive. In addition to a tour of the premises and a brief presentation of the archive “in 6 figures”, the focus was also on questions of presentation, (re)contextualization and recirculation of sensitive archive holdings—both in the digital space using the example of the online edition of historical holdings as well as in museum exhibition contexts and artistic collaborations.

On October 24, 2024, the ÆSR Lab - consisting of team members from the Phonogrammarchiv (ÖAW), the Angewandte and the mdw - visited the MediaLab of the University of Vienna under the direction and cooperation of Jörg Mühlhans and Christoph Reuter. In addition to an introduction to the premises and possibilities for usage, which range from cameras and microphones to precise motion measurements such as motion capture and eye tracking, we exchanged on research infrastructures at universities, access options and experiences of the lab, which has been established since 2019.

A meeting with colleagues from the “City of Sound” Struer, Denmark, also offered an exciting perspective on future cooperation: on October 30, three researchers and sound artists from the Struer Museum and SOKU (Center for Sonic Cultural Heritage) were guests at the Phonogrammarchiv. With the Sound Hub Denmark, the Sound Art Lab, the Struer Tracks Biennale and the commercial partner Bang & Olufsen, Struer already has interesting activities and technical infrastructures related to sound; the new project aims to further strengthen international knowledge transfer and networking.

We wish our colleagues Jacob Kreutzfeldt, Daniela Bretes Maciel Elneff and Mikkel Sørensen all the best for their project and look forward to future encounters!

A workshop by SONIME, a cooperation project of the Phonogrammarchiv and the University of Applied Arts with donors of audio letters

~Workshop language is German!~

The research project SONIME - Sonic Memories – Audio Letters in Times of Migration and Mobility collects, archives and researches on spoken greetings, messages and letters that were privately recorded on cassettes, tapes and other media, and sent by post to family, friends and acquaintances: similar to WhatsApp voice messages today, but in form of analog objects. We have already found many such audio and spoken letters in archives or received them from donors.

In this participatory workshop, we would like to reflect together with the participants on the special features of documenting and preserving private sources on migration histories. Many questions arise when archiving these testimonies of migration and mobility: What is actually preserved in the archives, where are the gaps? Is the perspective of the migrants who produced these private sources visible? How do the donors themselves want their personal objects to be remembered in the future? And how can the archive document these objects in the spirit of the donors and make them accessible to the public? Similar questions will be discussed in the three-hour workshop.

Date: Friday, 18.10.2024, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm

Location: Am Stadtbalkon, Bloch-Bauer-Promenade 13, 1100 Vienna

Due to limited room capacity, please register by e-mail to dominik.ivancic@uni-ak.ac.at.

Participation in the event is free of charge. We look forward to your participation!

A cooperation between the Phonogrammarchiv and the University of Applied Arts Vienna

Within the frame the ÆSR Lab, the seminar "Feminist Cultural Theories" took place in the summer term 2024 in collaboration with Kristina-Pia Hofer (Angewandte) and members of the Phonogrammarchiv, ÖAW. The aim of the practice-oriented seminar was to provide insights into the archive's areas of work and to develop (artistic) research perspectives on sound archives as powerful and historically shaped contexts of inequality. In doing so, the students came into contact with current issues in the fields of conservation, restoration, field research, ethics and law. The approach to archival practices beyond exploitative logics ultimately encouraged speculation about im/possible futurities: From the rotting of archives to community-centered approaches of participation or cloud-based storage.

Presentation of sound-space-temporal sculptures

As part of the Lange Nacht der Forschung, the ÆSR Sound Projection Lab is presenting sound sculptures in the foyer of the Future Art Lab at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (mdw). These are projected using an IKO loudspeaker system, which makes it possible to emit sounds in all directions of the architectural space. For this purpose, pieces were developed by students of the Course of Electroacoustic and Experimental Music (ELAK) and cooperation partners of the ÆSR-Lab, which will be played throughout the evening.

First admission: 17:00

Last admission: 22:00

Campus der mdw - Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien

Anton-von-Webern-Platz 1, 1030 Wien

Foyer des Future Art Lab (Ground floor)

On the musicality of budgies and anechoic chambers

On March 13, 2024, the ÆSR Lab project team - consisting of team members from the Phonogrammarchiv (ÖAW), the Angewandte and the mdw - visited the ARI Acoustics Research Institute (ÖAW). In addition to an introduction to and tour through the institute's labs in the Vienna Postal Savings Bank together with Peter Balazs and Piotr Majdak, the focus was also on imagining future collaborations: sound projection, machine learning and the development of efficient algorithms could be such posibilities and interfaces with the ÆSR Lab.

Sound Art Research LECTURE SERIES

The lecture series Sound Art Research is dedicated to pluralistic approaches in the field of sound and noise in the broadest sense. The cultural and political dimension of sound as a tool for the critical negotiation of content is just as much a part of the lectures as artistic strategies and interventions.

The lecture series will take place on the following dates:

13. März: HUI YE


22. März: MELISSA LOGAN


10. April: ANETTE HOFFMANN


24. April: BRANDON LaBELLE


07. Mai: BERNHARD LEITNER

22. Mai: MARIO DE VEGA


29. Mai: NATALIA DOMÍNGUEZ RANGEL

Details of the venue and time can be found at: https://base.uni-ak.ac.at/courses/2024S/S04881/

Video documentation of lectures that took place as part of the ÆSR Lab can now be found on YouTube.

Gesucht: technische/r Mitarbeiter*in (8H)

Photo documentation Kick-Off

Here are a few impressions of the ÆSR Lab Kick-Off, which took place from 13 - 15 November at the Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab and the Zentrum Fokus Forschung.

Under the title SOUND (ART) RESEARCH, more than forty researchers came together to share and discuss their topics and positions on sound research with the audience in lectures, keynotes and panel discussions.

The kick-off of the ÆSR Lab will take place from 13 - 15 November. The programme includes keynotes, lectures and sound performances.

Date/start: 01.09.2023
Title: New courses online

As of today, the sound courses for the coming winter semester are listed under Teaching on our website. There you will find an overview of courses at the mdw and Angewandte. Further information can be found under TEACHING