Current environmentally concerned sound art and science is in a similar situation that was resolved within the field of visual arts in the beginning of the 1990s. Since then the work of environmentally oriented artists was more or less recognised as a distinct movement in its own right. This open list is an attempt to bring together some names of people, initiatives and institutions approaching and thinking about sound in such a way that it resonates within the general critical environmental agenda of today. Not necessary it collides with musicians using field recordings as a material for their music composition, sound work, sound installations, radiophony etc. As well, the profession of artist or scientist is necessarily not conditional.
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (1952) is a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Niels Bohr Professor in the Department of Culture and Society at Aarhus University in Denmark. She is the author of In the Realm of the Diamond Queen (1993), Friction (2005) and The Mushroom at the End of the World. Tsing received her B.A. from Yale University and completed her masters and Ph.D. at Stanford University.
Toshiya Tsunoda is a Japanes sound artist (Born in 1964 in Kanagawa, Japan), known for using field recordings and sound collages. He studied oil painting at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he received an MFA. In 1994, he co-founded and ran label WrK alongside m/s, releasing sound art pieces from various young Japanese sound artists, including his own. He currently runs labels Skiti and edition.t.
Aino Tytti is a sound recordist, sound artist and composer. He regularly receives commissions from partners as diverse as the BBC, the Wellcome Trust and Ace Hotel, with projects taking him to destinations as far as the Snæfellsnes volcano in Iceland, the wilds of Patagonia and as close to home as the Millennium Mills in London’s docklands. Tytti’s latest self-initiated release is Millennium Mills, released on the Touch record label in the UK.
Tetsuya Umeda (born 1980) one of the leading artists working with sound installation and performance. Umeda employs minimal electronic means to produce sound from everyday objects, such as balloons, fans, tin cans and dog whistles, in a transparent process that takes place before the viewers' eyes. His self-created sound tools retain their particular histories and operate by reflecting the surrounding conditions of the space: temperature, shape, air flow, people's motion.
Mario de Vega (born in Mexico City, 1979) is sound and visual artist. His work includes site-specific interventions, sculpture, dramaturgy, publications and psychoacoustic phenomena that frequently push the limits of audio perception. Working in the fields of sound and visual arts since late 90´s, and Berlin-based since 2008, de Vega uses the exhibition space to dig into notions of verticality, privacy and ghosted machinery, using large-scale pyrotechnics, electronic interfaces and induced situations.
Working with silence, vibration, ambiguity and the spatial realities imposed by an exhibition context, Mario de Vega observes sound as a psychological event, which automatically incorporates the possibility of a non-happening as well. As a sound artist, de Vega’s works often act as translations of high and low frequencies into audible sounds - displaying a particular interest in using infrasound to produce visceral, psychoacoustic reactions in the listener.
David Velez (born 1973) is a sound artist / composer, born in Bogotá, Colombia. His work with sonic art and experimental music focuses on how the acoustic experience can help expand and rediscover the way in which we experience and understand our tangible and intangible surroundings. Field recordings have always been a central element in his performing and compositional practice; therefore microphones, piezos and hydrophones are essential devices, allowing for the perception of unnoticeable sounds, and the accentuation and transformation of my surrounding sounds.
Stephen Vitiello is an electronic musician and sound artist who transforms incidental atmospheric noises into mesmerizing soundscapes that alter our perception of the surrounding environment. He has composed music for independent films, experimental video projects and art installations, collaborating with such artists as Nam June Paik, Tony Oursler and Dara Birnbaum.
Salomé Voegelin is a Swiss artist and writer based in London, engaged in listening as a socio-political practice of sound. Her work and writing deal with sound, the world sound makes: its aesthetic, social and political realities that are hidden by the persuasiveness of a visual point of view. She is the author of Listening to Noise and Silence, 2010, Sonic Possible Worlds, 2014, and The Political Possibility of Sound, 2018.
Chris Watson began his sound-inspired quest in Sheffield in 1971 as a founder member of the Dadaist performance group Cabaret Voltaire. Since 1981, he has branched out into other related areas and developed an interest in sound recording techniques and the art of letting sounds be themselves. He regularly collaborated with the auditory research project The Hafler Trio. These days, he is mostly known as the authority on wildlife and field recording.
