Points of Reference

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.

Claudia Wegener

Claudia Wegener working under the name "Radio Continental Drift", has been recording sounds across Southern Africa for the past ten years. Claudia was a founding member of the artists’ group Foreign Investment. Through performances such as Good Morning Camberwell (curated by Mark McGowan, London 2005) and The Venice Oratory (curated by William Furlong, Venice 2005), Foreign Investment used sound to explore notions of free exchange and the airwaves as a meeting point between publicly and privately owned space.

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Hildegard Westerkamp

Hildegard Westerkamp was born in Osnabrück, Germany in 1946 and emigrated to Canada in 1968. After completing her music studies at the University of British Columbia in the early seventies she joined the World Soundscape Project under the direction of R. Murray Schafer at Simon Fraser University. Her involvement with this project not only activated deep concerns about noise and the general state of the acoustic environment in her, but it also changed her ways of thinking about music, listening and soundmaking.

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Louise K Wilson

Louise K Wilson is a visual artist who makes installations, live works, sound works and single channel videos. Processes of research are central to her practice and she frequently involves the participation of individuals from industry, museums, medicine and the scientific community in the making of work. Previous associations have included the Montreal Neurological Institute, the Science Museum, the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training facility in Moscow, the RSPB and the Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service.

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Jana Winderen

Jana Winderen is a former marine biologist and an artist who currently lives and works in Norway. Her practice pays particular attention to audio environments and to creatures which are hard for humans to access, both physically and aurally – deep under water, inside ice or in frequency ranges inaudible to the human ear. Her activities include site-specific and spatial audio installations and concerts, which have been exhibited and performed internationally in major institutions and public spaces.

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Mark Peter Wright

Mark Peter Wright is an artist-researcher working at the intersection of sound, ecology and contemporary art. His practice investigates relations of capture and mediation between humans and nonhumans, sites and technologies, observers and subjects. Ongoing questions include how does environmental sound convey complex geopolitical meaning? How can technology and media be practiced with an eco-critical sensitivity and how might listening operate beyond the human?

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Aaron Ximm

Aaron Ximm is a San Francisco-based field recordist and sound artist. Since 1998 his Quiet American project has focused on constructing new soundscapes from the intimate recordings he collects while traveling. Ximm's recordings and compositions have appeared in a variety of contexts, including galleries, performances, and on the radio. Along with his wife, Bronwyn, he won the Third Coast Festival's Directors' Choice Award in 2002 for Annapurna: Memories in Sound, which is available for download along with hours of other recordings and compositions at

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Jan Zalasiewicz

Jan Zalasiewicz is Emeritus Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Leicester, having started his career at the British Geological Survey. He is a member of the Anthropocene Working Group, and chairs the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. A field geologist, palaeontologist and stratigrapher, particular fields of study include fossils (particularly graptolites) and mudrocks of Early Palaeozoic age, and Quaternary deposits, including the Anthropocene.

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CENSE

Central European Network for Sonic Ecologies

Points of Reference