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.
Jeph Jerman (born 1959 In Hagåtña, island of Guam) is an American sound artist and musician. He records sound fragments or collects found objects which he uses in his improvisations and performances. As a contemplative walker without a set destination, he is interested in the pure sound without references. To what we listen is not so important, what matters most is the time, place and the way we listen.
Sonic journalism is a term proposed by Peter Cusack for his project Sounds from dangerous places.org and is based on the premise that: "all sound, including non–speech, gives information about places and events and that listening provides valuable insights different from, but complimentary to, visual images and language. This does not exclude speech but redresses the balance towards the relevance of other sounds. In practice field recordings become the means to achieve this. Recordings can, of course, be used in many ways.
Douglas Kahn (1951 in Bremerton, Washington, USA) is an American/Australian academic and writer. Kahn is known primarily for his writings on the use of sound in the avant-garde and experimental arts and music, and history and theory of the media arts. His writings have also been influential in the scholarly area of sound studies and the practical area of sound art. His best known book Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts was published by MIT Press in 1999.
Joseph Kamaru, aka KMRU, is a sound artist and experimental ambient musician, raised in Nairobi, Kenya, and currently based in Berlin where he is a Master’s student in Sound Studies and Sonic Arts at the Universität der Künste. His work posits expanded listening cultures of sonic thoughts and sound practices, a proposition to consider and reflect on auditory cultures beyond the norms, and an awareness of surroundings through creative compositions and installations.
AM Kanngieser is a geographer and sound artist, working through listening and attunement to approach the relations between people, place and ecologies. Over the past decade she have been focused on experimenting with sonic methods and practices (including field recordings, radio building and training, sonic ethnographies, oral testimonies, songs, sonifications, composition, sound walks) for environmental-geographical research.
Ernst Karel works with sound, including electroacoustic music, experimental nonfiction sound works for multichannel installation and performance, and postproduction sound for nonfiction vilm [film/video], with an emphasis on observational cinema. His recent solo projects are edited/composed using unprocessed location recordings; in performance he sometimes combines these with analog electronics to create pieces which move between the abstract and the documentary.
Hannah Kemp-Welch is a sound artist with a socially-engaged practice. She produces audio installations and radio broadcasts with community groups, using voices, field recordings and found sounds. She also delivers workshops, makes zines and builds basic radios, aiming to open out sonic practices and technologies for all. Hannah is a member of feminist radio art group Shortwave Collective and the arts cooperative Soundcamp.
Jacob Kirkegaard (born 1975 in Denmark) is a sound artist. He graduated at the Academy of Arts and the Media in Cologne. Jacob is exploring sound in art with a scientific approach and his sound works focus on investigations into the potential musicality in hidden sound layers in the environment. In this context he has been capturing and exploring sounds from, for example, volcanic earth, ice, atmospheric phenomena, nuclear power plants and deserted places. His piece "Labyrinthitis" was created from sounds recorded inside his inner ear.
Ludwig Paul Koch (1881, Frankfurt am Main -1974, Harrow, London) was a broadcaster and sound recordist. An expert on recording animal sounds, he played a significant part in increasing the British public's appreciation of wildlife.
Simona Gabriela Kossak (1943 in Krakow, died 2007 in Bialystok) was a Polish biologist, ecologist, and professor of forest sciences. Kossak is known primarily for her efforts to preserve the remnants of natural ecosystems in Poland. Her work dealt with, among other things, the behavioral ecology of mammals. She sometimes referred to herself as a "zoo-psychologist.