More Than Sense is an artistic, cultural and ecological project shaped by anthropogenic noise (pollution to more than humans).
Anthropogenic noise is a term developed by ecological scientists that covers different areas of human derived pollution (sound, light & chemical toxins) as it impacts a range of more than human species.
Anthropogenic Noise includes infrasonic sound from drilling and shipping interfering in the delicate hearing of marine species that live in the oceanic deep, to blinding artificial spectrums of light flooding into the eyes and habitats of nocturnal wildlife. Anthropogenic interference is polluting parks and gardens, cities, forests and rivers, drifting out across seas and into open skies. It has been linked to stranding in whales in our oceans and catastrophic insect population decline across Northern Europe.
Our own perceptual limits means we are unable to sense noise or interference in other life worlds without help. So our approach addresses the need for an advanced or expanded ‘sensability’, attuning the human imaginary with changing ecologies, paying attention to new and emerging scientific insights.
To do this, artists are working with a group of co-researchers drawn from across environmental humanities and sciences, monitoring and sharing information on the latest technological developments and insights; from visual ecology, exploring subjects ranging from avian magnetoreception and quantum sensing (how birds sense to aid bird migrations) through to the analysis of cortisol stress levels in the earwax of whales. We touch on the night visions of moths and the echo locations of the bat, whilst acknowledging forms of stewardship and indigenous knowing. We draw inspiration and have connections with artist networks in South East Asia (Animistic) Global South (Soil Assembly – see below) as well as artists providing new evidence through investigative practices in UK, Europe and USA.
Our work implies new forms of organisation, other forms of mapping and of knowing. Integrating different forms, knowledge or representations of the life worlds of others will, we hope, also help us coordinate responses, working with habitat designers to encompass other senses, creating cultural and behavioural awareness of human derived pollution, and thereby changing our shared ecological habitats so that we can make more than sense of the need for co-evolutionary politics (ecological / social) that address shared multi-species futures.
Latest: Anthropogenic Noise – Light Pollution
Sensational Nocturnal Ecologies. Presentation and project at World Biodiversity Forum in June 2024.Developed with support from Emmanuelle Briolat of Exeter Visual Ecology Research at Exeter University.
A Multispecies Red Light District for Amsterdam. A Propositional Image. Visual Essay for Journal of Cultural Politics. Duke University Press. Issue 20 (2024).
Soil Assembly at Kochi Biennale 2023. Artist presentation. Co-coordination of the event – for more information see the website.
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Thanks to the co-researcher network of artists, writers, academics, scientists, enthusiasts and environmental stewards that come from across informal, independent as well as institutional organisations at different scales. Some of their affiliations are listed below. Critically, they connect us, socially, ecologically, culturally, to a knowledge and experience of the more than human habitats, landscapes and species with which we cohabit this world.
We thank those individuals for coordinating support with; zone2source(NL) Mondrian Fonds(NL) Nieuw en Meer(NL) CREAM(UK) Srishit Insitute of Art and Design, Bengaluru(IN), Kochi Muziris Biennale, Kerala(IN), University of Reading(UK), Exeter Visual Ecology(UK) Natural History Museum(UK), Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew(UK) University of Westminster (UK), amongst others.