S+T+ARTS Regional Centers | Repairing the Present

For a More Harmonious City | Challenge nº21

How might we create a more harmonious city?

Consortium Partner: CCCB

The New European Bauhaus: BH3 Improve the quality of our lives

Problem Statement

Sound is increasingly a dimension of the city that has implications over many urban factors: from health to biodiversity to new forms of mobility. Interventions in the acoustic fabric of the city can be used to understand better urban dynamics, but also to improve living conditions for both humans and non-humans alike.

Keywords

Sound as data, Urban Acoustic Ecology, Sound Art, Sound as urban design, Citizen science

Challenge Context

The interruption of “the normal” that the months of lockdown in 2020 brought with them highlighted one aspect of city life that often goes unnoticed: the sonic dimension of urban space. Citizens rediscovered the act of listening as a form of tuning with other agents of the city that normally go unnoticed, especially other species that share our urban environment. They also could reflect upon how sound impacts our quality of life and conditions our experience of the city.

For a more harmonious city wants to highlight the key importance of sound both for understanding and improving urban dynamics and environments. The residency is aimed at artists wanting to use sound as a rich and useful data source to understand urban infrastructures, services and networks. Also, to investigate the acoustic ecology of Barcelona and how human and non-human sounds interact in the sonic footprint of the city.

Finally, while urban noise is often considered a form of pollution and silences the defining factor in quality life in terms of sound, this residency wants to encourage sound interventions in public space that can play a role in new experimental models of urbanism shaping a greener, more sustainable and participatory public streetscape.

Fellowship Characteristics: network, opportunities, and expectations

The fellowship network will be composed of: 1/ Sónar a flagship festival in Europe exploring the interactions between art, technology and innovation and pioneers in connecting new artistic disciplines with the general public, 2/Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – BarcelonaTech (UPC), one of the european leading technical universities in the fields of engineering, architecture, sciences and technology, and 3/ S+T+ARTS Regional Centre Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona – CCCB.

The selected artist is expected to travel to Barcelona, to develop the residency sometime from February to July 2022, to conduct field research, to experiment and attend activities and events at least 4 times during the fellowship period. During this period, the selected artist will have access to consult leading experts from the fields of science, technology, creativity and innovation who will guide the working process and the development of the final proposal.

The artist is expected to deliver a presentable outcome of the fellowship in the form of a prototype/show/installation which will be presented on 2 occasions: a first deliverable in the context of Sónar Festival 2022 (16-18 June 2022) and the final piece in an exhibition in the framework of the STARTS program.