SOUND AND SPACE RESEARCH

Resound Kefalonia, A Case Study of the "Surviving Aural Spaces"

This paper examines emerging artistic experiments led by Resound Kefalonia (2018), a Sound and Space Research group operating on the island of Kefalonia, Greece, as a case study of the region’s surviving aural spaces. Initiated by artist-researcher Sandra Volny, Sound and Space Research uses in situ sensorial experimentation as the main tool to expose “The Surviving Aural Spaces,” a key concept of Volny’s research. Hidden in the background noise and spatial echoes, the surviving takes shape in sonic traces, sonic residues, and sonic fossils. Persistent while intangible, resisting their own disappearance, surviving aural spaces appear in the tenuousness of our environment and our memories. The paper reflects on the response of the team to the island’s sonic territory, as well as a site-specific workshop led by invited sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard. Topics and questions raised by these experiments inspire innovative models of contextual, collective, and interdisciplinary collaborations. In the clash of our remembering, it is necessary to stretch the ear in order to become conscious of our aural universe. Resound Kefalonia reiterates the importance of auditory awareness in paying attention to our surroundings, and listening to the history and the stories of the unheard.

Sandra VolnyJanuary 13, 2021

Listening into microbial sounds for environmental awareness

Ruth Schmidt and Sandry Volny listen into microbial sounds, and through their creative work, offer us a new perspective on our environment, since microbial communication is invisible to us day to day. They joined forces to combine science and art in the Aural Soilscapes Project to bring about our attention to our connection with the natural environment, and to increase awareness about climate change. Ruth Schmidt and Sandra Volny teamed up to talk to us.

“we aspire to move away from the anthropocentric view of considering plants and other living organisms as objects, and move towards a holistic view of ecosystems interacting with each other and creating awareness to the interconnectedness of living organisms with the environment.”

Clarissa WrightMarch 6, 2019

(dis)location: art in a mobile age, February 16th & 17th, 2019

8th Annual Concordia University Undergraduate Art History Conference, February 16th & 17th, 2019

Artist Sandra Volny has been invited to discuss her research at the upcoming FASA Artist Panel: Redefining & Reconsidering Space, along with Florence Yee, Be Heintzman Hope and Liane Decary-Chen moderated by Lucas LaRochelle.

From the movement and appropriation of cultural artefacts within early colonial missions, to the increasing digitization of mediums, museums, and the archive, art objects and their locations of presentation have created much of the basis of what we know as art history today. However, with the overwhelming technological advancements that have taken place over the last century, the world has seen major shifts in global communication, trade, and migration. These shifts, reflected considerably within the art market, have been subject to an array of critiques on power and distribution. Yet these shifts have also inspired the work of many contemporary artists to facilitate and create new virtual connections and spaces for those who had previously been excluded from traditional art spaces. Drawing on issues of representation, mobility, and location, from the past, present, and even the future, the 8th Annual Concordia University Undergraduate Art History Conference, (dis)location, delves into the role of place within art and society; and what follows when bodies and objects are displaced.

Taking place at Concordia University, on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory, (dis)location gestures to Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal’s own diverse experience of place; its role in the history of settler colonialism, Quebec Separatism, and its complex relationship to immigration. In line with this, the conference the Concordia Undergraduate Journal of Art History (CUJAH) encourages scholars, students, and artists to reflect on their own positionality in relation to the creation, distribution and theorisation of art.

CUJAHFebruary 7, 2019

Aural Soilscapes : creating ecological consciousness to climate change

Aural Soilscapes : creating ecological consciousness to climate change is an ongoing Art-Science research project aiming to cross the artificial boundaries separating contemporary arts and sciences.

Aural Soilscapes : creating ecological consciousness to climate change is a collaboration between the artist Sandra Volny, PhD founder at Sound and Space Research, with Ruth Schmidt, PhD in biology and postdoctoral fellow at Etienne Yergeau’s lab at IRNS, François-Joseph Lapointe PhD artist and tenured professor of biology at Université de Montréal, Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne PhD senior scientist at the Sustainability Science Lab at McGill University, Nicolas Bélanger PhD professor, Department of Environmental Sciences and Technology at TELUQ, and Ariel Beaudoin-Lambert, student currently doing a DESS in art, creation and technology at Université de Montréal.

“How do sounds from our environment influence us as humans and how do we stand in relationship to other ecosystems and living organism? Animals, plants, microbes use sounds to communicate with each other, the same way as we do as humans. We want to move away from the anthropocentric view of considering plants and other living organisms as objects and move towards a holistic view on ecosystems interacting with each other."

Sandra VolnyJanuary 1, 2019

Exhibition Quebec Center for Biodiversity Science

QCBS Symposium 2018

“it is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science”

-Carl Sagan, Astrophysicist

“Art and nature shall always be wrestling until they eventually conquer one another so that the victory is the same stroke and line: that which is conquered, conquers at the same time.”

-Maria Sibylla Merian

Both art and science uses observation and experimentation, seeking to understand aspects of the complex world around us. Despite this common ground, the disciplines are too often separated by boundaries that are difficult to overcome. Even though pioneer scientists, like Maria Sibylla Merian and Leonardo da Vinci have combined artistic practices since the beginnings of scientific discoveries. Recently, the term STEAM*, describing that art and science benefit from convergence and increased transdisciplinary practices, is becoming increasingly popular. The goal of this panel is to talk about the place of art in science, science in art and the importance of STEAM within biodiversity sciences. We aim to explore the potential of combining scientific and artistic ideas and practises not only for outreach purposes but also as a way to expand our perspectives, both as scientists and artists as well as for a better understanding of our ecosystems.

The panel will be accompanied by an exhibition “Silence starts at -425m” by Sandra Volny that will take place during the poster session

Sandra VolnyNovember 29, 2018

Resound Kefalonia 2018 στο Ιόνιο Κέντρο. Συνέντευξη με την Sandra Volny

INTERVIEW WITH SANDRA VOLNY, KEFALONIA, KATERINA FOKA MAY 13, 2018

Την Δευτέρα 21 Μαΐου έγινε στο Ιόνιο κέντρο τεχνών και πολιτισμού στα Μεταξάτα, η παρουσίαση του έργου " Sound and Space Research : Resound Kefalonia 2018" . Συμμετείχαν οι Sandra Volny , Jacob Kirkegaard, Cobi Van Tonder, Claudia Mattai del Moro , Pierre Leichner, Frouke Wiarda, Simon Belair , Marie Doucest Jacques, Andrea Jane. Marie-Douce St-Jacques and Andrea-Jane Cornell.
Εμείς βρεθήκαμε με την υπεύθυνη της παρουσίασης Sandra Vonly όπου μας παραχώρησε μια μικρή συνέντευξη .

Η Sandra Volny ζει και εργάζεται ανάμεσα στο Παρίσι, τη Γαλλία και το Μόντρεαλ του Καναδά. Έλαβε τις πρακτικές της Masters (MFA) στο Πανεπιστήμιο Concordia στο Μόντρεαλ, και τα ερευνητικά μαθήματα της στο Πανεπιστήμιο της Σορβόννης στο Παρίσι. Η γοητεία της με την αφρικανική αφηρημένη επίγνωση την οδήγησε να αναπτύξει και να εμβαθύνει ένα σύνολο θεωρητικών έργων, καλλιτεχνικών πειραμάτων και συλλογικών εργαστηρίων κατά τα τελευταία χρόνια. Πρόσφατα ολοκλήρωσε τη διδακτορική της διατριβή στις Επιστήμες Τεχνών και Αισθητικής στο πανεπιστήμιο Panthéon-Sorbonne του Παρισιού.

INTERVIEW KATERINA FOKA WITH SANDRA VOLNY, MAY 13, 2018

<<Sound and Space Research: Resound Κεφαλονιά 2018>>.

Where is your work focusing?

My work focuses on sound spaces. I am interested in the way we listen to our spaces: in what way sound in spaces affects our behaviours, our emotions?

-Πού επικεντρώνεται η εργασία σας;

Το έργο μου επικεντρώνεται σε χώρους ήχου. Ενδιαφέρομαι για τον τρόπο με τον οποίο αφουγκραζόμαστε τους χώρους μας: Με ποιο τρόπο οι ήχοι στους χώρους που ζούμε επηρεάζουν τις συμπεριφορές μας η τα συναισθήματά μας.

How did you decide to come to Kefalonia ?

In 2016 I found out about the SEA(S) Forum on internet. At this time, my research was dealing with ocean’s soundscapes. I was just coming back from a residency in Chile where I researched the way traditional fisherman displayed the ability to locate precisely the coastline’s bays, shores and peninsulas by listening to the echoes of the waves hitting the rocks. I was interested in the way they have developed their fine memories of the aural spaces in extremely rudimentary and dangerous conditions. I contacted the Ionion Center with this work, that was not yet finished at the time. I had the beautiful chance to start discussing with the Ionion. Following our discussions, my new work ‘’Where does sound go, where does it come from’’ concerning the fisherman in Chile was included in the SEA Forum 2017 and I had the great opportunity to organize a master class at the Ionion Center in June 2017.

Katerina FokaMay 29, 2018