What’s on offer?
amplify /ˈamplɪfʌɪ : to make larger or greater (as in amount, importance, or intensity), “increase the volume of (sound), especially using an amplifier….enlarge upon or add detail to (a story or statement).” (Miriam Webster, Oxford Languages)
Dr Julia Udall, Dr Becky Shaw, Dr Tom Payne (Sheffield Hallam University) have been working together to make a lexicon of Autonomous Publishing. This interactive web platform brings together publishing practices from different disciplines so that their ways of making space, and publics can be explored.
Amplifying Climate Dialogues is a sonic development of this project that takes the form of a unique one-off event, resulting in a collaboratively produced audio work published on the lexicon website under the term amplify. This special recording will feature discussions about climate and the environment with chosen experts at SHU, students, diverse young people and others involved in the climate movement in Sheffield.
Prior to the event, participants will be invited to take part in curated personal conversations. The resulting recordings will go beyond experts speaking about space and environment and will try to evoke (not illustrate or describe) the urgent themes in question. At the event, the audience will be invited to experience the spectrum of relationships between near and far, belonging and being outside. While the recordings will involve spoken word, additional emphasis will be on the space materialised through sonic possibilities at the Performance Lab, Sheffield Hallam University.
What’s it about?
This listening event will focus on the ways audio can produce space for climate dialogues and foster community through its material qualities. The 2021 IPCC report on climate change indicates that for cities, such as Sheffield, “ [...] some aspects of climate change may be amplified, including heat (since urban areas are usually warmer than their surroundings), flooding from heavy precipitation events and sea level rise in coastal cities.” (https://www.ipcc.ch). By recording intimate curated conversations, and composing from the recordings live in the studio at the Performance Lab, we seek to convene a politically powerful space, in which diverse voices and experiences are brought into adjacency, exposing inequalities, and the different agencies and struggles within the landscape of Sheffield. At the event, we seek to create a temporally present community by bringing recorded voices together, layering images, sounds, and bodies in the space. By simultaneously broadcasting a live audio feed, we aim to conjure an imagined or real community of other listeners and to harness the evocative capacity of audio.
Who’s leading the event?
This audio event is facilitated by Sheffield Hallam’s Dr Tom Payne (Performance), and Dr Julia Udall (Architecture). The project has been developed in partnership with audio artist Dr Alex De Little with technical support from the College of Arts at Social Sciences.
Open to
Anyone is welcome to listen online, or to download it at a later date. Podcast to be made available on http://www.autonomouspiblishing.org
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