The Underground Sound Project: Hearing the Unheard Right Beneath Our Feet

Keywords: Artist, Acoustic, Collaboration, Ecological, Urban/Rural, Arctic
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 35

Abstract

Artist Nikki Lindt will discuss her project, The Underground Sound Project, which she is working on during her residency at the NYC Urban Field Station, which embeds artists in collaboration with scientists and land managers to engage with cities as social-ecological systems. In her sound/video project, Lindt listens to the underground with microphones to reveal a resonant, dramatic world of sound. She records sounds of the elements, moving vegetation, soils, inside trees, stream beds and much more. She has documented sound across the gradient from the Arctic all the way to New York City. In New York City, she also explores sounds such as subways, ferries, and trucks and their effects on underground sound in urban forests. Exploring this interrelationship of sounds reveals the complex sonic environment in which trees and all living beings co-exist.

She will talk about her artistic and research process, and how her perception and relationship to the natural entities within her surroundings has changed during the course of this project. This project highlights the ‘unseen’ in our landscapes, how we can better attune ourselves to it, and through this experience become further sensitized to the land around us and the natural entities that live within it. This project aims to raise awareness of trees as living beings and
cultivate a stewardship ethic inspiring care for our collective landscapes.

The Underground Sound Project demonstrates the role, power, and potential of artists working in transdisciplinary spaces with scientists, practitioners, and the public.