The Listening Affect

The Listening Affect—a festival for sound ecologies and sonic entanglements will take place in different venues in Porto, Portugal—Passos Manuel, Galeria da Biodiversidade e Planetário—between November 10 and 12. Curated by the Institute for Postnatural Studies, a center for artistic experimentation based in Madrid (Spain) and organised by the Department of Contemporary Art of the Portuguese municipal company Ágora—Cultura e Desporto do Porto, it brings together around two dozen international artists, including music composers, experimental sound artists, and acoustic researchers. 

How are the sounds of the planet, of all its creatures and territories, changing within the climate crisis? How do animals perceive the noise of human activities, and of our spoken languages? How does a plant sound when it moves, stretching its leaves to find light or moving its roots towards the water? How do we hear solar flares? Or electromagnetic waves? How does the sound of the tectonic plates affect our mood and daily routines? Can you think of sounds that have gone extinct?

These and many other questions will be explored and embodied into this arts and science festival, through concerts, conversations, sound activations, and performances. Amplifying, reverberating and entangling the city’s sonic ecosystem, The Listening Affect aims to be an open platform and playful ecosystem for generating collective critical thinking around sound ecologies and exploring new modes of empathy and relationships with the environment.

The line-up for the three days includes the following artists: Laraaji, KMRU, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Ute Wassermann, Infrasonica, Antoine Bertin, Filipa Ramos, Laia Estruch, Panamby, Wirawasu, Gaspar Cohen, Rezmorah, Lechuga Zafiro, Debit, Interspecifics, Marta Zapparoli, Andrea Zarza Canova, Inês Tartaruga Água, Gustavo Costa and Gaspar Cohen.

Full programme at Galeria Municipal do Porto.