Fóram Idirnáisiúnta ar Thaighde Ealaíonta 2026
An 17ú Comhdháil de chuid Chumann na Taighde Ealaíonta (SAR)
Submission Number: 75
Submission ID: 114
Submission UUID: 473fec12-0919-49c3-b049-c4dd6f4046c3

Cruthaithe: Sat, 14 Feb 2026 - 00:12
Déanta: Sat, 14 Feb 2026 - 00:29
Changed: Wed, 13 May 2026 - 08:16

Remote IP address: 46.222.193.32
Submitted by: Gerard Ryan
Teanga: English

Is draft: Níl
Current page: webform_confirmation

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Given name Gerard
Surname Ryan
Email gerard.ryan@urv.cat
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Title The Unhearable Market: Electromagnetic Soundwalks as Artistic Research
Format Workshop
Main language English
Abstract This workshop introduces electromagnetic listening as artistic research into an endangered perceptual realm: infrastructural signals that shape consumer environments while remaining largely unavailable to ordinary hearing and description. Using handheld electromagnetic detectors as audio instruments, participants take part in a single guided electromagnetic soundwalk (9 participants) that converts emissions from retail and urban systems into audible sound. The workshop treats these signal worlds as conceptually endangered because interface design and platform logics make them operationally central yet perceptually absent, and because they resist stable verbalisation. Rather than decoding signals into fixed meanings, the workshop develops a repeatable protocol for attentive listening, annotation, and comparative description. Participants work with a small set of descriptive operators (for example: pulse, drift, density, saturation, interference) to compare what is heard across different moments on the same route without forcing interpretive closure. The accompanying Research Catalogue exposition provides the protocol, a minimal route diagram, short audio excerpts, and a documentation template designed to be readable in fifteen minutes. The outcome is a systematic and transferable artistic research procedure for listening past the interface and making otherwise unhearable infrastructures discussable.
Image JPEG image-445A-8ADB-BB-0.jpeg
Short biographies of the presenter(s)
  • Gerard Ryan is Professor of Marketing at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Catalonia). His work bridges consumer research and artistic research, developing listening-based and practice-led methods to study infrastructures of consumption, waiting, and silence. He has developed electromagnetic listening as an artistic research procedure for engaging with non-verbal, infrastructural worlds that organise consumer environments.
  • Mireia Valverde is Professor of Human Resource Management at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain) and was a contemporary dancer. Her work connects organisational life with embodied practice, with a particular interest in movement within organisations and how bodies navigate organisational spaces, routines, and constraints. She brings choreographic and practice-led sensibilities to research, using movement as a way of thinking and as a method of inquiry.
Previous presentations or iterations of the research This workshop develops from ongoing artistic research on electromagnetic listening in consumer environments. Elements of the method have been tested through pilot electromagnetic soundwalks and audio experiments, but this specific 9-participant workshop format and its accompanying Research Catalogue exposition have been created specifically for the SAR 2026 submission
Additional information Additional information on the presentation format (max 1,000 characters)
Structure (120 minutes). 1) Orientation and ethics (10). 2) Demonstration and calibration of devices (15). 3) Guided listening to a short curated excerpt and introduction of the descriptive operators (15). 4) Single guided electromagnetic soundwalk (45): one route near the venue with 9 participants using the detectors; live outcomes are treated as contingent. 5) Return and debrief (25): compare observations using the operator set and discuss what becomes sayable and what remains resistant.
Spatial and technical requirements Seminar room for 9 participants plus facilitator, with projector and screen, and audio playback (speakers). Table space for devices and note-taking. A nearby walkable route (approximately 20 to 30 minutes total walking time) starting and ending at the venue. I will provide electromagnetic listening devices for up to 9 participants.
Potential risks or ethical concerns Public-space component: participants will be instructed not to record intelligible speech, personal conversations, names, faces, or identifying details. The workshop is not aimed at surveillance of people or devices; it focuses on non-identifying signal textures and infrastructural emissions. Safety: the route will avoid hazardous crossings where possible; participants may opt out. Accessibility and weather contingencies are included, with an indoor-only alternative.
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Fóram Idirnáisiúnta ar Thaighde Ealaíonta 2026
An 17ú Comhdháil de chuid Chumann na Taighde Ealaíonta (SAR)

Welcome to SAR 2026

Endangered Conceptual Worlds

The 2026 International Forum on Artistic Research takes place from 23 to 26 June 2026. Hosted by the University of Galway on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, the Forum addresses the challenges of Endangered Conceptual Worlds. As the 17th annual conference of the Society for Artistic Research it is the largest conference on practice-based research within and through the arts, bringing together more than 300 international participants: leading practitioners, scholars and policymakers from the entire range of arts-based disciplines.

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Slightly extended deadline for submissions

The 2026 Forum on Artistic Research website has been inaccessible for several hours on Friday night and Saturday morning. Unfortunately, an update to the web server was scheduled to take place, which automatically activated maintenance mode and prevented any work on the submissions during the night and the next morning. We have therefore decided to slightly extend the deadline for submissions to Monday 2 March 2026 at 23:59 GMT. Feel free to work on your proposals until then.