The Unhearable Market: Electromagnetic Soundwalks as Artistic Research
🗓️ Wednesday, 24 June — 9:30am
- 11:30am
(120 mins)
Presenters
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Abstract
Electromagnetic Soundwalk: Listening to the Infrastructure of Consumption
This workshop invites participants to listen to the hidden electronic infrastructures of everyday consumer life. Using handheld electromagnetic listening devices, we will follow a guided route through and around the university environment, listening to electromagnetic emissions from ATMs, card payment terminals, self-checkout machines, LCD advertising screens, routers, electronic doors, vending machines, public screens, charging points and other urban technologies encountered along the way.
Places are limited to nine participants because the workshop depends on the number of available electromagnetic listening devices. Anyone wishing to participate must sign up in advance by emailing Gerard Ryan at gerard.ryan@urv.cat. Participation is confirmed only when Gerard has replied to confirm that a place is available.
Participants should bring wired headphones with a mini-jack connection. Better quality headphones will make the experience more enjoyable, especially over-ear headphones, because the sounds can be subtle, detailed and sometimes very quiet. Good-quality wired earbuds will also work. Bluetooth headphones will not work with the listening devices.
Participants who want to record their listening experience should bring their own audio recorder and any necessary cables. Recording is optional. The workshop can be fully experienced without recording.
This workshop invites participants to listen to the hidden electronic infrastructures of everyday consumer life. Using handheld electromagnetic listening devices, we will follow a guided route through and around the university environment, listening to electromagnetic emissions from ATMs, card payment terminals, self-checkout machines, LCD advertising screens, routers, electronic doors, vending machines, public screens, charging points and other urban technologies encountered along the way.
Places are limited to nine participants because the workshop depends on the number of available electromagnetic listening devices. Anyone wishing to participate must sign up in advance by emailing Gerard Ryan at gerard.ryan@urv.cat. Participation is confirmed only when Gerard has replied to confirm that a place is available.
Participants should bring wired headphones with a mini-jack connection. Better quality headphones will make the experience more enjoyable, especially over-ear headphones, because the sounds can be subtle, detailed and sometimes very quiet. Good-quality wired earbuds will also work. Bluetooth headphones will not work with the listening devices.
Participants who want to record their listening experience should bring their own audio recorder and any necessary cables. Recording is optional. The workshop can be fully experienced without recording.
Biography
Gerard Ryan is Professor of Marketing and Consumer Research at Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Catalonia. His academic work explores consumer culture through listening, sound, artistic research and practice-led methods, with particular attention to the infrastructures of consumption, waiting, silence and everyday service environments. Alongside his academic writing, he works with records, cassettes, sound installations and parafictional music projects as research formats. His artistic research treats the album, the soundwalk, the installation and the exhibition as ways of producing and sharing knowledge about consumer culture.
