Exercises in tuning into
more-than-human sonic bodies.
By Julia Grillmayr,
Christina Gruber, Sophia Rut

Intra Project, 2023

Lobau Listening Comprehensions is a site-specific investigation of the Lobau (from the Vienna Danube floodplains to Hainburg) that includes personal experiences, ecological conditions, current political negotiations, and historical events. We work with sound from different perspectives and through different practices: collective listening, oral histories, acoustic ecology, science communication, journalistic interviews, artistic re- and pre-enactments.

This allows for a situated storytelling of pasts, a critical look at the present, and an inspired envisioning of the future. A historical as well as current look at activisms and protests in regard to the Lobau are central.

To this end, Lobau Listening Comprehensions develops the cyborg GERTI, a modular and mutable entity with which we collaborate to record and play back sounds. GERTI collects impressions and voices – human and more-than-human. As a means, a method, a mentor and a mixing machine, she will be here for us – and for you too!