Events

Installation & exhibition in Drift. Sink. Emerge. Repeat. Multimodal Submersion as Diffractive Practice, STS Hub 2025 'Diffracting the Critical'.

Mar 18, 2025, 7:00 PM – Mar 21, 2025, 11:00 PM
Humboldt-Universität-zu-Berlin, Dorotheenstraße 24, 10117 Berlin, Germany

The Spreewald region is often perceived as idyllic and tranquil—a contrast to the pulsating, mechanical and accelerated urban context of Berlin. However, anthropogenic influences echo in the canals, streams and floodplains of the Spreewald—concealed from our human eyes and ears above water. By inviting visitors to engage in alternative forms of sensing and listening, Sedimentary Listening diffracts the perceived serenity of the riverscapes and introduces us to the multispecies and infrastructural entanglements of the region.

The installation features audio recordings of the Spree, captured above and below water, as it flows and diverges through manufactured canals and waterways in the Spreewald. The compositions are integrated into an art piece—an aquarium— which allows audiences to listen through the water with a hydrophone, through the glass of the aquarium with transducers, and through headphones. These overlapping modes of listening disorient usual auditory realms and prompt reflections on the interplay of lives and waters in the Spreewald.

Audiences are further invited to pour water into the aquarium. The water has been collected by the four contributors of Sedimentary Listening at different points–from the banks of the urban Spree, the nearby WC, and a typical bottle from the Späti. At the end of STS-Hub, the contents of the aquarium will be returned to the waterscape, materialising our countless and cyclical participation in the use and displacement of water.

The installation expands on collaborations between artists and researchers which took place under the umbrella of the project AnthropoScenes and the ethnographic research in the research consortium Climate and Water under Change (CliWaC). The recordings were realised and edited by Diane Barbé and Jonas Dahm and feature only slight spectral corrections. The aquarium was part of the art-science event series “River Stories” (2023) instigated by the artistic director Maximilian Grunewald, and was originally filled with water by residents, artists, tourists and organisers during the event in the Spreewald and transported to Berlin via a traditional boat.