Meditative Cohabitation
by Studio Above&Below
Immersive Sound Installation / August 28 – September 8, 2024
Meditative Cohabitation is an audio-visual experience investigating multi-species communication in future cities through advanced technologies. Based on bioacoustic recordings and 3D scans of the Marais Wiels biotope, located in the heart of Brussels’ urban landscape, the immersive installation invites the audience to meditate amidst multispecies sounds and a responsive multiscreen landscape.
The project seeks to engage with interspecies realities using Game Engines and AI technologies to emphasize the necessity of interspecies recognition within our design processes and datasets, aiming to build empathy and purpose for advanced technologies to serve more than just human lifeforms.
Technology used:
Custom audio sensor, Audio Classification Machine Learning Model, Touchdesigner, Unreal Engine
Artists:
Studio Above&Below is a London-based art and technology practice founded by Daria Jelonek (GER) and Perry-James Sugden (UK) after graduating from the Royal College of Art. Their work combines digital art, data, and XR to reveal unseen connections between humans, machines, and the environment.
Committed to research-based projects, Studio Above&Below frequently collaborates with scientists, technologists, and communities to push the boundaries of digital media for future living. In recent years, the duo has created groundbreaking and innovative artworks using immersive technologies and data to make the invisible visible and to give the environment a voice to express itself.
Their work has been exhibited internationally at institutions and festivals including the Royal Academy, Tate Modern, V&A London, Nottingham Contemporary, Photophore during the Venice Biennale, HeK Basel, MEET Milan, NRW Forum, UCCA Shanghai, Today Art Museum, WRO Biennale, WIRED Japan, and Sonar+D. They have received prizes and funding such as the Lumen Prize (shortlisted), Bloomberg Bursary, Battersea Sculpture Prize, Factory Berlin x Sonar+D Artist Residency, and the S+T+Arts x Nesta Italia City of the Future prize. Their work has been featured in publications including the New York Times, MAXON, Arte, and It’s Nice That.
Collaborator:
Yau Fan is an audio engineer specializing in bioacoustics, as well as a noise musician, field recordist, naturalist (ornithologist, botanist, entomologist), and ecological sound designer based in Brussels. His primary focus lies in global earth restoration.
After a decade working as a sound engineer, label manager for Third Type Tapes, experimental musician, and live coding performer (under the name Exoterrism), he shifted his focus toward landscape and permaculture design alongside bioacoustics. In 2018, he founded the open lab for bioacoustics in Brussels. Yau Fan collaborates with Myriam Lefebvre on bee communication studies, partners with a fungal lab for mycological experiments, and is a member of Fenetre Ovale, a Brussels-based electroacoustic collective that organizes concerts and radio shows exploring species diversity by blending sound and biology.
Credits:
Concept & Design: Studio Above&Below
Production: Studio Above&Below, iMAL
Sound Design: Yau Fan
Supported and funded by: European Media Art Platform, iMAL – Art Centre for digital cultures & technology, European Union
This work was realised within the framework of a European Media Art Platform residency program at iMal – Art Center for digital cultures & technology, co-funded by the European Union. This presentation was co-funded by WRO Art Center.
