Soundscapes

The experience of silence and sound in the landscape

International Landscape Study Days

Thursday 22-Friday 23 February 2024, Treviso and online

Friday 16 February 2024, from 5 pm, online preview

The 20th edition of the International Landscape Study Days, organised by Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, will be held in Treviso (at the Palazzo Bomben auditorium) on 22 and 23 February 2024, and in live streaming on the video and social channels of the Fondazione.

The programme, edited by Luigi Latini (director of Fondazione Benetton and professor of Landscape Architecture at Iuav University of Venice) and Simonetta Zanon (head of landscape research and projects of Fondazione Benetton), will be preceded on February 16 by the online preview lecture Sounds Wild and Broken. Listening beyond the surface with David George Haskell, Professor of Biology at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, and the author of Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution’s Creativity, and The Crisis Of Sensory Extinction (Viking 2022).

Entitled Soundscapes. The experience of silence and sound in the landscape, the 2024 Study Days will be dedicated to a subject that appears to be a promising source of innovative interpretations and original means of tackling the very latest environmental issues. Reflecting on all of this will be not only experts, researchers and designers from a range of fields (including biology, ecology, geography, landscape architecture, urban planning, and architecture) but also sound artists and composers, in order to give the broadest and most in-depth vision possible.

It takes an interdisciplinary approach to the landscape and related matters, such as the relationships humans have with their environments and with other living things: something which has always been a cornerstone of the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche’s working, study and research methods in this area.

«The programme for this edition»

say the curators

«encourages reflection on acoustic elements in landscapes in all of their forms, including sounds, noises, music, voices and silence. It looks at them from the various cultural perspectives around which soundscape studies have developed from the late 1960s onwards, such as ecology, landscape, garden art, architecture, philosophy, pedagogy, literature, and cinema.
We are facing an environmental emergency and humans are putting the non-human world under more and more pressure. Against this backdrop, composition and listening systems can provide ways of taking heed of living organisms, as well as effective tools for identifying and gauging the effects of the climate crisis on biodiversity. Meanwhile, when it comes to interventions in specific places, there is both theoretical and practical evidence to show that exploring soundscapes through acoustic projects, performances and installations paves the way to the development of a sensitive approach that can play a significant part in steering transformations and management of landscapes and gardens, not to mention urban environments.
At the same time, there are a whole host of notions that can no longer be neglected if we want to pursue a sustainable future. These include: awareness of the role of silence in evolution, animal behaviour and ecology; conservation of specific soundscapes; protecting ecosystems from noise pollution; and creating more quiet places in urban areas».

Programme

Online preview: Friday 16th February 5 pm

Sounds Wild and Broken. Listening beyond the surface
Lecture by David George Haskell, Professor of Biology at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, and the author of Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution’s Creativity, and The Crisis Of Sensory Extinction (Viking 2022), Italian edition Suoni fragili e selvaggi. Meraviglie acustiche, evoluzione creativa e crisi sensoriale (Einaudi 2023)

First day: Thursday 22nd February 2024

10am-10.30am
Opening, introduction, Luigi Latini and Simonetta Zanon, conference curators

10.30am-1.30pm
Geographical silences
Joan Nogué, professor of Human Geography, University of Girona

The role of Ecoacoustics in conservation ecology
Almo Farina, Honorary professor of Ecology, University of Urbino

The acoustic dimension of landscape
Christophe Girot, professor of Landscape Architecture, ETH Zürich

3pm-5.30pm
On landscape and representation: from its optical and perspectival origins to acoustic observations
Francesco Bergamo, researcher in Drawing, Iuav University, Venice

For whom the soundscape tolls
Nicola Di Croce, sound artist, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow Iuav University, Venice

Healthy cities and the quest for a quiet life. Policies and practices for sustainable urban development
Antonella Radicchi, architect and urbanist, independent expert for the European Research Executive Agency and the European Urban Initiative

5.30pm
Dusk Chorus
screening of the film by Nika Šaravanja and Alessandro D’Emilia (Italy, 2017, 62’)
based on the project Fragments of Extinction by David Monacchi
introduced by David Monacchi (composer, Conservatorio Statale, Pesaro)

Second day: Friday 23rd February 2024

10am-1pm
Crossing the border, listening to rurality
Leandro Pisano, curator and independent researcher

“Sileo”. Level zero of the landscape in educational relationships
Lorena Rocca, professor of Human Geography and Geography didactics, University of Padua / Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana / The University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland

“Un suono in estinzione”: an art, science and popularization project
Sergio Maggioni (aka NEUNAU), sound designer and researcher, and Filippo Rosati, president of the art platform Umanesimo Artificiale, introduction by Matteo Vianello, independent researcher, fellow 2023 in Fondazione Benetton

3pm-6pm
Sound, silence, noise and… music in a forest
Jérôme Sueur, professor of Ecology, Muséum national d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris

Starfield Simulation, site specific sound art projects in the Scania Park
Frans Gillberg, landscape architect, Malmö

“Faire-jardin”, building a transdisciplinary approach
Diane Schuh, landscape architect, musician, Paris

Sound gardens
Nadine Schütz, sound architect, soundscape composer, Paris/Zürich

Admission is free, registration is required.

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Published on February 1, 2024

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