Sounding the Future

Gail Priest (AU )
Sounding the Future
©Gail Priest

We always speak of “visions of the future”, but what if we were to let the auditory realm lead our imaginings? An immersive, audio-driven hypertext, Sounding the Future uses speculative narratives to consider what the future might sound like and how this may manifest as art. These possible futures are viewed through two filters: the integration of technology and biology resulting in trans- and posthuman conditions; and the exploitation of the sonic potentials of the new cities we imagine. Unavoidably, these futures are informed by the ways in which we listen now, so a third strand comprising theoretical and documentary material weaves present practice into future thinking.

Essentially, all future speculation is concerned with the social, the political, and the spiritual. Among the fictions imagined here, there is an attempt to seek strategies for survival and improvement that might be implemented today—because while the future doesn’t happen to us, our current actions make the future happen.
 

Concept, text, sound, video: Gail Priest
Interactive programming: Julien Pauthier
Furniture design and fabrication: Thomas Burless/tomikeh

Sounding the Future was realised at Bandits-Mages in association with La Box, L'École nationale supérieure d'art de Bourges (ENSA), with support of the Culture 2013 Programme of the European Commission and the Goethe-Institut. This project has also been assisted by the Australia Council for the Arts and is supported by Arts NSW.

sound installation

Grant: October–December 2014, Bandits-Mages (FR)