Sonorous Cities: Towards a Sonic Urbanism (SONCITIES)
Principal Investigator: Gascia Ouzounian
Postdoctoral Research Fellows: Ruth Bernatek, Matilde Meireles, Christabel Stirling
Research
University of Oxford
Funded by the European Research Council (ERC)
2021/2024
Sonorous Cities: Towards a Sonic Urbanism is a research project formed at the intersection of sound, urbanism, and critical spatial practices. The aim is to better understand cities and urban life through a critical investigation of the sonic conditions of cities, and of people’s experiences of urban sound environments; to make critical and creative interventions into urban sound environments; and to support architects, designers, and spatial practitioners in embracing sonic modes of urban analysis and design.
Project website
Research Outputs (individual and collaborative)
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Publications
Forthcoming
Belonging and Exclusion in the Sonic City: Soundworlds of Difference, Displacement and Co-existence in Brixton
Christabel Stirling, Matilde Meireles, Ruth Bernatek, Gascia Ouzounian
Multi-authored publication on Cambridge University Press
Constellations: Experiments in Multi-Media Urban Ethnography
Christabel Stirling and Matilde Meireles
Journal article (TBC)
2023
Matilde Meireles
Album released by Crónica Electrónica
2022
Multiple Perceptions of the Everyday Unfolded: The Case Study of Sunnyside
Matilde Meireles
Journal article published on the Journal of Sonic Studies
2021
Matilde Meireles, Christabel Stirling
Permanent immersive audio essay commissioned by the Open House Lisboa 2021
Lockdown Sonics: a conversation
Gascia Ouzounian, Matilde Meireles
Book chapter in Sonic Urbanism: Listening to Non-Human Life
Published by Theatrum Mundi / &Beyond Collective, London Dec 2021
Talks and guest lectures
2024
The different levels of collaboration at play in Constellations: Experiments in Multi-Media Urban Ethnography
Qualitative Expertise at Southampton seminar series: Sound as method
University of Southampton
2023
Blurring vantage points: scales of intimacy and super-elasticity in field recording
Matilde Meireles
Keynote at Until You Touch It symposium, Swansea College of Art
Swansea, Wales
Blurring vantage points: scales of intimacy and super-elasticity in field recording
Matilde Meireles
Talk at Graduate Research Colloquium
University of Oxford, Oxford
Brixton Station Road and Windrush Square: Flows Over Time
Matilde Meireles
Talk at Mapping Music History event led by Dr Jonathan Hicks (University of Aberdeen, AHRC Research Network)
UCL, London
2022
Making and editing: field recording in Film
Matilde Meireles
Guest lecture at 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning, Brixton, London
From the field to the studio: Site-responsive approach to composition
Matilde Meireles
Guest lecture at City University London, UK
Sonic Urbanism: Listening to Non-Human Life
Matilde Meireles, John Bingham-Hall, George Kafka and The Sousrealists
Panel conversation at Theatrum Mundi's book launch event
IKLECTIK, London
Live performances
2023
Vanishing Points
Matilde Meireles
Performed live at Until You Touch It symposium
Swansea College of Art, Wales
Vanishing Points
Matilde Meireles
Performed live at Lisboa Soa Festival
Lisbon, Portugal
Vanishing Points
Matilde Meireles
Performed live at Handmade Music
Accidental Theatre, Belfast, Northern Ireland/
2022
Eléonore Lemaire, Matilde Meireles and Youmna Saba
Live performance at The European Night of Museums
Cité de l' Architecture, Paris, France
Sunnyside
Matilde Meireles
Live performance at Theatrum Mundi's Sonic Urbanism: Listening to Non-Human Life book launch
IKLECTIK, London
2021
Sunnyside
Matilde Meireles
Presented live at The Art of Noises VI: Stereophonica
Modern Art Oxford
Sunnyside
Matilde Meireles
Pre-recorded performance presented online at the Theatrum Mundi's symposium Crafting a sonic urbanism: listening to non-human life
Gaîté Lyrique, Paris, France
Workshops
2023
Matilde Meireles and Ruth Bernatek
Workshop that explored urban sounds in the context of surveillance and surveillance technologies. The workshop was a response to the audio-visual exhibition Testing Ground: Tracing threads of aerial seeing by Henrietta Williams and Merijn Royaards
UCL Urban Room, London, UK
2022
Intramuros: Listening to the audible and the inaudible
Matilde Meireles, Christabel Stirling and Ruth Bernatek
Workshop part of the symposium From the Museum to the City: Listening to Urban Architecture
Cité de l'Architecture, Paris
Listening Through the Microphone: Taster Session
Christabel Stirling and Matilde Meireles
St Martin's Community Centre, Brixton, London
Listening Through the Microphone: Taster Session
Christabel Stirling, Matilde Meireles and Ruth Bernatek
198 Contemporary Arts & Learning, Brixton, London
2021
Sampling the City
Matilde Meireles and Shiva Feshareki
Workshop part of Oxford University's EMPRes group and TORCH's project Sampling the City
University of Oxford
Listening at the junction
Christabel Stirling and Matilde Meireles
Loughborough Junction Action Group, Brixton, London
Scoring the City
Gascia Ouzounian, Matilde Meireles and Sharon Phelan
Introduction to Scoring the City and discussion of two scores part of the project, including mine 9 variations 35 instances: multiple ways to navigate Belfast
Darmstadt Music Festival, Darmstadt, Germany