Conference Agenda

A sonic immersion at The Meadows, an iconic Edinburgh park reached by a seven-minute walk. Following an introduction at 50 George Square we leave for Boys’ Brigade Walk, home to an avenue of seventy-five Sakura cherry trees, renowned for their remarkable blossom to deliver our immersive sonic activity then return with participants to the conference site.

Listening Like a Tree is an outcome of AHRC funded “Reperceiving Communities: Prototyping the More-Than-Human Community Toolkit”, a collaboration between The School of Design at Goldsmiths, University of London, The Angela Marmont Centre for UK Nature at The Natural History Museum, and Phoenix Community Housing. The project empowered community groups in Lewisham as agents for pro-environmental and pro-social behavioural change. Through a series of listening events in Lewisham parks with community housing and informal education groups, a set of 3D-printed tools and attachments were iteratively designed, to extend the utility of affordable field recording equipment to enable listeners to experience the audio resonances of urban treescapes

Through this Explorations session, we invite DRS2026 participants to directly experience the neighbourhood of resonances within which a tree is entangled, enabling discussion about the potential for nature-connectedness through the design of immersive sonic experiences. The aim of the Exploration is to provide a grounded experience with DRS26 participants to support reflection and discussion. We ask how the methods and approaches of community-designed sonic platforms support the ambition for nature-connectedness. How should we record and share sonic events for others? How might we share the tools and approaches of sonic experiences in nature with a broader community?