The Deep Listener

The Deep Listener (2019)

Augmented Reality

Commissioned by Serpentine Galleries

Selected as the first Serpentine Augmented Architecture commission, Kudsk Steensen responded to the global open call for new forms of architecture by examining the systems and infrastructure of the park and its species, and the legacy of human impact across time. At the core of the work is the London plane tree, a hybrid of two sycamore and plane trees from different sides of the world, that functions, as Kudsk Steensen states as ‘an early form of bio-architecture’.

Planted liberally throughout London during the Industrial Revolution, the tree can withstand extremely polluted conditions and the bark absorbs pollutants to protect the tree itself and clean the air we breathe which is then regularly shed. The bark becomes an archive and historical document of particles and pollution that connects our bodies to the species that cohabit the park.

The Deep Listener invites you to be guided on a journey to both see and hear the sights and sounds of five of London’s species: London plane trees, bats, parakeets, azure blue damselflies and reedbeds, that are part of the park ecosystem that might otherwise be ignored, intangible or simply invisible. Drawing on the principles of deep listening, a slow and embodied process of attentive and embedded listening in order to reflect and learn, Kudsk Steensen has collaborated with the field recordist and sound designer Matt McCorkle to represent five species as sound.

Mirroring the process of field work undertaken by Kudsk Steensen, both the audio and visuals within the project are drawn directly from organic source material gathered from a period of embedded research within Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. These organic materials are then transformed through digital processes to be re-embedded within the same context.

As you move through the augmented reality encounters of the commission, these soundscapes can be sped up and slowed down according to your proximity to the ecological visualizations in order to reveal the complexity and nuances of non-verbal aural languages and shift your own relationship to time. Through these interactions, your own body becomes the mechanism to alter the environment around you and the technology becomes an active form of communication between the human and non-human actors in the park.

Through The Deep Listener, Kudsk Steensen builds an experience for users to explore the sublime and vexing power of our ecosystem. The park becomes, as it has throughout history, the architectural backdrop to access the natural world that exists within the city.

VIDEOS

Full Credits

THE DEEP LISTENER
Augmented reality application for iOS and Android devices Serpentine Augmented Architecture is commissioned in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture and Sir David Adjaye OBE App production and development by the Serpentine Galleries with:

Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Artist, art director and developer
Ivaylo Getov, Technical director
Kay Watson, Curator & senior producer
Troy Duguid, Unreal developer
Cecilia Serafini, UI & graphic designer
Matt McCorkle, Field recordist & sound designer
Reese Donohue (Tempo), Audio supervision
Emre Tanirgan, Audio developer
Jazia Hammoudi, Researcher
Rindon Johnson, Narrator

RESEARCH WITH
Dr Alex Bond, Senior Curator, Birds at Natural History Museum, Tring Dr Veronica Zamora-Gutierrez, Ecología Integrativa, CIIDIR Unidad Durango, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico

ALL FIELD RECORDINGS BY MATT MCCORKLE EXCEPT
Bat field recordings from Dr Veronica Zamora-Gutierrez
Additional parakeet field recordings courtesy Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Macaulay Library

Narration recorded and engineered by Sam Bardsley at Glas Hour Studio, Berlin.

All images by Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Parakeet specimen images courtesy Natural History Museum, London