In a world dominated by the visual, could contemporary resistances be auditory? What is the materiality of sound? How does the materiality of sound affect listening? What resistances can be configured from working with biomaterials and sound? Do these bio_sonic_agencies open up other possible spaces that do not exist in the visual regime? The radio work Bio_Sonic_Agencies follows such questioning through a focus on matters of air. Air is highlighted as an elemental force that moves across human and more-than-human bodies, and that enfolds in its rather invisible and light presence a range of material expressions and dynamics. From the microscopic to the macroscopic, air is radically invasive, affirming, influential; it is profoundly internal, filling the lungs with its molecular support while passing across the planet in atmospheres and weather streams.
It transitions through states of materialization and imaginaries, from gaseous ethers and contagions to radiophonic signaling and aerial poetics – air is a deep and dangerous carrier. Bio_Sonic_Agencies is the result of a collaboration between a group of artists and philosophers who work with biomaterials, ontological entanglements, sound and speculative listening. Through a process of shared discussion and sonic experimentation, the work captures a series of encounters with matters of air.