Background: To create sustainable futures for both human and non-human worlds, we must embrace new ideas, ways of thinking, and strategies. There is an urgent need and opportunity for innovative approaches at the intersection of art, science, and technology. Sensing Environments engages with this challenge by exploring how immersive, multi-sensory experiences can inspire new understandings of ecosystems. Drawing on Haraway’s (2015) ideas, the project advocates for collective action by integrating non-human perspectives into design processes, offering new insights into complex ecosystem relationships.
Contribution: Sensing Environments is a 26-minute audio-visual work with 16-channel surround sound, featuring original field recordings from Southeast Queensland. The visuals immerse the audience in diverse ecosystems, asking: How does it feel to traverse a river as a black cockatoo? How can we learn from the temporal complexity of seasonal algae? What does it mean to navigate a rainforest as a microbat? The work acknowledges the deep conflict within our species and offers an experimental expedition at the intersection of art and science, seeking solutions from non-human perspectives. This approach presents a novel way of understanding ecological systems and embodies the collaborative, multispecies methodologies needed to connect communities with ecosystems.
Significance: Sensing Environments was selected as a juried work for ANAT SPECTRA 2022, a prestigious triennial showcasing outstanding art-science collaboration in the Asia-Pacific region. The 2022 triennial was framed around the multiplicity of new ideas, ways of thinking, and sensibilities urgently required to design a more sustainable world. The event addressed the urgency of this challenge with a provocation to the ‘possible’ at the nexus of art and technology. Sensing Environments was featured at the iconic Capitol Theatre in Melbourne, with a live audience of over 500.