Paper short abstract:

This paper uses sonic methodologies to explore the spatial implications of mobility infrastructures in the Polish-German borderlands. Through sound, it traces the entangled histories and socio-material reconfigurations of space, highlighting the role of matter and its motion in this process.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the use of creative sonic methodologies to explore the socio-material impacts of cross-border mobility in what is now Polish-German borderland. Focusing on the twin cities of Frankfurt (Oder) and Słubice, it investigates how soundscapes reveal the dynamics of spatial reconfigurations, driven by mobility infrastructures and shaped by the region's turbulent past.

The establishment of the border along the Oder-Neisse line in 1945 brought population displacement and socio-economic upheaval, fostering a legacy of transience. Today, infrastructures linking the twin cities continue to embed these histories within the material and sensory landscapes of the border, reshaping them into spaces of negotiation between permanence and temporariness, human and non-human, local and transnational.

While the region has been studied extensively, our study contributes to this body of work by examining the spatial dynamics of the border and its affective dimensions through sonic ethnography, using methods such as field recording and sound walking. Listening to the soundscapes of transitional spaces reveals the ecological disruptions, economic dependencies, and material histories of these environments. In this context, the paper highlights how sound can deepen our understanding of the active role of matter in connecting various temporalities and shaping the sense of place. Moreover, it presents the practice of listening as an embodied intervention into the landscape, disrupting its taken-for granted structure.