Paper short abstract:

By means of a thought experiment set in the future, historical eco-musical fragments from the GDR are explained, narrating both real and fictional ecological contamination. I show how rethinking eco-musical scenarios can be a path to overcoming existing stereotypes.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is a thought experiment set in the future. The premise is based on the concept of the Novacene (James Lovelock), hypothetically posited as a geological epoch following the Anthropocene in which artificial hyperintelligences, emerging from artificial intelligence, dominate. In this hypothetical epoch, the goal of Gaia's development is to recover from the climate change of the Anthropocene using these artificial hyperintelligences. I explore how sound phenomena and their contexts might aid these artificial hyperintelligences in understanding the ecological condition of specific regions at specific times, a shift in perspective that allows currently underrepresented or stereotyped areas, music, and related materials to come to the forefront.

The thought experiment is grounded in the concrete example of pop music discourses on sonic concepts in the 1980s in the GDR where, in the pursuit of artistic expression, bands often crafted their own instruments and created music referencing environmental pollution and associated myths. Topics ranged from real threats posed by chemical factories to rumors about secret Soviet army nuclear waste storage. The artificial hyperintelligences consider all fragments of information related to potential eco-musical activities and attribute a different political-academic significance to the unique sonic structures that emerged. Through this example of youth music in the GDR, I illustrate how this kind of hypothetical perspective can initiate processes of sonic delinking (Ismaiel-Wendt, following Mignolo), shedding new light on existing preconceptions and stereotypes