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Paper short abstract

Through an examination of engineered wetland systems in Canada's oil sands extraction region, this paper argues that sonic sensory explorations allow us to better understand continual environmental contamination as well as the role of the sonic in the settler colonial process of land dispossession.

Paper long abstract

Extraction in Canada's oil sands depends on the separation of oil from the sand and clay that bind it in the form of bitumen. Bitumen's processing produces liquid byproducts which are managed in engineered dam and dyke systems called tailings ponds. The accidental release of tailings into water systems area continual threat and consistent reality for the people, animals and plants of the province of Alberta. While tailings ponds' toxicity is often well known, less attention has been paid to the heavily designed and managed technoecologies that corporations have put in place over the past 5 years to keep humans and animals away from tailings, and isolate the tailings pond structures from the surrounding environment, specifically through the creation of new audio and visual environments. In this presentation, I suggest that the "bird's eye view", which has been prioritized in the scalar representation of oil sands impact, must be joined by the sonic plane. Through a series of audio recordings and installations, I argue that oil corporations must be understood not only as contributing to environmental damage, but also creating entirely new technoecologies, part of our altered planetary technosphere. The tailings pond of today is not solely a dam and dyke system designed to hold pollution (in perpetuity). Instead, we must understand tailings ponds as part of an extractive sensory regime that uses novel technological-animal hybrids to create and restrict access to wetland environments, while simultaneously resisting remediation.