Paper short abstract:

Proposing an aural cosmology of the Anthropocene, we offer an alternative modus to hear the 'hereness' of the language of ice as 'nonlife' (Povinelli, 2016). We claim that sculpted sensorial imaginaries might create a change that resounds in the here and now, and in our collective future anterior.

Paper long abstract:

In 'The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable' (2016), Indian writer Amitav Ghosh claims that in the age of the Anthropocene, the arts and humanities are presented with a tremendous challenge. His argument is that 'the climate crisis is also a crisis of culture, and thus of imagination', and more importantly that climate change is proving peculiarly resistant to artistic practices. In agreement with Ghosh's claim, we propose to engage with the panel theme via sound, in order to imagine ways of listening to and indeed learning from the so-called Anthropocene, so as to initiate a change that resounds. By working towards an aural cosmology of the Anthropocene, we offer an alternative way to hear and feel the 'hereness' of the language of 'nonlife' (Povinelli 2016). Building on our previous work ''Sounding' the Anthropocene', we present ways of "listening to ice" by critically engaging with two complementary compositions: the documentary 'Chasing Ice' (2012) and Ludovico Einaudi's 'Eulogy to the Arctic' (2016). While the former unapologetically screens calving glaciers, compressing years into seconds and thus capturing ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breath-taking rate, the latter is an aural meditation on the impact of white colonialism and its dramatic consequences on the environment. We claim that a critical examination of the ways in which anthrophonic, biophonic, and geophonic events - always already combined with silence(s) - can produce a different set of knowledges able to sculpt sensorial imaginaries of our collective future anterior.