Signals and hums is a soundscape composition which invites the audience to focus upon per­ ception. Are these sounds familiar to you? Do they remind you of something? Can you distin­ guish between street sound and interior sound? The installation encourages listeners to shar­ pen their hearing and listening abilities. Sounds are related to our experiences, they guide us in everyday life through the city, and sound is one of the important elements that helps us to un­ derstand our environment.

Acoustic environment is not only background sound, or a specific soundscape, nor is it a ques­tion of noise pollution caused by traffic or daily activities. It is rather about understanding audi­tory experiences and discovering sonic territo­ries in urban space by listening and hearing.

They can be heard as signals, hums, or buzzes to which we can relate, if we listen carefully. The artist produced the composition with different field recordings from Roeselare, paying atten­tion to different frequencies and pitches. It con­tains a variety of cultures, languages, seasons, places, and people. Can you recognize what you hear, and where it could be from?

Bio

Banu Çiçek is an artist, researcher and DJ with a background in urban design, born in South-East Turkey, and now based in Berlin. Her academic and artistic interests include participation, public space, sonic environment, acoustic ecology, collective listening, environmental spatial justice, urban activism, intersectional feminism, and interdisciplinary methodologies. She is currently a PhD candidate at Hamburg Fine Arts University, and is in receipt of a grant from the Heinrich Böll Foundation. She is a lecturer at the Humboldt University, Berlin.