Neukölln. Oliwa. Sonic Portrait | Sonic Portrait

How many sounds do you hear every day without really listening to them? Do you know what your neighbourhood sounds like? From 8 to 22 October, the Ethnography Branch of the National Museum in Gdańsk offers a chance to experience a project inspired by the sonic character of the Berlin district of Neukölln and Gdańsk's Oliwa.

Neukölln. Oliwa. Sonic Portrait | Sonic Portrait is the Polish edition of an artistic project that premiered at Errant Sound & Miss Read in Berlin. Its creators – Marcin Dymiter and Bea Targosz – used field recordings gathered in the Berlin district of Neukölln and in Gdańsk's Oliwa.

This sound installation is a story about locality, the closest surroundings that become our first context for experiencing the world. It is from what lies beyond the window, on the street, in the park or in the courtyard that we begin to get to know reality. Attentive listening can make a familiar place suddenly sound different. The artists show that sound is more than background. It can tell a great deal about a space, its inhabitants and the changes taking place in it. It speaks of architecture, movement, the times of day and year, and the presence of people, animals and plants. It creates an audiosphere – the sonic environment in which we live.

“Thanks to field recordings and sound walks, we explore the terrain and its specificity, study issues linked to collective memory, but also to building relationships and growing awareness of the place. By recording in the districts of Berlin Neukölln and Gdańsk Oliwa, we bring out the specificity of each place, but also place a private filter over the way we understand, feel and listen to the city” – says Marcin Dymiter.

“Another element of the work is the analysis and transformation of field recordings into tone configurations (pitches, sines, beats), as well as sampling the collected material in real time and in randomised order, so that a kind of sonic map emerges – a response to the sounds of the surroundings” – adds Bea Targosz.

The installation will be accompanied by performative actions. On Sunday 11 October at 3 p.m. Bea Targosz will lead the sound walk Reducing Listening, which begins in Oliwa Park beside the seat of the Ethnography Branch, after which participants will head towards the Trójmiejski Park Krajobrazowy. Focusing attention on the timbral qualities that emerge around sounds, they will reflect on how we ordinarily experience and listen to the city's sonic environment. Free admission.

On Sunday 18 October at 12 noon, Marcin Dymiter will invite visitors to the Ethnography Branch to a soundscape set, a sonic “reading” of the city and its architecture, and a debate with the idea of entertaining live sets played in public space. Referring to the cultural notion of the DJ set and the sound system, the soundscape set evokes the category of sounds “absent” from space. Each soundscape set is unique, specially prepared and substantively linked to its surroundings, architecture and the given situation. Admission to the event is included in the museum ticket. Limited number of places.

The installation is part of the international symposium Beyond Listening 3: Resounding the Rights of Nature organised by CENSE and Nadbałtyckie Centrum Kultury.