The Listening Affect

Curated by the Institute for Postnatural Studies (Madrid, Spain), and organized by the Contemporary Art Department of Ágora – Cultura e Desporto do Porto, The Listening Affect festival brought together around two dozen international artists, including composers, sound artists and acoustic researchers, at various venues in Porto between November 10 and 12 2023.

How are the sounds of the planet, all its creatures and territories changing with the climate crisis? How do animals perceive the noise of human activities and our spoken languages? How does a plant sound when it moves, stretching its leaves to find light or moving its roots towards water? How do we hear solar flares? Or electromagnetic waves? How does the sound of tectonic plates affect our mood and our daily routines? Can you think of sounds that have died out?

These and many other questions were explored and incorporated into this arts and science festival, which unfolds in concerts, talks, sound activations and performances. Amplifying, reverberating and entangling the city’s sonic ecosystem, The Listening Affect aimed to be an open and playful platform for collective critical thinking around sound ecologies and the exploration of new modes of empathy for our relationship with the environment.

With the participation of KMRU, Laraaji, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Antoine Bertin, Ute Wassermann, Laia Estruch, Infrasonica, Panamby, Wirawasu, Lovers & Lollipops, Rezmorah, Lechuga Zafiro, Debit, Interspecifics, Marta Zapparoli, Andrea Zarza Canova, Inês Tartaruga Água, Gustavo Costa and Gaspar Cohen.

Photography: Dinis Santos