e175 sabine breitsameter - an aesthetic of care

conscient podcast

• Listening can teach us to appreciate our environment in a critical sense, but also in a kind of admiration for it. If we admire something because we think it has a depth or it has a beauty or some interesting aspects, we want to keep it, we want to foster it.

I first met Sabine at the Tuning of the World Conference in Banff, Alberta in 1993.

Sabine's work focuses on media art, listening culture, cultures of perception, experimental audiomedia, media history, media ecology, acoustic ecology as well trans- and intercultural studies.

She has worked as an experimental audio media maker, working as director, author, curator and dramaturg for the cultural departments of the German public radio and was co-founder of the Master‘s program Sound Studies at the University of the Arts in Berlin and worked there as a professor for Experimental Audiomedia from 2004-2008.

Since 2006 Sabine teaches and researches as a professor for Sound and Media Culture at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences in Germany where she is director of the Soundscape & Environmental Media Lab and 3D Audio Lab.

As a scientific and artistic director she has curated numerous art projects, symposia and festivals. I was a guest speaker at one of these events in 2018, The Global Composition in Dieburg, Germany where I spoke about the origins of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology in 1993.

While on a trip to Canada in May 2024 Sabine stopped by my home in Ottawa to talk about her work and share her thoughts on art and the ecological crisis with a focus on listening and sound.

I was struck by Sabine’s observation about how artists are always careful with what they do, which Sabine defines as :

• a consciously shaped relationship with the world in a mindful attitude and with high appreciation for the phenomena of this world and its values.

I was impressed by the parallel she draws between the poly-crisis of today and Frederich Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man, written in 1795, which addresses the dehumanization and alienation of industrial labour through aesthetic education and the arts.

I was also interested in this quote because my father’s relatives emigrated from Germany to North America right around that period in the early 1800’s.

At the end of our conversation Sabine gave me a copy of the 2nd edition of Die Ordnung der Klänge (The Ordering of Sounds), her German translation of R. Murray Schafer’s The Tuning of the World.

Sabine suggested books were:

• On the Aesthetic Education of Man by Frederich Schiller
• Aesthetics of Care: Practice in Everyday Life by Yuriko Saito

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END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020 on un-ceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory (Ottawa). It’s my way to give back and be present.

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and it's francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I publish a Substack newsletter called ‘a calm presence' which are 'short, practical essays about collapse acceptance, adaptation, response and art’. To subscribe (free of charge) see https://acalmpresence.substack.com. You'll also find a podcast version of each a calm presence posting on Substack or one your favorite podcast player.

Also, please note that a complete transcript of conscient podcast and balado conscient episodes from season 1 to 4 is available on the web version of this site (not available on podcast apps) here: https://conscient-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes.

Your feedback is always welcome at [e-mail] and/or on conscient podcast social media: Facebook, X, Instagram or Linkedin.

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible.

Claude Schryer

Latest update on July 20, 2024