***
Sonify LSX | Kings Resident Artist 2022-2023
Using sonification as both provocateur and reframing device, Jamie Perera, Catherine Tilley and Chris Manais created a framework that sonified the London Stock Exchange in real time, through mapping changes in the FTSE 100 to a participant-led array of sounds. The process involved workshops with students, engagement with the public around Kings College London, and used sound as a way to confront entrenched systems of harm, to interrogate themes of endangerment, express students' future fears and create vocabulary for systematic change.
Listen to the sample output below, which sonified the data from FTSE 100 companies in real time, using student choices that included chaotic piano melodies, angry animal cries, techno, whales and drilling.
Main impact takeaways (Jamie Perera):
Sonify LSX presents a way in which myself & contributors can interrogate some of the seemingly immovable objects that have led to climate change. The process & work:
- Provides a platform for voices to be heard e.g. students, members of the public, teachers
- Allows the questioning of LSX companies within the themes of endangerment and extinction
- Develops critique into sonic output that transforms participant's feelings around issues
- The embodiment of feelings is not based on sense/logic, but still carries power for change
- Serves to deconstruct and question the entity of LSX as a whole
- Provision of agency in interacting with the work provides some resilience, space for change and hope
Main impact takeaways (Catherine Tilley)
We are at the point where we have an interesting and well-developed concept, and an initial design for execution. I think we've established three really important things:
- First, sonification has real potential to bring our attention to the relationship between business and extinction, and make us question what we value
- Second, the process of engaging with our students has been engaging and helpful to them as they start to question their place in this system and the extent to which they feel willing and able to challenge it
- Third, it has helped me to think about the tensions and assumptions in business sustainability, and the ways in which these can be foregrounded in research and teaching.
"The students are taught about ethics and sustainability as part of their degree courses, but in the workshop were invited to explore these issues in a new way with a particular focus on finding ways to express their feelings about the issues. This is an unusual experience for them in the business school, and they tell me they really enjoyed engaging with the process - I would love to have the opportunity to extend this work further as it prompts some interesting questioning about the structures that our students work with. From a personal perspective, this project has been quite an adventure, and l'm delighted that King's Artists chose to support the work. I very much hope that we can continue to develop this, as I think the work can offer new ways to understand and engage with a problem that is at the heart of our world."
Process:
Analysing FTSE 100 Company profiles / CSR reports
Student Workshop:
Workshop Outputs:
