Free Event
Ria Bagley live electronics
Monty Adkins sound diffusion
Jana Winderen (Norway, 1965)
Aquaculture (2010) 18’
Ria Bagley (UK, 1990)
Sonic Reflection on Urban Sustainability 25’
Ben Thigpen (France, 1959)
arctic sky (2025) 21’ UK Premiere
Monty Adkins and Ria Bagley perform an immersive electroacoustic concert exploring climate, landscape, and the Anthropocene through three distinct works, inviting audiences to inhabit shifting sonic worlds where listening becomes a way to engage with both urban and natural environments.
Jana Winderen’s Aquaculture employs field recordings from the Barents Sea, Greenland and Norway, capturing sound from deep crevasses of glaciers, in fjords and wildlife of the frozen north. Edited into a powerful soundscape, these recordings offer a mesmeric journey into the unseen audio world of the Arctic. The work, from the album Energy Field, received the Golden Nica for Digital Musics and Sound Art at Ars Electronica 2011.
Ria Bagley’s Sonic Reflection on Urban Sustainability examines the tension between ecological urgency and public apathy in Liverpool, the UN’s first ‘Accelerator City’ for sustainability. Structured in three parts – Past, Present, and Post-Human Future – the piece explores how sound can reveal the emotional and ecological layers of urban life, with each sound object acting as a witness to environmental change and inviting audiences to consider listening as climate praxis.
In contrast, Ben Thigpen’s arctic sky uses invented electroacoustic instruments to evoke seven visions of the sky’s immensity, blending induction, piezoelectricity and digital processing to create fluid, transformative sonic landscapes. He writes, “The sun. Traces a circle. Slowly. The clouds are vast unstable landscape-sculptures; shifting mountains of the sky in transformation. Fluid worlds. The light is constant, palpable. Almost audible…”
Together, these three works form a journey through elemental sound worlds, from the human-made city to the remote Arctic, inviting listeners to experience space, time, and ecological awareness in new and profound ways.
Co-produced by CEADA, CeReNeM and hcmf// with support from the University of Huddersfield
Ben Thigpen’s arctic sky is commissioned by InaGRM, supported by a grant from the French Ministry of Culture
Photo: © Jana Windern
Getting There
Venue: Phipps Hall (Second Floor, Richard Steinitz Building)
Accessibility: Accessibility information is available here. Further information on campus accessibility is available on the University of Huddersfield website.
What three words: ///opera.flock.anyone
Address: Queensgate, England, HD1 3DH, United Kingdom.