Established with support from the national CIIIC programme, Futures of Listening explores immersive technologies and listening practices through a sound-centered perspective. While discussions around immersion often focus on visual technologies such as XR, VR, and AR, the platform instead investigates the immersive and narrative potential of spatial sound, particularly in relation to urgent ecological and social questions.
Spatial sound can reshape sensory experience and open new forms of collective listening. It enables immersive stories unfolding through movement and space, while also supporting sculptural, choreographic, and architectural approaches that engage perception beyond linear narrative structures. Through these practices, the platform explores shared imagination, deeper connections to place, and new ways of attuning to a more-than-human world.
Through four interconnected research areas, residencies and open calls, Futures of Listening will create spaces for experimentation, research and presentation. It will explore how this rapidly growing form of art calls for new instruments, accessible systems and interdisciplinary collaborations, while asking how spatial sound can become more inclusive, and open to diverse ways of hearing.
Partners:
FIBER, 4DSOUND, Robin Koek, Art of Sound at Royal Conservatoire the Hague, iii, Sound Studies Center, Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA), Leiden University and University of the Arts The Hague; MONOM, PXL-Music Research, CTM Festival, MUTEK Montréal, KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute), and NADD (Network Archives Design and Digital Culture).
Funded by CIIIC and Creative Industries Fund NL.