This project understands ‘sonic being’ as a framework to explore how participating researchers listen, interact with, and resonate with the world (Rosa 2019), situating their existence within a rich, multidimensional space. This approach connects researchers to their environments and each other, fostering a shared resonance. By focusing on sonic experience, researchers can capture subtle emotional shifts, environmental nuances, and temporal changes often missed in visual frameworks. Investigating sonic beings enables a deeper understanding of participants’ situated knowledges, identity formation and creative processes through the interpretation of sound.
An example from this project’s preliminary inquiry arises as Anna (real name anonymized) shares stories about what she hears on her way to school. When Anna walks down the street and hears the church bell ring, the sound evokes an early childhood memory. The bell’s chime, as a ‘sonic being’, reminds her of the time when, at the age of six, she would walk with her parents to the weekly Serbian folk dance gathering in her community. She always looked forward to this event because it meant she could eat baklava, a treat forbidden at home. Each time she passes the church while the bell rings and her memory surfaces, the sonic being emerges, which, in this case, is entirely subjective. This narrative highlights the ability of sound to evoke personal memories and cultural histories, illustrating how auditory experiences shape and reflect both individual and collective identities (DeNora 2000).
The project sees sound as both a form of knowledge and creative expression, encouraging a move beyond traditional data collection to embrace performative and participatory methods. Exploring sound in this way offers new insights into the sublime and interconnected nature of human existence. At its core, the concept of sonic beings enriches research by introducing a holistic, relational approach that values interconnectedness and subjective experience. It broadens the scope of inquiry, enhancing our understanding of diverse cultures, human’s relationship with the environment, and interactions with non-human entities.
Meeting (of) Sonic Beings: Children as Artistic Researchers (AR Pilot)
How do child researchers imagine research? What questions do they ask when given the tools and trust to explore sound, identity, and creativity? In this AR pilot project, twenty children in fourth grade from a Viennese elementary school in 3rd district are invited as researchers.
This exploratory phase lays the groundwork for a larger artistic research endeavor. It focuses on how childr researchers wish to shape the direction of inquiry: What questions related to sounds are meaningful to them? How do they want to engage with sound as material, metaphor, and method? And how do their questioning shape this artistic research project?
Using Participatory Action Research and Entangled Sound-Making Practices, the pilot creates an open, flexible space—The Sonic Beings Laboratory—where children and adults co-develop early research practices. Rather than imposing predefined structures, the project listens deeply to the children’s ways of knowing and expressing, allowing research questions, sub-projects, and methods to emerge collaboratively.
This pilot is not about arriving at answers—it is about attending to how a young generation of artistic researchers begins to pose and formulate questions.
"Diese Kreature fliegt über die ganze Welt und sammelt jedes Geräusch"
EN: This creature flies all over the world and collects every sound.
All names and voices of the co-researchers in this exposé have been anonymized and follows ethical guidelines for researching with children, ensuring their privacy and agency in the research process.
In September 2024, researchers Jelizaveta Vovka and Ragnheiður Erla Björnsdóttir joined a class in a school in Vienna to explore sound—not as something to be taught, but as something to be questioned and experienced together. Through this process, the children expanded their roles, not only as artists but also as facilitators and researchers, shaping the sonic projects, asking questions about sound, music, and identity to discover ways of entangled sound-making. Over time, they transformed a classroom into a laboratory—where sound became a way to think, create, and connect. This exposé is the result of that research—every thought, sound, drawing, and idea emerging from the shared research of the child and adult researchers.
In one of our research sessions, we explored the concept of research: What does it mean to investigate something? How do we ask questions?
“Wenn man was Neues erkennt und das den anderen zeigt.” (“When you recognize something new and show it to others.”)
This statement presents research as a process of recognition and communication. It suggests that research is not only about discovering new things but also about making them visible to others. The phrase “etwas erkennen” (to recognize something) implies an active process: one must observe, notice, or realize something that was previously unknown or unnoticed.
Equally important is the second part of the statement: “und das den anderen zeigt”. Here, research is framed as a social activity; knowledge is not complete until it is shared. This reflects a participatory understanding of research, where discovery gains value through communication and exchange.
“Erforschen bedeutet, wenn man z. B. einen geheimen Eingang findet und man es untersucht.” (“Research means, for example, when you find a secret entrance and investigate it.”)
This statement frames research as an exploratory process: one that involves discovery, movement, and investigation. Unlike the first definition, which emphasizes recognizing and sharing knowledge, this perspective suggests that research requires actively finding a hidden path and then engaging with it.
The phrase „einen geheimen Eingang findet“ (“finding a secret entrance”) evokes a sense of adventure, positioning research as something dynamic and spatial rather than purely observational. It implies that knowledge is not always immediately visible, it must be searched for, uncovered, and entered.
The second part of the statement, „und man es untersucht“ (“and investigate it”) emphasizes that discovery alone is not enough. Research is not just about stumbling upon something unknown; it requires engagement, curiosity, and deeper inquiry. This perspective aligns with an embodied and experience-driven approach to research, where knowing emerges through interaction rather than passive observation.
This pilot project is guided by Participatory Action Research (PAR) and an exploratory approach to entangled sound-making, but rather than applying these frameworks as fixed structures, they serve as starting points for a shared inquiry. The central aim of this phase is to discover how the children wish to engage in research: what they are curious about, what forms of artistic expression resonate with them, and which research methods feel meaningful from their perspective.
In the Sonic Beings Laboratory, a collaborative environment is cultivated where participating researchers work side by side to explore sound as a medium of inquiry. Through experimentation, conversation, and play, the group begins to co-develop research questions, methods, and practices. Instead of predefined outcomes, the process is shaped by the children’s evolving interests and creative impulses.
Within this responsive framework, entangled sound-making emerges as a relational and embodied mode of exploration. Activities such as sound walks, field recordings, drawing, DJing, movement, and storytelling serve both as tools for research and as ways of imagining new possibilities. These practices support the creation of a shared research space, where children and adults explore not only what feels worth investigating, but also how they wish to engage in the process—shaping research through their own rhythms, interests, and artistic modes of inquiry.
Ultimately, the methods are not imposed but discovered—growing out of the participating researcher's ways of listening, making, and questioning. This process opens space for knowledge-making, and invites a constant rethinking of what artistic research can become.
One co-researcher responded by drawing a scene of the North Pole, where three characters—a human researcher, a penguin, and a polar bear—each engage in their own inquiry.
At first glance, the drawing humorously subverts expectations, but on closer examination, it reveals a specifc understanding of knowledge systems and relational inquiry. Each character is engaged in research, but their questions emerge from different perspectives, motivations, and realities:
The human researcher thinks: “I ask myself what the polar bear eats.”
This is a classic scientific research question, rooted in an external observer’s curiosity about the animal world.
The penguin thinks: “I ask myself what the researcher sings.”
Here, a surprising shift in perspective happens, instead of observing another animal, the penguin researches the human through sound, emphasizing a knowledge system that values listening, expression, and embodied experience rather than external classification.
The polar bear thinks: “Who will be my victim today?”
This is a humorous but stark reminder of power, survival, and agency. Here, the bear does not research in an academic sense but engages in an instinct-driven inquiry of its own, one where survival dictates its line of questioning.
This drawing moves beyond traditional hierarchies of knowledge (human studying animal) to suggest a multi-directional research process, where inquiry is shaped by one’s position, needs, and environment. The scientific knowledge system is represented by the researcher’s question. The sensory, artistic, and embodied knowledge system is reflected in the penguin’s curiosity about song. The instinctive, survival-driven knowledge system emerges in the polar bear’s internal world.
Some follow-up questions that might be read out of this drawing could be: Who gets to ask the questions, and from which position?
Group Drawing as Shared Thinking
One of the most resonant entangled sound-making practices to emerge in the lab has been group drawing. This collective exercise transforms the floor into a shared canvas for thinking, imagining, and composing together. Using a wide range of materials—markers, pastels, pencils, and more—participants are free to move, contribute, and engage in ways that suit their own rhythms.
Some researchers create graphic notations, others explore abstract visuals, write texts, or sketch sound-inspired forms. The process allows for fluid movement between collaborative and independent work, with participants shifting between group formations and solitary focus as they choose. In this space, drawing becomes a way to listen to each other, respond in layers, and generate shared meaning—without needing a single interpretation.
This practice reflects the values of the Sonic Beings Laboratory: openness, relationality, and the belief that research can emerge through embodied, playful, and situated forms of expression.
Three particularly strong research interests have emerged among the participating researchers: K-pop, embodied music, and sonic world-making through video game design.
In the K-pop project, researchers compose their own songs from scratch—crafting beats, writing lyrics, developing melodies, and shaping musical themes. Their process shows a high degree of artistic autonomy and cultural awareness, blending global pop influences with personal expression.
Under the theme of “Musik und Bewegung”, researchers explore the relationship between music and the body. Through dance, movement, and gesture, they investigate how physicality and rhythm intertwine, developing an embodied understanding of musical experience.
In the realm of video games with music (“Videospiele mit Musik”), researchers imagine and design sonic worlds. This involves inventing stories, creating characters, and composing sounds that give life to imagined game environments—merging play, sound design, and narrative in a vivid form of sonic fabulation.
