Sound helps us interact with the world and with each other, sonification gives a great possibility to present and analyse data. Space around us is filled with humming, murmuring, reverberating, carrying information. Sound waves can be a means of diagnosing health conditions and of monitoring the faraway space. Frequencies beyond human hearing can wake dormant instruments measuring volcanoes activity. Sound can be almost a physical instrument. Astrophysicists refer to sonification of light/brightness variations to reconstruct stellar compositions and structure. Scientists and artists are exploring and probing the world by listening.

Aernoudt JACOBS

is a Belgian artist working primarily with the medium of sound. His work is both phenomenological and empirical. It has its origins in acoustic and technological research and investigates how sounds can trigger sonic processes that will affect the observer's scope of perception.
His work focuses on a central question: how can the complexity, richness and stratification of our direct, daily environment be translated into something that can really be experienced. His work has been exhibited widely in Belgium and abroad.

In addition to his artistic practice Jacobs co-directs with Christoph De Boeck Overtoon, a platform and production facility for sound art based in the centre of Brussels.

Website
Overtoon Website

Katrien KOLENBERG

is an astronomer (astrophysics), STE(A)M coordinator and manager of ESERO-Belgium (European Space Education Resource Office) coordinator at the KULeuven. She is professor of astrophysics at the University of Antwerp and the VUB. After obtaining her PhD in astrophysics at KULeuven in 2002, she did research at the University of Vienna and at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. At each of these stops, art always featured alongside astronomy.

Her scientific research is situated in the field of stellar astrophysics, in particular variable stars and asteroseismology (the physics of vibrating stars).

She’s passionate about science and art, astronomy for development, and innovative/artistic science communication and education worldwide. In this context, she long ago made the bridge from the data of vibrating stars to the sound that can be associated with them, and discovered the (persuasive) power of multisensory data exploration. Her collaboration with Wanda Diaz Merced, who uses and studies sonification, inspired her to start "fine-tuning" sonification techniques for pulsating stars. While star sounds have often been used for science communication, the power of the sonification method for data analysis within asteroseismology (and by extension other fields) has never been thoroughly investigated. The AstroSounds collaboration allows this to be investigated on a larger scale, by letting the public listen to stars!

Esero Belgium Website
Astrosound

Mathieu ZURSTRASSEN

is a trained architect who since 2013 embraces the path of visual arts. In designing objects, he moves away from the projection of the drawing and focuses on the experimentation of construction. He gives added value to his work, symbolic and philosophical, on the quality of the invisible and the relationships thus created between the sender and receiver. He uses the codes of craftsmanship to solve aesthetical issues often at the borders of the unspeakable. Highly technical, Mathieu Zurstrassen combines the ambiguity of materials, a poetic thought made of humour and delicacy.

He has since exhibited in various events, galleries and festivals such as the KIKK Festival or Ars Electronica or Venice Biennale.

Website

ALEXANDRA DEMENTIEVA

Alexandra Dementieva is a multimedia artist, based in Brussels. The idea of interaction between the viewer and an artwork, mediated by technologically progressive visualization methods, lies at the core of her work. In her installations she uses various art forms on an equal basis: dance, music, cinema and performance. Akin to an explorer she raises questions related to social psychology and theories of perception suggesting solutions to them by contemporary artistic means, that is by taking a subjective stance behind a camera. Her installations focus on the role of the viewer and her/his interaction with an artwork and bring forth ways of provoking the viewer’s involvement thus allowing hidden mechanisms of human behaviour to be revealed.

Website

Edith Doove

Edith Doove (PhD) is a curator, writer and researcher, specifically interested in notions of emergence and contingency, cross and transdisciplinary collaborations. She holds a PhD as member of Transtechnology Research at Plymouth University. Since 2018 she lives and works in France, currently in Rouen where she teaches at ESADHaR (École supérieure d’art et design Le Havre Rouen). She is a postdoctoral advisor with Transtechnology Research, a regular contributor to Leonardo Reviews, moderator of the Leonardo LASER Talks Brussels and co-convenor of Currer Bell College. Recent exhibition projects are Loving Care – Pierre Mertens (Blikfabriek, Antwerp, 2020), Troupe/Troep (ChezKit, Pantin/Paris, 2021) and the 10th anniversary version of the international art project Bolero (Rouen, 2021).

Website

The Leonardo/ISAST LASER Talks are a program of international gatherings that bring artists, scientists, humanists and technologists together for informal presentations, performances and conversations with the wider public. The mission of the LASERs is to encourage contribution to the cultural environment of a region by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and opportunities for community building to over 40 cities around the world. To learn more about how our LASER Hosts and to visit a LASER near you please visit our website.