Artistic researcher Esmee Geerken cordially invites you to the Deep Ecology Talks. For this series, Geerken invites guests from various disciplines to share their views on ecological approaches. For this Deep Ecology event Alexander Cromer will give a performative lecture, that may or may not involve a saxophone!
Deep Ecology, referring to a term coined by ecologist Arne Næss in 1973, entails the idea that the ecosystem is a web of complex relationships that needs to be regarded as a whole, with moral and legal rights to remain healthy, independent from human extractions of the ecosystem.
Deep Ecology Talk: Sonic Logos - Alexander Cromer
Julian Henriques, professor in media, communication and culture, introduces the concept sonic logos in his text Sonic Bodies. Sonic logos is a re/imagining and complication of the Greek logos, which means ‘word’ ‘reason’ or ‘plan’. By linking sound to 'logos', Henriques focuses on knowledge production through sound.
Henriques argues that sound is a source of embodied knowledge production: knowledge that is not only within the head, but in the whole body. An example of this is jazz improvisation. It is all about knowing what to do, when to do it and how to do it. By listening to your body, you know what to do and the music is created. This knowledge is also situated, because it is connected to a specific situation and moment.
Meanwhile, Nina Sun Eidsheim, professor of musicology, argues that voice is produced collectively: it takes our entire body, also in relation to our environments and sociocultural atmospheres we move through, to produce voice.
As a spoken word performance artist/human/conjurer, these stories excite Alexander Cromer. The theories are therefore central to his artistic research. How can they be combined? During this evening, Cromer will bring Henriques' and Eidsheim's theories together in a performance. In collaboration with the audience, Cromer will build a human sounds system. Together you will experiment with various ways of making sounds. Is it possible that we can develop new modes of ecological relation through voice and sound?
You can already listen to the playlist 'Sonic Logos' that accompanies Alexander Cromer’s talk.
programme:
17:45 - 18:00 hrs – Arrival
18:00 - 19:00 hrs – Public performative lecture by Alexander Cromer (public)
19:00 - 20:00 hrs – Discussion with UvA-IIS students (on invitation only)
About Alexander Cromer
Alexander Cromer (US) is a spoken word performance artist and artistic researcher based in the Netherlands. Currently he is pursuing a PhD at Leiden University/The Royal Academy of the Arts. His research revolves around ontological facets of Blackness in regards to ecology and voice. Cromer’s work has been featured at institutions such as the Dutch National Opera and Ballet, the British Film Institute, and the Finnish Cultural Institute Benelux.
About the Deep Ecology series
For the Deep Ecology lecture series, organised for the UvA-Institute for interdisciplinary studies, Esmee Geerken invites guests from various disciplines to share their views on ecological approaches; Complexity scientist prof. Peter Sloot, artist and performer Alexander Cromer, environmental scientist dr. Paul Behrens, artist and writer Vibeke Mascini, philosopher and XR-rebel Chris Julien, gender studies /anti-disciplinary scholar dr. Eva Hayward, film maker Jasper Coppes, hapto-artist Rosalie Bak, Environmental Humanities scholar dr. Jeff Diamanti and writer and survival trainer Alexander Nieuwenhuis contribute with their perspectives on (Deep) Ecology.
