Is it possible for sensory experiences to shift how we think and act so that we can co-create hopeful, sustainable futures? This is the focus of my work at make SHIFT happen, and my PhD research so I am going to venture a cautious, “Yes, I believe it is but we’ll have to see what the data tells us.”
In the meanwhile, though, I wanted to share something about soundscapes in particular for you to try for yourself. All you have to do is take a break and listen to Timothy X Atack’s “Forest 404“, a BBC drama with a difference: the concept of soundscapes, and the soundscape of a forest specifically, threads throughout the drama.
Each short episode comes with an immersive soundscape of natural world environments, mixed in binaural for a 3D headphone experience: imagine hearing the sounds of a Sumatran Rainforest, the songs of whales, a chorus of frogs and more.
A talk accompanies each episode, too, featuring musicians, bio-futurists, anthropologists and tree-climbers who explore some of the issues and questions that come up in the dramatisation.
Take a listen here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06tqsg3
Why is this of interest to those of us working towards sustainable futures?
For me, there are three reasons:
First, as a sustainability communicator, I think it’s important to explore how sensory experiences like soundscapes can add to our ability to communicate risk and opportunity.
Second, as a facilitator of participatory futures workshops, the senses are critical in helping people to imagine and explore possible, probable and preferable futures – and thus in motivating them to shape the futures they want.
Finally, as an interdisciplinary researcher, I am exploring how the intersection of stories, space and the senses can encourage sustainable thinking and action. This interesting way of combining a story of a catastrophic future, with a soundscape, isn’t quite what I am doing but there are similarities. So this is helping to inform my thinking about what is possible.
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