Pablo Sanz: PORTAL PHONOCENE – Tonspur 94

MQ Artist-in-Residence Pablo Sanz
PORTAL PHONOCENE

until 03.05.2025l TONSPUR_passage | free entry

PORTAL PHONOCENE is a site-conditioned sound work for the TONSPUR_passage in the Museumsquartier. Part of the ongoing series PHONOCENE ~ SPECTRAL AFFECTS, it invites listeners to attune to the vitality of non-human voices and sonic expressions. The work unfolds as a series of soundspaces woven from sound materials gathered in biodiverse Amazonian territories, reconfigured and expanded through spectral transformations.

The composition is guided by the spectral coexistence of life in densely layered ecosystems, where species distribute their voices to sustain sonic communication and balance. This principle, known as the acoustic niche hypothesis, suggests that different organisms organise their vocalisations to avoid masking each other. The spectrograms exhibited in the passage visualise these co-existing sonic patterns, drawn from original recordings and focused details, revealing the intricate interplay of a multispecies sonic ecology.

The intervention hovers at the threshold of perception, subtly interweaving with the evolving rhythms, daily interactions, and sounds in and around the passage. It invites discovery — emerging and dissolving within the flow of everyday life. At times barely perceptible, it quietly invites attuned listening. The transfigured clicks, buzzes, croaks, chirps, and whispers of bats, insects, amphibians, and birds drift in a spectral flow, forming a liminal space — a portal into alternative modes of listening and relating.

The Phonocene, a concept introduced by Donna Haraway and expanded by Vinciane Despret as a counterpoint to the Anthropocene buzzword, envisions an epoch of attunement to the voices of the planet — a call to listen beyond the human, to trust in the world’s musicalities, and to recognise how sound can reconnect us with the planet’s living tapestry. Amid escalating eco-social crises, it sparks a shift in awareness — fostering renewed attention and empathy, encouraging less anthropocentric ways of being and thinking.

Pablo Sanz, born in Madrid, Spain in 1981, lives and works in Madrid and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. In February 2025, the sound artist was MQ Artist-in-Residence at MuseumsQuartier in cooperation with TONSPUR.

Photo: © Paul Frank