«Cassandra falls asleep in a temple. In the darkness, snakes approach her and lick her ears, cleaning her senses so that she can hear secret voices that other people don't. When she wakes up, she can hear the future[...]»
Sound has always been associated with practices of divination. In a time when imagination is rendered short by a prevalent fixation on dystopian futures, we tune into the resistant voices that create an outside to this totalized world by nurturing structures of individual and communal resistance. Sonic Utopias is a sonic fiction series of utopian narratives and tales of subversion from a (not so) distant earth.
Five seashells placed on a tray of sand, hold in their bowels another future narrative, that can be listened to by bringing the shell close to our ear. The sand draws a reference to the childhood practice of sandcastles; A metaphor for the necessity of world-building in frail times.
Credits:
“Sonic Utopias”, is a collaborative series of sonic fiction hosted by Movement Radio - Onassis Stegi (ATH, GR) in 2021.
Daphne Xanthopoulou is a Greek sound artist, based between Barcelona and Linz. Her work discusses the relationships between human and non-human agencies, emerging technologies and spirituality, mundane life, and fiction. Through a variety of formats, she explores ecologies of collective composition, environmental listening, and communal healing.
Interface Cultures Exhibition - Ars Electronica Festival 2021
