Colette Aliman is a creative researcher working within the fields of media art and social design. They like researching topics within sonic ecology, producing sound compositions and field recordings, podcasts about sounds of fear, sound installations, and performative lectures. They are launching the platform Sound-Office in Rotterdam that researches the bridges between the development of sound policy, soundscape studies, and sound art practices to generate different ways to engage people's relationships with their soundscape. They are interested in overlapping multi-species sonic cultures, recalibrating our hearing evolution to better live with noise pollution, activating our sonic imaginaries, and the politics of listening.
The Acoustic Continuum
The installation is a hybrid sculpture, sound installation, and lecture performance. It takes the form of modular furniture that doubles as a speaker system, four individual objects that can be separated, rearranged, and used for seating during performances or as resting spots in the space between events. These objects operate in two states: at rest, they are sculptural design objects and places for listening; during performances, activated, projecting sound and supporting the live performance.
Sound Office with Colette Aliman
Why is it important to develop a bridge between the creative sector and policy? Join Sound Office on a lecture performance and workshop, moving from sound art to noise abatement legislation, from how we listen to practicing our sonic agency. During two hours, we will prepare our bodies to listen for the evening by navigating through soundscapes, theory, listening, and movement exercises. This session relies on active participation to shed layer after layer of our glistening sonic auras until we
Policy in Flux
Policy in Flux is a guideline for the creation of flexible policies through the lens of sound. It encourages decision-makers to practice adaptive decision-making and policy development inspired by the impact of sound on our world. This was exhibited at BRUTUS Wild Summer of Art 2024
Listening in designed places of care
This project invites viewers to reflect on the sounds they encounter in healthcare settings
and to envision the future soundscape of these spaces. These audio-visual works explore how
the acoustic environment of hospitals relates to the mechaphony – the sounds of the industrial
age. These digital sculptures act as speculative machines. They were designed with sound as the
primary sculpting material.
Cooking Quantitatively with Energy Commission and Interview
Colette Aliman and Noam Youngrak Son worked on an audiovisual project commissioned by 25AV. In the video, house wife alter-ego Ursula constructs a recipe for living through these trying times of energy and media politics. We will discuss how to conceptualize energy consumption and relate it to the many different bodies that are using and being exploited by an energized apparatus of commodity. In the end, we will create an energy dough that prophesizes equal distribution of energy across species.
They'll Audiate Lillies Singing
The performance lecture "They'll Audiate Lillies Singing" was commissioned for the Attuning to Mutated Worlds Conference for Fiber Festival in 2022. The performance was a mix of a talk and soundscape listening session on the topic of the Mechaphony, the integration of bio-logic in engineering, and the possibility of attuning our industry for multi-species sonic cultures. The talk was accompanied by a bio-logic prototype by Elizaveta Federmesser.
Conversing Our Soundscapes of Fear Podcast
Colette Aliman and Lauriane Heim collaborate on Conversing Our Soundscape of Fear, a podcast investigating the relationship between sound and the spectrum of fear emotions such as distress, apprehension, and alertness. What can the action of listening tell us about our fears?
COSF Podcast Episode 1: Sound Design and the Spectrum of Fear
The recording of the first episode of the podcast Conversing Our Soundscapes of Fear was recorded live at Dutch Design Week 2020. Participants: Colette Aliman, Lauriane Heim, Toros Senan, Karena Kalmbach and Marylou Petot.
Soundscapes Of Fear
The project Soundscapes of Fear highlights Colette Aliman and Lauriane Heim ongoing investigation on the relation between sound and the feeling of fear. What can we learn when we consider fear from a sonic perspective?
Through an audiovisual installation, the project explores the growing exposure to sensory information extracted from popular and trending sources such as film, news media, and music. Also coinciding was a panel discussion about fear and society with experts (please see link).
Soundscape Mixtape Workshop and Lecture
‘If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be a part of your evolution’. The lecture
was about the parallelism between soundscapes and psychoacoustics. The
workshop taught the student’s how to imagine, edit and produce their
own soundscapes as reflections of their acoustic wants and needs during
and post Covid 19. All was conducted online due to lockdown.
The Mechaphony
This thesis was produced during the Contextual Design Department at Design Academy Eindhoven in 2019. The publication explores: The mechaphony, the growing soundscape of
our mechanical systems, has now found itself echoing into the ocean. How
has the mechaphony morphed our sonic relations to other species’ sound
cultures? And, what is the role of designers and engineers as tuners of the
mechaphony?
Apisocial Saturdays: Treatment Free Beekeeping symposium
A symposium on treatment free beekeeping for two Saturdays in February in 2013 at the 808 Gallery in Boston during the exhibition System: ECOnomies.
Festooning the Inflatable Beehive
System: ECOnomies presents the work of individual artists and collaboratives who consider the themes of sustainability (environmental, cultural, or economic) through the invention or investigation of ecological systems or micro-communities. The exhibition examines the feasibility of sustainable solutions on small scales and the value of working within modest and minimal means.
Festooning the Inflatable Beehive was part of this exhibition.