Sound + Environment Symposium 2025

4th – 6th September 2025

Papers, Workshops and Art Works

The  Sound  +  Environment  Research Group at Newcastle University will be hosting a broad range of international scholars and practitioners for the inaugural symposium 4th – 6th September 2025. The theme of the symposium aligns with the aims of the Sound + Environment Research Group, set-up to bring together researchers working across arts and sciences to explore the ways that sound can deepen our understanding of environments and the communities inhabiting them. For example, recent developments in the field of ecoacoustics are proving fruitful in assessing ecosystem change. Sound and listening are also increasingly used to monitor built structures and to inform urban and rural landscape design. We can use sound for scientific and artistic exploration, to inform and expand our knowledge of environments and our relationships to the world around us. Sound can inform a range of innovative interventions and solutions to problems. Through exploring scientific and artistic approaches together, we engage with sound and listening to create complementary ways of investigating, understanding, and taking action.

We have welcome contributions from a wide range of topics, including but not limited to:

Acoustic Space and psychoacoustics
Acoustic Ecology
Acoustic Communities
Place-related Composition (soundscape, electroacoustic, acoustic, improvisation)
Creative Intervention
Community Engagement
Data Sonification
Sense of Place
Identity
Social, Cultural and Environmental Sustainability
Heritage and Memory
Ecoacoustics
Environmental aesthetics
Environmental politics (policy/legislation)
Soundscape Ecology
Bioacoustics
Structural monitoring
Psychogeography
Urban design and planning
Environmental Health
Experience and Phenomenology
Sonic Perception
Sound Art
Text Scores
Audio Archives

Please note, submissions are now closed.

If you have any queries, please feel free to contact the organising committee:

Dr Rob Mackay (rob.mackay@newcastle.ac.uk )

Dr Tatiana Alvares-Sanches (tatiana.alvares-sanches@newcastle.ac.uk)

Dr Usue Ruiz Arana (usue.ruiz-arana@newcastle.ac.uk )

Davie de la Haye – D.J.C.De-La-Haye2@newcastle.ac.uk

Lawrence Davies – L.Davies17@newcastle.ac.uk

Will Dawson – W.Dawson4@newcastle.ac.uk

Martin Eccles – martin.eccles@newcastle.ac.uk

Martin Heslop – M.S.Heslop2@newcastle.ac.uk

Keynote Speaker – Prof Alice Eldridge

We are pleased to announce that our keynote speaker on Friday 5^th September will be Prof Alice Eldridge.

Alice Eldridge is a musician and researcher with an interest in how sound organises systems. Her work integrates ideas and methods from music, complexity and computer sciences, ecology and indigenous cosmovision to advance theory and methods in transdisciplinary soundscape ecology for regenerative futures. Alice is currently Professor of Sonic Systems at the University of Sussex where she is academic lead in the School for Progressive Futures and fellow of the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme. Testament to her career indecision, she has appeared on various BBC TV and radio stations as a soundscape scientist and field recordist, on BBC radio 3 as a free jazz cellist, on BBC radio 6 as a contemporary chamber composer, and on BBC radio 1 as a pop bassist.

Keynote address: Ecolistening for Regenerative Futures

Various schools of thought arrive at a similar understanding of the roots of our contemporary crises: that our current inability to perceive the true complexity of the world creates a disconnect from wider nature, each other and ourselves. Founded on the conviction that listening connects, our Ecolistening group at the University of Sussex develops, explores and applies different forms of technologically-mediated listening to address these issues at planetary, community and personal scales. This sounds grand but is sometimes very simple. In this talk I will share some of our ongoing collaborative projects in what we might dub regenerative techno-listening – from interpretable AI for ecological monitoring in nature recovery projects and community-based soundscape projects for ecocultural connection in the UK, through indigenous-led participatory projects for intergenerational transmission of ancestral knowledge and biocultural heritage in Ecuador, to tuning in to non-dual experiences of rewilding landscapes with microphenomenology. In time, we will muse on how philosophy of biology might provide some useful ideas to help us think about these different forms of relational, regenerative listening and find words to describe our familiar, lived experience of how listening connects.

Programme

Download a PDF of the short programme brochure here.

Download a PDF of the long programme brochure (with all abstracts) here.

Download a PDF of the Installations & Listening Room at a Glance

Workshops: See more information about workshops and book places here.

Maps: Download a map of the symposium locations

Registration

Registration Rates:

Full Symposium = £50 (£35 Concessions (Student, OAP, Disability, Self Employed))

Day Rate = £20 (£15 Concessions)

Registration Link: Sound + Environment Symposium | Newcastle University WebStore

We will be welcoming delegates on the 4th and 5th of September at the Boiler House, Newcastle University Campus, NE1 7RU