Image: Ula Kuzma (2019)
On Friday 2o March, we are welcoming the next guest speakers to the 2025-2026 ASCA Cities Seminar: Naomi Bueno de Mesquite, Tzlil Sharon and Amit Gur (Amsterdam University of the Arts), part of the research group Pluralism in Research and the Arts in a talk titled “Polyphonic Archive”. Their work investigates how publics can engage with cultural heritage in new and meaningful ways. This interest emerges from a broader shift in how archives are understood today. Archives are increasingly made publicly available—partly enabled by digital technologies—and are more often conceptualised as a public good. Yet public availability does not automatically translate into accessibility. Not everyone is able to enter, interpret, or work with archival material. These developments have also reshaped the role of the historian: from a primary interpreter of the archive to a mediator of archival knowledge. The research project Polyphonic Archive explores how archival material can be experienced through sound by constructing a virtual auditory space in which archival traces are sonified. Documents, testimonies, and historical fragments are transformed into immersive sonic environments. In doing so, the project addresses several interrelated challenges central to the sonic experience of space: How can soundscapes and acoustics convey the auditory reality of specific environments, in this case interior rooms? How can a sense of space be constructed solely through sound, without reliance on visual cues? How can a sense of movement be generated within an auditory virtual environment? To articulate this experience, the project introduces the concept of the implicit listener: a listener who is not positioned outside the archive as a detached observer, but who hears the auditory scene from within it, occupying the perspective of a subject embedded in the archival space itself. The session takes place from 15.00-17.00 in room 0.16 (E-lab) at the University of Amsterdam, Turfdraagsterpad 9, Amsterdam.
Naomi Bueno de Mesquita is a professor and researcher working at the intersection of art, design, cartography, and philosophy, with a focus on the societal impact of emerging technologies. She leads the research group Social Justice and Diversity in the Arts at the Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK) and the research group Design & Social Innovation at Design Academy Eindhoven.
Tzlil Sharon, media scholar, is a research associate at the Amsterdam University of the Arts, working for the ‘Polyphonic Archive’ project. Her research investigates how listening practices are shaped by technological infrastructures such as podcasting and audio platforms, and how these shape the politics of memory. She contributes theoretical and methodological expertise in podcasting and sound studies, enabling the team to connect historical archives to contemporary listening environments.
Amit Gur is an Israeli composer and music researcher based in Amsterdam. Since January 2017, Amit has been PhD mandate at the Antwerp Research Institute for The Arts (ARIA). In addition, Amit regularly gives seminars on his research to Composition and Musicology departments. As composer he seeks new ways of expression through exploration of the textural domain in music.
For more information and registration, please contact Linda Kopitz (l.kopitz@vu.nl).
Readings
– Schafer, R. Murray, ‘The Soundscape’ [1994] in Jonathan Sterne, ed. The Sound Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 2012, 95-103.
– Sharon, Tzlil. “Peeling the pod: Towards a Research Agenda for Podcast Studies.” Annals of the International Communication Association 47.3 (2023): 324-337.
All readings can be accessed via this shared Surfdrive folder as well.
Following Sessions
Fri. 20 Mar. 2026: Naomi Bueno de Mesquita, Tzlil Sharon and Amit Gur (Amsterdam University of the Arts), “Polyphonic Archive”, Time: 3-5pm, Location: room 0.16, Turfdraagsterpad 9, Amsterdam.
Fri. 24 Apr. 2026: Alfredo Thiermann Riesco (École Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne), “Radio-Activities: Architecture and Broadcasting in Cold War Berlin”, Time: 3-5pm, Location: room 0.16, Turfdraagsterpad 9, Amsterdam.
Fri. 22 May 2026: Sandra Jasper (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) and Jonathan Prior (Cardiff University), “Urban Bioacoustics: Listening to Animal Voices in the GDR”, Time: 3-5pm, Location: room 0.16, Turfdraagsterpad 9, Amsterdam.
The ASCA Cities Seminar is co-organized by Carolyn Birdsall, Linda Kopitz and Alex Gekker.