Viaje SonoroCollective is a scientific and artistic research collective. Using the tools of soundscape ecology, bioacoustics and sound art, the collective explores soundscapes and their biodiversity, urban sound enrichment and the popularization of science through sound.
Viaje Sonoro Collective was born at the beginning of 2019 with the meeting of a biologist whose specialty is bioacoustics and an ecologist whose specialty is soundscape ecology, two different and complementary ways to think and analyze the sound of ecosystems and their components. We met around common interests and similar questions regarding the need of bringing science closer to traditional non-academic knowledge and to put them into dialogue in a horizontal and respectful way. Since 2022, an artist accompanies us along the way.
The beginning: Sol Camacho-Schlenker and Camila Parra-Guevara at the Planetarium of Bogotá in 2019 photo Oscar Pérez – El Espectador
Sol Camacho-Schlenker, field work (Orsay, France) photo Anna Silva
Sol Camacho-Schlenker:
Biologist, researcher in bioacoustics and explorer in sound art
I am a biologist from the Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia) with a master’s and PhD degree in the area of behavioral neurosciences from the Université Paris-Sud (Orsay, France). I study animal behavior and my specialty is bioacoustics, that is, the study of how animals use sounds to communicate.
My research: My research experience in bioacoustics started with the study of the acoustic communication of the pacarana, Dinomys branickii (undergraduate thesis 2004, Universidad de los Andes) and continues until today with the study of the acoustic communication (master thesis 2008, Université Paris-Sud) and of the acoustic communication networks (PhD thesis 2011, Université Paris-Sud) of a forest songbird the European Wren, Troglodytes troglodytes, at the animal acoustic communication team of Paris-Sud neuroscience laboratory (Orsay, France). Since then, I have continued to study the songs of this species, their syntax and their internal rhythm related to the natural and social environment of these birds. In 2018 I began to explore new research topics such as sound perception in urban and rural environments in relation to human non-verbal acoustic communication, and the possibilities of urban sound enrichment as a strategy for re-appropriation of public space in cities by their inhabitants.
My artistic exploration: Since 2014, with the Survive Emptiness project, I have carried out a plastic and acoustic exploration process based on my own intimate experience of illness and pain with their effects on the body and on the sensory perception of the world. Since the founding of the Viaje Sonoro Collective in 2019 and the creation of our first popular science-art exhibition (Viaje sonoro en la noche), I have continued to explore sound and sound creation as tools for the popularization of science and the dialogue between different knowledges.
Camila Parra-Guevara (Bogota, Colombia) photo Martin Bermudez
Camila Parra-Guevara:
Ecologist, researcher in soundscape ecology (eco-acoustics)
I am an ecologist from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogota, Colombia), where I am currently studying for a master’s degree in the Use and Conservation of Biodiversity. I focus on the study of soundscapes in transformed Andean areas and work with birds in different regions of the country, mainly collecting field information and making species inventories.
My research: My research interests are soundscape ecology as a tool for characterizing and monitoring natural and transformed landscapes, agroforestry systems as a conservation strategy, and community-based ecological restoration. My main line of research is currently focused on soundscape ecology, particularly since I completed in 2017 my undergraduate thesis in this field, with the characterization of different coverages from their sounds and comparing them. My master’s degree thesis will take up these topics again.
My artistic exploration: Since 2019 and the founding of Viaje Sonoro Collective, I found myself exploring the relationship between soundscape ecology and the arts. After my participation in the creation of the event Viaje Sonoro en la Noche, an artistic show to popularize science and raise awareness about the importance of the sounds that surround us as common citizens, I was led to consider and become interested in how the arts can play a very important role in the effective dissemination of science.
Photographer and Artist, teacher researcher in the audiovisual field
I am an artist from the Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá, Colombia) with a master’s degree in public art and a PhD in acoustic monuments and memorials from the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (Weimar, Germany). My research-creation covers areas such as the creation of soundscapes, video art and public space.
My research: One of my research interests revolves around the recreation of soundscapes and their relation to memory. This interest was deepened by research on acoustic monuments and memorials that are located in the public space and use sound as their main expresive material (PhD thesis Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, 2019). Exploratory research into the strategies used to create acoustic experiences of commemoration, remembrance, mourning and memory.
My creación artística:My creation covers fields such as video art, installation, photography, sound, public space and heritage. It began in 1998 with the exhibition of the documentary short film Negro de Trabajar in the event Corto a la Lata at the Cinemateca Distrital in Bogotá. In 2009, I won the first prize at the Salón Arte y Naturaleza with the work Irrigando, exhibited at the José Celestino Mutis Botanical Garden in Bogotá. I am currently co-director of the International Video Art Festival Videograma. My work has been exhibited in several cities such as Weimar, Athens, Maharashtra, Toulouse, San Francisco, Montevideo, Amiens, Goa, New York and Bogotá. Member of the Viaje Sonoro Collective since 2022 where I continue to explore sound and the recreation of soundscapes.
Colectivo Viaje Sonoro 2022: Sol, Camila and Yomayra in Bogotá (PUJ) (photo Colectivo Viaje Sonoro)
If Humboldt & Bonpland Ears Could Talk / Si los Oídos de Humboldt y Bonpland Hablaran (2020-2022)
This is a scientific research and artistic creation project in association with the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, Colombia). The project aims to revisit three places in the eastern Colombian Andes formerly visited by Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland in the early 19th century.
The project aims to approach these chosen places in an interdisciplinary way (art, science, engineering, environmental history) and to characterize, recreate and compare them in time based on their soundscapes. We will be gradually publishing new details on the research and results, here:
Workshop: Other Species, Other Hearings / Otras Especies, Otras Escuchas (2019)
In this workshop we wanted to explore ways of hearing other than those we usually have, through the construction of devices allowing us to replicate the physiognomy and imitate the movements of some animals, as an attempt to remove human being from the perceptive center that usually conditions our relationship with the environment, to broaden our perception and discover the acoustic perception of other species with whom we coexist in the city.
The idea was to translate the scientific information available (acoustic, physical and behavioral) into a practical and malleable structure and use it to obtain audio files that could bring us closer to the sound perception of other species and open questions about what we perceive or not of our urban environment.
After a theoretical introduction, each group of participants chose two animals and sought information about their sensitivity to sound, the detailed shape of their ears, their acoustic signals, and their motion patterns. From these data we built a structure allowing us to place binaural microphones in such a way that they replicated the distance, shape and location of animal ears, and can be handled to imitate the head movements and translation.
With these devices we recorded the soundscape, imitating the movement and behaviour of each species in the streets of the city. Listening to the resulting sounds gave us a first simple interpretation of what each species could perceive from the same sound environment, the surroundings of the workshop place in Bogotá, Colombia.
Workshop: Sound Cocktails in quarantine: In the bar of your window our listening is the DJ (2020)
Hosted by Red Suratómica, we associated with Luisa Pinzón to propose Sound Cocktails in quarantine: In the bar of your window our listening is the DJ, a sound exploration and soundscape creation experience based on the soundscape recordings we have collected in our quarantine project #PaisajeSonoroDesdeTuVentana #SoundScapeFromWindow
(More info coming soon)
The Sound Journeys / Viajes Sonoros (2019, 2020-…)
The Sound Journeys (which in spanish, Viajes Sonoros, inspired the name of our collective) are popular science all audiences events aiming to raise awareness on the sounds of the environment and their importance for anyone. These are immersive listening experiences accompanied by sound games and conversations with the audience. The aim is for people to become aware of the sounds that surround them, to interpret them, interact with them, get to know their effects and enjoy them while preserving their diversity.
Created and presented for Colombiodiversidad festival 2019, our first Viaje Sonoro en la Noche (Sound Journey into the Night) took place on May 25 and 26, 2019 in the dome of the Planetarium of Bogota, Colombia. Since then, we have presented it in several events adapting it to the conditions and public of each place we go.
Our brand-new Viaje Sonoro al Mar (Sound Journey into the Sea) was created in May 2020 and presented in association with Esteban Duque (MadreAgua Ecoturismo) for Colombiodiversidad festival 2020. We presented an online version on May 30 2020 in a facebook live event due to Covid-19 quarantine mesures.
Podcast RADIO GOTITA, a sound journey from the high mountains to the sea (and back)
Viaje Sonoro al Mar/Sound Journey to the Sea is also included, as a special chapter (Chapter 4: The arrival)), in our new podcast RADIO GOTITA, a sound journey from the high mountains (páramo) to the sea (and back) that takes us on a sensory journey through the sonorities of water in its cyclic flow from the high mountains (páramo) to the ocean and back through the air and underground, with a special immersion in the incredible sound richness of the sea and its inhabitants.
Listen here (short intros to each chapter are in Spanish, for now)
Urban Sound Mapping and Acoustic Refuges: Paris-Bogotá (2019- )
Urban Sound Mapping in Quarantine (2020 – ): Soundscapes from Window
Since the beginning of the quarantine periods imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic in many countries, we wished to get a record of the sound of the “world without humans”. To do this, together with Red Cratila we have launched the initiative #SoundScapesFromWindow. It is a proposal of urban acoustic mapping and citizen recording to record the urban soundscape from different points in several cities without endangering the participants. To do this, we ask those who want to participate to record, with their cell phones or sound recorders, the soundscape from their windows, balconies, gardens, etc…, without leaving home and to send us their sounds with place, date and time information, through the channel they prefer among those proposed. Here is the link to the invitation and instructions: http://www.facebook.com/colectivoviajesonoro.
This sound mapping project has three levels: A first level is that of listening and awareness of the sound around us now that the noise level of our vehicles has decreased dramatically. Those who participate can record at any time of the day or night, as many times as they want, and in the process of recording they can wake up their ears and better perceive the sounds of their daily environment.
A second level is manual monitoring in which participants record more regularly at least once a day each week from the same location and at the same time. This will allow us to track changes in the soundscape as the quarantine progresses and compare it with the soundscape when the quarantine is over.
A third level is automatic monitoring with permanent recorders during and after this period of quarantine. This will allow us to compare with the tools of soundscape ecology and bioacoustics the state of urban biodiversity and study the changes in the use of the sound space by different species during this unprecedented moment of confinement of most members of our own species.
17/07/2020 & 18/072020: We participated in the Listening Week (Semana de la Escucha) 2020 organized by Red Cratila, around the WLD2020 (The collective Field).
Hosted by Red Suratómica, we associated with Luisa Pinzón to propose Sound Cocktails in quarantine: In the bar of your window our listening is DJ, a sound exploration and creation experience based on the soundscape recordings we have collected in our project #PaisajeSonoroDesdeTuVentana / #SoundScapeFromWindow
And on 18/07/2020, we participated in the closure of the Listening Week (Semana de la Escucha) 2020 with a sound cocktail resulting from our sound exploration experience Sound Cocktails in Quarantine.
30/05/2020: We were online in a facebook live event with our new Sound Journey into the Sea (Viaje Sonoro al Mar) invited by Colombiodiversidad festival 2020 (by NGOs EnvolVert and Conservation International). The festival was entirely online due to covid-19.
Radio Gotita takes us on a sensory journey through the sonorities of the water in its cyclic flow from the high mountains (páramo) to the ocean and back through the air and underground, with a special immersion in the incredible richness of sound of the sea and its inhabitants.
10/05/2020: We were invited to speak about bird song in this beautiful RadioLab(#RadioLaboratorio): Learning from birds by Eloísa and Esmeralda for Radio Nacional de Colombia:
Postponed due to covid-19.
_/2020: Viaje Sonoro will be in Blunay (Seine et Marne, France), invited by Les Amis de la Chapelle, with our Sound Journey into the Night (Voyage Sonore dans la Nuit) and a sensory walk in the surrounding forest.
22/09/2019: We took our Sound Journey into the Night (voyage sonore dans la nuit) to Feigneux (Oise, France) invited by Collectif JDF and Association Caribou that lent us their brilliant listening tent for a 4D experience with real storm included!
14/09/2019: We were invited to talk at “panel de sonología 2019” at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá.
15/07/2019: We were at “la semana del sonido”, invited by Cratila in Matorral librería, Bogotá, Colombia.
25/05/2019 & 26/05/2019: We presented our first Sound Journey into the Night (Viaje Sonoro en la Noche) created for festival Colombiodiversidad 2019 in the Dome of the Planetarium of Bogotá. 800 people joined us ! A founding experience for this adventure.
Colectivo Viaje Sonoro 