Studiocalh

In an era dominated by the visual, our hearing can become an underrated sense. This is the sentiment at the center of Studiocalh’s creative research. The duo, Lauriane Heim and Colette Aliman, emphasise our hearing’s ability to ‘read’ an environment by indicating its role in spotting potential dangers, distances, etc. However, it can also be used as a means of manipulation when our senses are harvested by entities like the attention economy. But what else can sound tell us about our lives?

A totemic question of the duo’s project A Counter-Soundscape Of Fear is what can we learn when we consider fear from a sonic perspective in the design field? To answer questions like this Studiocalh focus their collective efforts on making tangible the societal phenomena of new media’s sonic tactics of mood modulation in our daily life.
The duo aligns with a path of design that does not only rely on the end product of solutionism; it’s time for more process-focused proposals to be discussed rather than creating forced and stagnant solutions. Throughout the year with FORMAT the designers aim to create a methodology to investigate the sonic borders of design and advocate sound to be used as a tangible material.

The project will start with an implementation of a counter sonic culture by creating a crossbreed platform between a podcast and a foley installation—the technique of post-production sound design in film. Joining Studiocalh will be a group of psychologists, sociologists, acousticians, sound engineers, composers, and urban planners who will participate in the creation of episodes and a counter-fear sound library that can be accessed through the project’s website.

Where this will end is yet to be heard. But whatever the result, 2020 is the year to listen to our fears.

Colette Aliman (1989) was born in New York City, USA. She studied sculpture at Tufts University and the School of The Museum of Fine Arts (USA) and design at the Design Academy Eindhoven (NL). Colette currently resides in Rotterdam.

Lauriane Heim (1994) was born in Strasbourg, France. She studied at the University of Strasbourg (FR), Ewha Women University in Seoul (KR) and the Design Academy Eindhoven (NL). She is currently based in Rotterdam.