Echoes of Sustainability: Fara Peluso's Ouroboros Sound Art Revolution

Breaking the Wall of Sustainable Sound Art

Winner Interview 2024: Art & Science

Dive into the groundbreaking Ouroboros project by Fara Peluso, in collaboration with Kat Austen, which reimagines the future of music with sustainable sound art. Discover how this innovative research uses algae-based bioplastic to create circular LP records, revolutionizing the production and aesthetics of sound art. Explore the intersection of art, design, and technology, and see how Ouroboros is paving the way for a greener, more creative world.

Which wall does your research or project break? 
Ouroboros aims to break the Wall of Sustainable Sound Art. Music and sound art are inextricably linked with extractive industries through both their analogue and digital distribution channels. Our research focuses on circular LP record production using algae-based bioplastic material developing materials, manufacturing methods and sound aesthetics. The prototype album for this process is This Land Is Not Mine, an experimental album by Kat Austen about the region of Lusatia, known for its coal mining industry.

We aim to develop a circular LP record towards an innovation which involves the material, the cultural and the technological areas, researching how a new bioplastic material can be employed into a plastic repertoire, we are moving beyond recycling to true circularity.

The research wants to enact a collaborative and participatory method which intersects the innovation with the inclusion of artistic and design practice at the cutting edge of contemporary resource challenges. Therefore we aim to challenge the production of LP records through a process and technology which employ biomaterials and new manufacturing processes to develop new ways of publishing music and sound art via tangible objects that circumvent the carbon footprint of traditional LPs, CDs, cassettes and of streaming platforms. To do so demands the development not only of materials and methods, but also of new audio aesthetics that work with the circularity of this mode of publishing. These processes can be further adjusted for future use in manufacturing biomaterials also for other purposes.

What are the three main goals of your research or project? 
The Ouroboros project and its research with Kat Austen aim to foster a new transition where art and design can play a role towards a circular economy. Alongside a new material and method for producing records, it offers new artistic aesthetics in response to new materiality offering new opportunities for the future. The project offers technological, aesthetic and cultural innovations from the urgent global need to address our relationship to resources and consumption.

We believe that art and design have the role of fostering new ways of thinking about how we can transition to a circular economy, wanting to change and repair something important. We are aware of being innovators and pioneers that set the scene for a near future change. The realisation of a bioplastic record holds potential for cultural innovation and we envisage collaborating with existing records manufacturers to develop a biomaterial-suitable record cutting. The research also offers technological innovation through the outcome which has the potential to innovate the manufacturing methods that are applicable beyond the disc manufacturing, considering to apply the processes in more production and solutions by creating more artefact made from biomaterials.

The last goal will be in creating a first biomaterial LP prototype for conveying sound recording through the choice of an ethical solution for disseminating the work. For this we will develop a generalised method for creative engaging with new materiality for new media sound art.

What advice would you give to young scientists or students interested in pursuing a career in research, or to your younger self starting in science?
To the young generation I would advise to enact collaborative and participative methods crossing their research towards innovations as well with several fields like design, philosophy, arts, politics trying to also involve citizens. This will support the employment of alternative multidisciplinary practices cutting the edge of contemporary scientific research.

Furthermore I would suggest combining empirical studies with theoretical and critical approaches to better understand the complexity of life, that we are all part of an interconnected, sympoietic system, as Donna Haraway and Lynn Margulis explain. It is also important to act through a collective planetary mindset where professional figures like artists, designers, scientists and engineers can work together in reshaping a future with a new awareness for a post-Anthropocentric scenario and more just biosphere.

Therefore looking at new methodologies that can promote exchanges going beyond and exploring new organisational scenarios. Examples to look at are the ‘theory of comprehensive man’ of R. Buckminster Fuller and the "Kreb Cycle of Creativity" of Neri Oxman which explain how professionals can merge critical with practical aspects by developing experiences for a whole system, where not only humans are present but a multitude of living organisms on Earth as well.

I would also then suggest to always choose the education in critical thinking as an important antidote to the conformism that is increasingly prominent and an important ingredient for accepting diversity, other points of view, and for becoming democratic and empathetic.

What inspired you to be in the profession you are today? 
Symbiosis and coexistence in nature are my main inspirations. Lynn Margulis and Donna Haraway influence my artistic practice which is conceived as a "making with" instead of "making for", as a sympoietic method for a world where nothing makes itself, where nothing is really autopoietic of self-organised, a world of worlding-with and in company (Haraway 2016).

What impact does your research or project have on society? 
The motivation for this work comes from the urgent global need to address our relationship to resources and consumption, proposing environmentally oriented arts facing a crisis of opposing values regarding the environmental impact of artist products. My research presents a design for future coexistences where art, design and science can implement caring and resilience from nature. 
What is one surprising fact about your research or project that people might not know? 

Sustainable artifacts and practices can be powerful tools of influence for individuals but also for "powerful" politicians, carrying democratic and emphatic values they can help to understand what directions and solutions post-Anthropocene life should take.

What’s the most exciting moment you've experienced over the course of your research or project? 
The project in collaboration with Kat Austen has been previously developed within the framework of S+T+ARTS Residency Repairing the Present, supported by Ars Electronica and Johannes Kepler University Linz. This helped to develop, through a DIY methodology, a series of water resistant bioplastic materials, similar to rubber, which are potentially suitable for the Lp record manufacturing and also for casting moulding. One of the most exciting moments was when we recognised the materials’ applicability to other uses, through which we also adapted these materials to form parts of costumes for the video of our Ouroboros installation.