An immersive soundscape in Forest 404

Is it possible for sensory experiences to shift how we think and act so that we can co-create hopeful, sustainable futures? This is the focus of my work at Futures Fit, and my PhD research so I am going to venture a cautious, “Yes, I believe it is but we’ll have to see what the data tells us.”

In the meanwhile, though, I wanted to share something about soundscapes in particular for you to try for yourself. All you have to do is take a break and listen to Timothy X Atack’s “Forest 404“, a BBC drama with a difference: the concept of soundscapes, and the soundscape of a forest specifically, threads throughout the drama.

Each short episode comes with an immersive soundscape of natural world environments, mixed in binaural for a 3D headphone experience: imagine hearing the sounds of a Sumatran Rainforest, the songs of whales, a chorus of frogs and more.

A talk accompanies each episode, too, featuring musicians, bio-futurists, anthropologists and tree-climbers who explore some of the issues and questions that come up in the dramatisation.

Take a listen here:

Workshops

Why is this of interest to those of us working towards sustainable futures?

For me, there are three reasons:

First, as a sustainability communicator, I think it’s important to explore how sensory experiences like soundscapes can add to our ability to communicate risk and opportunity.

Second, as a facilitator of participatory futures workshops, the senses are critical in helping people to imagine and explore possible, probable and preferable futures – and thus in motivating them to shape the futures they want.

Finally, as an interdisciplinary researcher, I am exploring how the intersection of stories, space and the senses can encourage sustainable thinking and action. This interesting way of combining a story of a catastrophic future, with a soundscape, isn’t quite what I am doing but there are similarities. So this is helping to inform my thinking about what is possible.

Helpful keywords:
#sustainablefutures #hopefulfutures #soundscapes #senstoryscapes #sensoryscapes #research #communication #sustainability #ecothriller #scifi #clifi #stories #futurestories #behaviourchange

Suzanne Whitby

Suzanne Whitby is a professional futurer, facilitator and storyteller. She worked with organisations, businesses, universities and groups to explore possible futures, build futures literacy, and use strategic foresight to use the future to create a better today.

She is an interdisciplinary researcher at VU Amsterdam, where she created the senstoryscapes approach.

Learn more about the senstoryscapes project, her consulting company, Futures Fit, her work in science communication and storytelling, or her work as a speaker and workshop faciliator.