Letting the Planet Speak: Nonhuman Voices Through Narrative, Sound Art, and Technology

The habitability of the planet Earth depends on countless organisms, entities, and processes, most of which lie beyond our immediate experience. Several literary critics have praised performative and sound art for its striking ability, compared to literary works, to bring the biotic and abiotic components of the Earth system into our perceptual and sensorial realm, without projecting human meanings onto them. But how does this sensorial experience translate into ecological-oriented political action? Comparing some important examples of sound art and narrative works, this chapter (i) analyzes the artistic and technological devices that enable the transformative processes of the Anthropocene to become tangible to human senses; (ii) demonstrates the insufficiency of immersive knowledge experiences as tools for triggering ecological awareness and forms of eco-responsible politics; and, finally, (iii) argues for the need to articulate, through narrative, the problems of perception with those of representation and advocacy.