Podcast

An eight-part documentary series searches for hidden sounds of our civilization. What messages about its future does humankind receive at a power plant, CO2 storage, oil-well, aquaponic farm and other places that model our world? A philosopher of technology accompanied by field recordists with geophone, hydrophone and other special mics is going on a sonic expedition.

“The sound of burning coal is the sound of politics.” Our sonic expedition begins in the heart of energy production of a country that traditionally relies on fossil fuels. ...
 

The eighth largest geothermal power plant in the world, set in a volcanic landscape covered with green moss, visually creates the impression of a harmonious place. The geological bedrock here is not only used to extract heat. It also serves as an underground storage of CO2, ...

 

Land depleted by intensive agriculture and threatened by climate change poses a number of questions for future food security. Aquaponics, which makes it possible to grow crops without using soil and with only a minimal amount of water, offers the promise of a partial solution. ...
 

A few years ago, part of a former military area was repopulated with bison, wild horses and aurochs, the latter of which was back-bred after the last one went extinct five hundred years ago. Once the area was fenced off to exclusively house the ancient animal species, ...
 

Hydroelectric power is a clean source of energy, but it can also be used to power an operation that is highly pollutive, which in this case is a giant aluminum smelter. ...
 

The oil field is on the verge of being depleted. Beneath the surface, there are only remnants of a substance that has made modern mobility, globalization, the plastics industry and probably even capitalism as we know it possible. ...
 

The lagoon is a liquid burial ground of ice from Iceland's largest glacier, Vatnajökull. Along with it, an ancient archive of thousands of years of information preserved in the ice is melting into the atmosphere. ...
 

In the depths of the Earth, there is an immense energy that teases humanity, as it is unable to extract it. At the same time, each volcanic eruption can threaten all the life surrounding it with its rivers of hot magma, ash and poisonous gasses. ...