Maria Robaszkiewicz - On Men* and Birds: Anthropogenic Wasteful Noise in Times of Rapid Species Extinction
Der anschließende Workshop widmet sich dem Thema Migration. Texte dafür finden Sie auf unserem Moodle, für den Sie sich hier einschreiben können.Weitere Informationen zu Veranstaltungen der Werkstatt Phänomenologie finden Sie auf unserer Website sowie auf Instagram.
Mit besten Grüßen,
Team Werkstatt Phänomenologie
<<english>>
Dear colleagues,
We would like to warmly invite you to the first guest lecture followed by a workshop in the “Werkstatt Phänomenologie” series.
Monday, 27 April 2026, at 16:45, Lecture Hall 3B at the NIG:
Maria Robaszkiewicz – On Men* and Birds: Anthropogenic Wasteful Noise in Times of Rapid Species Extinction
The subsequent workshop will focus on the topic of migration. You can find the relevant texts on our Moodle, where you can also enroll here.
Further information about events in the Werkstatt Phänomenologie series can be found on our website as well as on Instagram.
With best regards,
The Werkstatt Phänomenologie team
Abstract:
There is always a certain purposefulness of natural sounds: the sound of breaking waves manifest the conditions on the sea, the sound of striking thunder marks the dangers of a storm, birds’ singing is their way of communication. These sounds make worldly sense as they inform all perceptible beings about their surroundings, about the momentary conditions of the world. Accordingly, sounds of nature are limited in scope (an assertion that may be challenged by environments such as native jungle, though a different register of perception could be expected there), to the extent that when we happen to be in spaces empty of anthropogenic sounds, our experience might be very close to an experience of silence.
Humans, on the contrary, produce a lot of noise polluting our earthly surroundings. This noise is often wasteful; it doesn’t communicate anything specific that we need for a better orientation in the world. Continuous passing of cars in front of my window, the monotonous noise of a machine, the drilling and hammering of endless construction sites consume time repeating the same futile message over and over again.
In Anthropocene, it is not only noise that is wasteful this way: it’s also light, energy water or oxygen. Through the continuous decrease of, especially animal, diversity, human noise becomes hegemonial. In urban spaces, the declining presence of singing, cawing and quacking birds constitutes perhaps the most noticeable change in this respect, one of the reasons for which is anthropogenic harm to birds’ migratory routes.
I argue that phenomenology as an attentive style of thinking helps us to notice the scale of the problem, which is the condition of possibility for action and change. In doing this, I reach to different ecophenomenological readings of Merleau-Ponty, ecophenomenologies of sound, and descriptive studies of birds’ migration.