Sounds Too Many is a lecture-performance by Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza that places the ocean at center stage at a time when sound pollution is exploding by using sophisticated audio engineering and visualizations to put things into perspective.

This primarily acoustic presentation creates an immersive experience that calls into question the unlimited and unregulated sonic pollution that the Anthropocene era has imposed on our oceans and the disruption that this causes to all natural phenomena. It is a call for a quieter ocean.

In collaboration with the Acoustic Ecology Laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the award-winning NRDC documentary Sonic Sea, TBA21–Academy expeditions, the sound artist Jana Winderen, and other contributors, never-before-heard sounds have been spatialized by sound designers from Ears Up Sound Design Studio in Burbank, California, in partnership with Meyer Sound Laboratories, to create Sounds too Many, a soundscape that transports listeners to a world that is terrifyingly brutal.

Visualizations by Territorial Agency are tightly synchronized with the soundscapes to provide visceral insights into the scale and mechanics of the ecological threat that is sound pollution in the ocean.

www.soundstoomany.com

Copyright: © Allan Sekula, Middle Passage, Chapter 3, Fish Story, 1994 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Collection

Photo Credit: The Estate of Allan Sekula, 1994

Founder and Chair of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21) and its sister organization TBA21–Academy.

Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza is an activist, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. Driven by a belief in the power of art to serve as an agent of change, Thyssen-Bornemisza has supported artists throughout her career in the production and creation of new works that fuel engagement with the most pressing issues of our times.

Her sustained commitment to the cultural realm extends a long tradition of collecting and philanthropy that dates back generations in the Thyssen family.