Ludwig Berger is a landscape sound artist, musician, and educator whose work engages with the sonic presences of organisms and places, attuning to the diverse ways they can be perceived. His projects flow between interspecies, geological, and architectural listening, with a focus on microscopic sounds like insect communication, plant rhythms, and glacial melting. Through installations, compositions, and performances, he reveals hidden processes and unfolds plural auditory perspectives on landscapes. Central to his work are concepts of environmental personhood and eco-fiction, which he draws on to reimagine relationships between humans and non-human worlds in the context of the ecological crisis.
With a background in electroacoustic composition, as well as studies in musicology, art history, and literary studies, and extensive experience in collaborative research at the Institute for Landscape Architecture at ETH Zurich, Berger works across disciplines, blending field recording, scientific inquiry, and speculative approaches to listening. A certified Deep Listening instructor, he facilitates site-specific sound walks and listening exercises that nurture environmental kinship and community-building. He also curates sound art projects, such as the festival Sonic Topologies and the label Vertical Music, and contributes as a sound recordist and designer for documentary films and theatre.
Berger’s work has been recognized internationally, including at Prix Ars Electronica, Sound of the Year Awards, A Closer Listen’s Best Soundscape Albums of the Decade. His pieces have been featured at venues such as the Venice Biennale of Architecture, ZKM Karlsruhe, and the GRM Acousmonium in Paris.
Born and raised in the Northern Vosges-Palatinate Forest Biosphere Reserve between France and Germany, Berger has lived and worked in Switzerland, Italy and Panama. He is currently based in Montreal.
"Ludwig Berger is breaking the interspecies sound barrier" (Electronic Sound)
"Ludwig Berger is leading the way with his field recording work in so many ways.” (Harry Sumner, Sonospace)
"A musique concrete magician” (Gray Lee, Houdini Maison)
“The professor has a lot to teach, and brings a childlike wonder to his adult pursuits.” (R. Allen, A Closer Listen)
"Berger seems to find unusual pleasure in fairly dull source material” (Daniel Hignell Tully, Toneshift.net)
Live at Botanical Garden Greifswald, Photo by Julien Bota
DISCOGRAPHY: FULL RELEASES
* Photosynthetic beats (forms of minutiae, vinyl, 2023)
* Pseudo-volcanic Voices (Institute of Landscape Architecture, Digital, 2022)
* Buried Landscapes ("Bodies of Water" Trilogy, Institute of Landscape Architecture, Vinyl, 2022)
* Dammed Landscapes ("Bodies of Water" Trilogy, Institute of Landscape Architecture, Vinyl, 2022)
* White Elephant (Gruenrekorder, digital, 2021)
* Gotthard Transect (Institue of Landscape Architecture, double cassette, 2021)
* Struck Modernism: Figure X A (Dinzu Artefact, Cassette, 2020)
* Cuyo (Sonospace, Digital, April 2019)
* Cargo (Canti Magnetici, Cassette, Jan 2019)
* Inumaki, Esuzaki (Vertical Music, Cassette, Jan 2019)
* The Capacity of Things to Act (Dinzu Artefact, Cassette, 2018)
* Melting Landscapes ("Bodies of Water" Trilogy, Institute of Landscape Architecture, Vinyl, 2018)
* A Year's Hours Behind my Father's House (Impulsive Habitat, Digital, 2014)
DISCOGRAPHY: COMPILATIONS
* upstream ensemble (contribution to collective piece by pablo diserens & the ocean comm/uni/ty) , forms of minutiae, digital, 2023)
* Kin (in Sampler "Exotic Ésotérique Vol.3" Arte Tetra, cassette, 2021)
* hotel bali-an resort shinjuku island tokyo - adult only $63 ($2̶6̶5̶) (in Sampler "possible moistures", forms of minutiae, digital, 2021)
* 2012 (in Sampler "Muted Stories (3)", and/OAR, Digital, 2019)
Live at Imatronic festival, GRM Paris, photo by Didier Allard ©Ina
COURSES & LECTURES
Elective courses and seminar weeks at ETH Zurich, 2015-2022
Invited Artist in Sound Arts BA at Valais School of Art (EDHEA), 2022-2023
Guest Lecturer Sound Arts, University of the Arts Bern, 2020-2023
Lectures and Workshops at Kyoto Institute of Technology (2015-2019), Berlin University of the Arts, Zurich University of the Arts, Sound Studies Lab Copenhagen, Rhythmic Music Conservatory Goethe Institute Marseille, University of Würzburg, University of Bern, Bauhaus University Weimar, Filmhaus Köln, Ausstellungsraum Klingental Basel, Sound Unlimited Basel etc.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
"The Sounds of Melting Landscapes. Facing the Crisis with Sonic Intimacy," in Landscapes of Water. (Co)Designing Hope in the Climate Crisis, ed. by Laura Cipriani, Routledge, 2024.
"Knowing a Place by Ear. Approaches to the sonic research of landscapes", in "Researching Otherwise: New Directions in Landscape and Urban research", ed. by Nitin Bathla, gta Verlag, 2024.
„Der Proximity-Effekt“. In: INSERT. Artistic Practices as Cultural Inquiries, 5, sich verlandschaften – in relationalen Praktiken, 2024.
"Photosynthetic Beats", in: Sound, Fiction, Occupation, The Ball Theater, "Architecture d’aujourd’hui", Special issue, 2023
"White Elephant. Notes on an entangled field recording", in: Field Notes ed. by Gruenrekorder (Daniel Knef and Lasse-Marc Riek), January 2021.
“Listening Through the Bog” (with Lee Patterson) in Fieldworking, ed. by Laura Harrington, 2020
"On Only Dogs" with Florian Fischer in: "Out of Space : Sensory Practices and Placemaking, ed. by H. Schulze and C. Brosius, Paragrana ed. De Gruyter, 2019.
“Sampling Kyoto Gardens” (with Nadine Schütz and Matthias Vollmer) in Pamphlet 21, gta Publishers 2017
"Blue Hour Observatory" in Trans 30: Color with Lara Mehling (ETH Zurich biannual publication), 2017
“Les traces d’une année derrière la maison de mon père”, in Sonorité 10, Lucie éditions Nîme, 2015
“Observer, Jouer et recréer l’environnement”, in Sonorité 9, Lucie éditions Nîme, 2014
Workshop at Kyoto Institute of Technology, Photo by Christophe Girot
MUSIC AND SOUND FOR FILM AND THEATRE (SELECTION)
Crying glacier (Documentary, directed by Lutz Stautner), 2023 (location sound, sound design and mix)
Not Just Roads (Documentary, directed by Nitin Bathla & Klearjos Eduardo Papanicolaou), 2020 (Sound design and mix)
Fieldworking (Documentary, directed by Laura Harrington), 2020 (location sound, sound design, mix)
Zustand und Gelände (Documentary, directed by Ute Adamczewski), 2019 (Music & Score)
Die Unverheiratete (Nationaltheater Mannheim, directed by Florian Fischer), 2015 (Music & sound design)
Der Fall M. (OFS / Kammerspiele München, directed by Florian Fischer), 2014
Cassy - Meditations on the Dancefloor (Documentary, directed by Marietta Kesting), 2014 (Music & sound design)
Medusa´s raft (Video Installation, directed by Stracke/Seibt), 2013 (Sound)
Claudiu & The Fish (Short film, directed by Andrei Tanase), 2013 (Music)
Weil ich dich nicht mehr liebe (Video Installation, directed by Stracke/Seibt), 2013 (Sound design)
Simultan (Video Installation, Simultanhalle Köln, directed by Stracke/Seibt), 2013 (Sound design)
The End (Video Installation, Haus der Kunst München, dir. by Stracke/Seibt), 2012 (Sound design)
Recording Morteratsch glacier, Photo by Lutz Stautner
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