“Ecotonalities: No Other Home Than The In-Between” weaves together field recordings from distinctive locations across Luxembourg, where sustainable and digital transformations are reshaping the landscape—energy production sites, data centers, satellite parks, and the forests, meadows, and artificial lakes surrounding them.
The piece is guided by the concept of the ecotone—a transitional zone between two ecosystems, interpreted in this work as the meeting points of human infrastructure and living environments, where forms of coexistence and friction arise. The recordings were made using a range of microphones, including vibrational, underwater, electromagnetic, and ultrasonic sensors, allowing for a multi-perspective perception of the environment.
Structured along the rhythm of a day and played back over 22 loudspeakers and 4 bass shakers mounted on the ceiling, walls and bench surfaces, the composition creates a dense, physical sound environment that can be experienced from multiple positions in the space—through stillness, movement, and proximity. To provide context, three subtitle screens indicate the sites and times of recording, species or machine models and the recording medium.
Presented as the central installation of the pavilion, the work forms part of the exhibition Sonic Investigations, which invites a shift of attention from the visual to the sonic in architecture.
Curators: Valentin Bansac, Mike Fritsch, Alice Loumeau, with Ludwig Berger and Peter Szendy
“Among the most compelling installations … the sound piece vibrates through the platform and into viewers’ bodies: the surface itself becomes sensitive and almost alive, as sound and sensation duet together. The audience is invited to reflect on the cohabitation of the landscape by both living beings and technical objects and infrastructures that surround them.”
– Océane Ragoucy, e-flux Criticism
“A mesmerising, multidimensional experience of astonishing originality, a wondrously harmonious cacophony. Incredible stuff.”
– Electronic Sound
“Less a documentary of Luxembourg than a re-composition of its thresholds … Berger plays microphones by placing them where forces—water pressure, electromagnetic flux, vibrating steel—activate them. The result is less a documentary than a radical proposition: that territory itself is an orchestra.”
– Vito Camarretta, Chain D.L.K.
“A radical rethinking of how we perceive, analyze, and relate to space.”
— Parametric Architecture
“The composition highlights the coexistence of complex networks and blurs the boundaries between the human and the non-human, the natural and the artificial, the local and the global. It gives voice to invisible entities and neglected systems.”
— Metalocus
Photos by Valentin Bansac
Recording sites:
Artificial Lake, Remerschen
Enovos Floating Solar Plant, Differdange
Industrial Rail Yard, Differdange
Hydroelectric Dam, Esch-sur-Sûre
Power Station, Esch-sur-Sûre
Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Plant, Vianden
High-Voltage Outdoor Switching Station, Vianden
Wind Farm, Pafebierg
Satellite Park, Betzdorf
Natural Reserve, Aarnescht
Data Center Luxconnect DC2, Bissen
Data Center DEEP Resilience Center South, Kayl
Data Center DEEP Resilience Center West, Windhof
Forest “Quiet Zone”, Grünewald
Recording equipment:
Omnidirectional and cardioid microphones
Parabolic microphone
Cardioid and parabolic microphones
Wildlife audio recorder
Hydrophones
Geophone and contact microphones
Electromagnetic sensors
Laser Doppler vibrometer
Software-defined radio
Installation photos by Melania Dalle Grave
The piece has been commissioned for the Luxembourg Pavilion “SONIC INVESTIGATIONS” at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia.
Curators: Valentin Bansac, Mike Fritsch, Alice Loumeau, with Ludwig Berger and Peter Szendy
Exhibitors: Valentin Bansac, Ludwig Berger, Anthea Caddy, Mike Fritsch, Alice Loumeau, Peter Szendy
Commissioners: Kultur | lx — Arts Council Luxembourg and LUCA — Luxembourg Center for Architecture, on behalf of the Luxembourg Ministry of Culture
Acknowledgements: Enovos, LuxConnect, Luxembourg Embassy in Rome, Musée national d’histoire naturelle (Luxembourg), Nature and Forest Agency (ANF), Pauline Oliveros Trust and Daniel Weintraub , POLYTEC, SEO, SES (Société Européenne des Satellites), Radioamateurs du Luxembourg, University of Luxembourg(Regenerative Social-Ecological Systems, Geography and Spatial Planning)
With the kind support of: Centre national de l’audiovisuel (CNA), Luxembourg
Vinyl and digital release at -OUS, November 2025
Mastering by Giuseppe Ielasi
Graphic design by Pierre Vanni
Photography by Valentin Bansac
Book: Ecotones. Investigating Sounds and Territories
The book extends the investigations on the relevance of sound in territorial studies outside the context of Luxembourg. Developed as an autonomous book, it offers a curated collection of texts from various disciplines that examine spaces, territories and ecologies through sonic ventures. Much like the sound piece, the book fosters newcultural frameworks and theoretical tools for spatial practitioners.
Editor: Valentin Bansac, Mike Fritsch, Alice Loumeau, Peter Szendy
Designer: Pierre Vanni
Contributors: Ludwig Berger, Laure Brayer, Madelynne Cornish & Philip Samartzis, Julia Grillmayr, Christina Gruber & Sophia Rut, David George Haskell, Tim Ingold, Shannon Mattern, Emma McCormick Goodhart, Xabi Molia, Soline Nivet & Ariane Wilson, Nadine Schütz, Cole Swensen, Peter Szendy, Yuri Tuma (Institute for Postnatural Studies), Laura Vazquez
Spector Books 2025