Ludwig Berger
Bio & Works

Ludwig Berger is an artist, musician, and educator whose work focuses on the sonic and vibratory dimensions of landscapes. He explores how places and species become audible, with particular attention to small-scale and often inaudible processes such as insect communication, plant rhythms, and glacial melting. His installations, compositions, and performances make these processes tangible and offer multiple auditory perspectives on landscapes. His current research engages with concepts such as environmental personhood and eco-fiction, aiming to rethink relationships between human and non-human life in the context of ecological change.

Berger studied electroacoustic composition, musicology, art history, and literary studies, and was active in interdisciplinary research and teaching at the Institute of Landscape Architecture at ETH Zurich. His practice combines field recording, scientific collaboration, and speculative approaches to listening.
He is a certified Deep Listening instructor and leads site-specific listening walks and exercises. He also curates sound art projects (such as the festival Sonic Topologies and the label Vertical Music) and works as a sound recordist and designer for film and theatre.

Berger’s work has been recognized by institutions such as Prix Ars Electronica, the Sound of the Year Awards, and A Closer Listen’s Best Soundscape Albums of the Decade. It has been featured in The New York Times and presented at UNESCO, the United Nations Headquarters in Paris and New York, the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, ZKM Karlsruhe, and the GRM Acousmonium in Paris.

Berger grew up in the Northern Vosges–Palatinate Forest Biosphere Reserve and is currently based there.

“Whether presenting a field recording, a soundscape, or a duet with his environment, the professor has a lot to teach, and brings a childlike wonder to his adult pursuits.”
— Richard Allen, A Closer Listen

“Ludwig Berger is breaking the interspecies sound barrier.”
— Electronic Sound

“Ludwig Berger captures the wondrous and formidable beauty of nature.”
— Jack Davidson, Noise Not Music

“Ludwig Berger is leading the way with his field recording work in so many ways.”
— Harry Sumner, Sonospace

“A musique concrète magician.”
— Gray Lee, Houdini Maison

Recording a Data Center, Photo by Valentin Bansac

DISCOGRAPHY: FULL RELEASES
*tracing basalt in the onsernone valley (with Pablo Diserens, forms of minutiae/Vertical Music, CD, 2025)
* Crying Glacier (forms of minutiae, vinyl, 2025)
* Garden of Ediacara (-OUS, vinyl, 2024)
* Flight of the Bumblebee II (with Patrick Kessler, Julian Sartorius and various scientist, Unit Records, double vinyl, 2024)
* 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
* vibroscape of hochmoor gais (with Juan José López Díez, in compilation “harkening critters”, forms of minutiae, 3xCD, 2024)
* 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 compilation “possible moistures”, forms of minutiae, digital, 2021)
* 2012 (in Sampler “Muted Stories (3)”, and/OAR, Digital, 2019)

SELECTED INSTALLATIONS
* Biennale of Architecture, Venice – Luxembourg Pavilion (main artist), 2025 — Sonic Investigations (Ecotonalities: No Other Home Than the In-Between)
* Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal – group show, 2025 — Oscillating Spaces (Melting Landscapes)
* UNESCO Headquarters, Paris – group show, 2025 — Exhibition on Mountains and Glaciers (Crying Glacier)
* UN Headquarters, New York – group show, 2025 – Exhibition on Mountains and Glaciers (Crying Glacier)
* POUSH, Paris – group show, 2025 — RIRE SUR UN VOLCAN (Pseudo-volcanic beats)
* Living Room e Connecting Worlds – Back to People, Cuneo/IT, 2025 – group show (Moor House, with Laura Harrington)
* Krone Couronne, Biel/CH – solo show, 2024 — SOMA 2 — Ludwig Berger
* Digital Arts Zurich Festival 2024 – group show (Bodies of Water)
* Kunsthaus Langenthal, Switzerland – group show, 2023 — Your Voice, Keep Breathing (cryo-cry)
* Biennale of Architecture, Venice – French Pavilion (temporary), 2023 — Radio Utopia — Le bal des sonorités (Photosynthetic Beats)
*Urban Imaginaries, UABB Shenzhen, China 2022/23 – group show (Melting Landscapes)
* NRW Forum, Düsseldorf/DE – group show, 2022 — Subversives Design
* Cima Norma Art Festival, Switzerland, 2022 – group show, melting landscapes
* Archipel Festival, Geneva/CH – group show, 2021 (Ruche sonore)
* Münchner Kammerspiele/DE – solo piece with Florian Fischer, 2021 (Unsichtbar)
* MAK, Vienna – Biennale for Change (group show), 2021 — CLIMATE CARE: Reimagining Shared Planetary Futures (Melting Landscapes)
* Klang Moor Schopfe, Gais/CH – group show, 2019 — Bien (Vibrating Bees)

TEACHING & LECTURES
ETH Zurich – Research Associate at Institute of Landscape Architecture 2015-2022 (20+ courses and workshops)
Valais School of Art (EDHEA), Invited Artist in Sound Arts BA, 2022-2023
University of the Arts Bern, Guest Lecturer Sound Arts, 2020-2023
Kyoto Institute of Technology, Workshop series 2015-2019
Lectures, workshops, and panel discussions: PHI Centre Montreal, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Tallinn Music Week, 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, etc.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
An Orchestra of Microphones (email interview with Peter Szendy and Alice Loumeau / Valentin Bansac / Mike Fritsch), in Ecotones: Investigating Sounds and Territories, ed. by Valentin Bansac, Mike Fritsch, Alice Loumeau, Spector Books, 2025
Listening to a Crying Glacier, in Listen! The Sound of the Anthropocene: Alltag – Kultur – Wissenschaft, ed. by Michaela Fenske and Susanne Dinkl, vol. 11, Königshausen & Neumann, 2024
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, no. 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 (with Lara Mehling), in Trans 30: Color, ETH Zurich biannual publication, 2017
Les traces d’une année derrière la maison de mon père, in Sonorité 10, Lucie éditions Nîmes, 2015
Observer, Jouer et recréer l’environnement, in Sonorité 9, Lucie éditions Nîmes, 2014

Left photo by Bruno Augsburger

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