Sustain.fm – Details, episodes & analysis

Today I’m happy to welcome Polina Medvedeva and Andreas Kühne to the show. Polina and Andreas create amazing sounds on their own and in collaboration. Together they play with narratives, community, shadow economies, and human relationships with environments. They work with an impressive array of techniques merging merges documentary filmmaking, AV performance, interactive installation, electroacoustic instruments introducing new ways of improvising in live performance. I can’t wait to chat with them both and hear some sounds go let’s get into it!

Track listing

Anarchiving Rávdnji (2024). A live audiovisual performance following forward traces from “Rávdnji” exhibition at The Arctic University Museum with Elin Anna Labba’s reading of her book “The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow” (spoken in Northern Sámi). For this performance at Tromsø Kunstforening, artists and collaborators of the exhibition Andreas Kühne and Polina Medvedeva improvise with the audiovisual material they gathered for the exhibition and invited Risten Anine Kvernmo Gaup to add new traces in response.

Cross-border Interference (to be released, 2026). Part of a documentation series of feedback improvisation performances by Andreas Kühne, camera Polina Medvedeva

Facing the Spills (to be released, 2026). Short film, live film performance and audiovisual installation by Polina Medvedeva and Andreas Kühne with Runa Sætervoll, Anastasia Kizilova, the lands, waters and animals in the Várjjat / Varanger area on the Norwegian side of Sápmi.

The Informals II 360 (2023) Live a/v performance by Polina Medvedeva and Andreas Kühne with Bobbie Johnson, Phonetic, and Marshall Mandiangu. Commissioned by Lighthouse, Brighton and Brighton Festival, Supported by Mondriaan Fund, Creative Industries Fund NL and Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

Audio Zine "Flowing, flushing, freezing, streaming: Listening at the intersection of human interference" (2025) based on a workshop developed by Polina Medvedeva and Andreas Kühne for Arctic Auditories: Hydrospheres in the High North (NFR 325506,

2021-25), recorded at Tromsø Center for Contemporary Art on May 25th 2025. The audio zine brings together recorded sounds, compositions, and live performances by Anna, Nathalia, Lars, Karolin, Anna, Femi, Lea, Sofía, Sindre, Mattin, Grisha, Anders, Johanna, Gwen, Martha, Eimear, Enrique, Lio, Steve, Ylva, Florentine, Angus, Polina and the anthropogenic waters of Tromsø, Romsa in northern Norway, Sápmi

Links and Bios

Polina Medvedeva (NL/NO) works at the intersection of film, installation and performance, portraying individuals or communities who exist by circumventing political prohibitions, societal stereotypes, and effects of economic crises and conflicts. Questioning linearity in storytelling, she explores formats that allow for nuance and multiplicity of narratives.

Medvedeva has been a resident at de Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam (2020-2022) and her work was exhibited at among others Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels; Lydgalleriet, Bergen; Tromsø Kunstforening; Al-M_a_’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem and Bak Basis voor Actuele Kunst, Utrecht. Performances include Landmark, Bergen Kunsthall; Baltic Circle Festival, Helsinki; HYBRID Biennale, Dresden; Sonic Acts festival, Amsterdam; Lofoten International Art Festival, Svolvær; Brighton Festival, Brighton. Medvedeva has been a guest tutor at Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam, KMD Bergen, Tromsø Art Academy, ArtEZ Zwolle, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam and a tutor and lecturer at the Utrecht University of the Arts.  She is a member of the selection committee for the Creative Industries Fund NL and a board member of The One Minutes Foundation.

 https://www.polinamedvedeva.net/

https://www.instagram.com/p.a.medvedeva/

Andreas Kühne (NL/NO) is a sound artist, composer, and drummer making electroacoustic music, collaborative audiovisual performances and interactive

installations that focus on listening positionalities and cross-pollination between improvisation practices and the milieu.

Andreas is a PhD fellow in electronic music and music technology at the Academy of Music, The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) and Grieg Academy, University of Bergen (UiB). His artistic research seeks to imagine practice-based strategies of radical attentiveness to face industrialisation and settler entanglements to human and more-than-human entities in Sápmi/Northern Norway.

Kühne’s work has been exhibited and performed at among others Tromsø Kunstforening, Landmark Bergen Kunsthall, Lofoten International Art Festival, Arctic University Museum of Norway (NO), Sonic Acts Festival, Rewire Festival (NL), HYBRID Biennale (DE), Baltic Circle Festival (FI), and Lighthouse (UK).https://andreaskuhne.net/

https://www.instagram.com/andreaskuhne_/

Combined biography

In their collaborative practice creating storytelling experiences from transdisciplinary assemblages, sound artist Andreas Kühne and artist, filmmaker Polina Medvedeva engage ways of listening-with landscapes and its agents to produce a feedback of the patchwork of historical, geopolitical and socio-economic layers.

Lom Audio Priezor electromagnetic microphone https://store.lom.audio/products/priezor?variant=5859618062368

Dylan Robinson (2020) Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies. Minnesota Press

Mark Peter Wright (2022) Listening After Nature: Field Recording, Ecology, Critical Practice. Bloomsbury Publishing

Kühne-Medvedeva (2025) From cinema to stage: On live assembling film, improvisational fiction and relationality. The International Network of Experimental Fictional Filmmaking (INEFF).

Summer holidays time! A break from interviews until August and today we have a return to 2024 with a compilation of sounds from last year. You will hear sounds from all of the artists I interviewed this year ranging from archival sound pieces to techno to sound art compositions to meditations and trash music. Thanks so much to Veronica Mota, Veerle Pennock and Etta Harbor as Parallel Problems, Felipe Vareschi, Monica Sand, Priscilla Haring-Kuipers from This is Not Rocket Science, Melissa Ingaruca Moreno, Juan C. Duarte Regino, Gina Lo, Luis Fernando Amaya for sharing their sounds. And there are some sounds from me – drusnoise – in there too.

Check out the show notes for the track listing and links to all of the artists. And don’t forget you can always go back and listen to past episodes at sustain.fm/radio, on the RBL show site or on your favourite podcast platforms.

Get in touch with us through sustain.fm or info@drusnoise. We would love to hear your thoughts on our shows, ideas or suggestions for future shows, or if you want to bring a sustain.fm event to your town.

Track listing

Monica Sand – Elegi

Luis Fernando Amaya – Bestiario @luisongolilongo

Melissa Ingaruca Moreno & drusnoise – Endarken @mel_ingaruca

Gina Lo – Live at Berlin Modular Society @ginalololo

drusnoise – Future Soundscapes -  Live in Gothenburg @drusnoise

Juan Carlos Duarte Regino – Soundgifts @j.c_d.r

Felipe Vareschi – Noise Mapping @frmvar

Veronica Mota – Utopie und Widerstand

drusnoise – We are but dust and shadows – Live in Graz

This is not Rocket Science – Live at Clubsynth @rocket_not

Parallel Problems – Live at Voltage Control Amsterdam @elektortek @ettaharbar

When people are asked what kind of neighbourhood they want to live in they often say they want a quiet neighbourhood. But by quiet, they do not mean silent! People want to hear the sounds of children playing, birds in the trees, and glasses clinking at cafés but may not want to hear sounds of traffic, construction, or planes overhead. They may want to preserve the sounds of the past or hear something completely different. The Future Soundscapes project connects with local residents to record (on their phones) sounds they want to hear more of and sounds they want to hear less of. The sounds are collected, categorized, and a soundscape of the future neighbourhood co-created with the collaborative inputs of local residents. The project has happened in Gothenburg Sweden and most recently in Utrecht Netherlands. Coming soon to Berlin and Oslo Norway. Today we dive into the why and how of Future Soundscapes and get to hear what happened in Gothenburg and Utrecht.

I’m your host Steve Williams, also known as drusnoise, and today’s episode will be a bit different. Usually I am interviewing an artist about their approach to sound, music, and sustainability. Today I will be talking about my Future Soundscapes project and sharing some excerpts from Gothenburg and Utrecht. I think it is a fascinating approach to futures and I hope you find it interesting too. Definitely send me a DM and let me know in the comments too. My email is info@drusnoise.com

Links and references

Future Soundscapes https://sustain.fm/fss

drusnoise https://drusnoise.com

Academic paper on Future Soundscapes 

Listen – R. Murray Schafer documentary by National Film Board of Canada https://www.nfb.ca/film/listen/

Jordan Lacey. Sonic Rupture https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/sonic-rupture-9781501338571/

Centre for Sustainable Urban Futures https://urbanfutures.se/en

What does it mean to give voice to nature? To the weather? How can we connect with ecological systems through sound and performance? And what does it mean to attune to nature? Today I am excited to explore these questions – and more.  Juan C. Duarte Regino is an artist-researcher, currently a Ph.D. candidate at Aalto University. Central to his investigation is the relation between the atmosphere, the act of listening, and the profound concept of attunement. His background is in New Media, Design & Production, and Audiovisual Communication. His mission looks beyond conventional, extractive, or deterministic approaches to understanding the relationship between nature and technology. Instead, it ventures into ancient and indigenous knowledge that harmonizes with ecological perspectives on our weather systems, giving voice to the natural agencies at play within the realm of weather. So as you can imagine, Juan is a perfect fit for this show.

Bio

Juan C. Duarte Regino is an artist-researcher, currently a Ph.D. candidate at Aalto University. Central to his investigation is the relation between the atmosphere, the act of listening, and the profound concept of attunement. His background is in New Media, Design & Production, and Audiovisual Communication. His artistic endeavors over the last decade have gained recognition and have been showcased at prestigious events and venues internationally. His mission looks beyond conventional, extractive, or deterministic approaches to understanding the relationship between nature and technology. Instead, it ventures into ancient and indigenous knowledge that harmonizes with ecological perspectives on our weather systems, giving voice to the natural agencies at play within the realm of weather. His research revolves around the exploration of the symbiotic relationship between nature and technology through environmental sound. His work presents artifacts to resonate with atmospheric energies. In his approach, he proposes diversified technologies for attuning to nature. By doing so, Duarte Regino pushes the boundaries of artistic expression and enables a deeper understanding of our environment and its intricate interplay with technology.

Links

www.juanduarteregino.com https://juanduarte.bandcamp.com/

Hildegard Westerkamp - Kits Beach https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/sound/comp/3/kitsbeach/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg96nU6ltLk Sterne, J. (2019). Multimodal scholarship in world soundscape project composition: Toward a different media-theoretical legacy (or: The WSP as OG DH). Sound, Media, Ecology, 85-109. John Durham Peters - The Marvelous Clouds Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo20069392.html Augury: https://juanduarteregino.com/Augury

Sound is one of our most powerful senses. But it is just one of our senses. Sight, touch, smell, and taste are powerful too. And even more powerful when they are combined with sound. Today we talk with Melissa Ingaruca Moreno about her work with light, fungi, meditation, and sound. Melissa is an award-winning futurist and researcher in multispecies design based in Berlin. Her project ‘Endarken’ integrates fungal bioluminescence and sonification of nature with glimpses of darker futures. This is a future of designed light-darkness for multispecies cohabitation with a focus on healing and I am excited to chat with Melissa about how all of these ideas – and senses – fit together.

Bio

Melissa Ingaruca Moreno  is an award-winning futurist and researcher in multispecies design. Endarken is a research-through-design project of Melissa Ingaruca Moreno´s PhD “Multispecies Cities and Emerging Technologies”, that re-imagines the future of nocturnal urban light for more-than-human wellbeing in Berlin via a series of participatory design workshops.

Links and references

Endarken Futures: Darkness as Healing https://melissa-ingaruca.medium.com/healing-in-darkness-endarken-futures-part-i-0d680189ea55

Endarken project overview https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lU7Elq6W2ZzZJMHAKe_IJvEYliCPB0Y4/view

Instagram @endarken_cities

Floating University https://floating-berlin.org/

Falchi, F. et al. The new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness. Sci Adv 2, (2016).

Dunn, N. Dark Design: A New Framework for Advocacy and Creativity for the Nocturnal Commons. International Journal of Design in Society 10, 9–23 (2016).

Falchi, F., Cinzano, P., Elvidge, C., Keith, D. & Haim, A. Limiting the impact of light pollution on human health, environment and stellar visibility. J Environ Manage 92, 2714–2722 (2011).

Falcón, J. et al. Exposure to Artificial Light at Night and the Consequences for Flora, Fauna, and Ecosystems. Frontiers in Neuroscience vol. 14 Preprint at https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.602796 (2020).

Yang, L., Xiao, L., Guo, Y. & Yan, Y. A review of the effects of artificial light at night in urban areas on the ecosystem level and the remedial measures. (2022).

Gallan, B. & Gibson, C. New dawn or new dusk? Beyond the binary of day and night. Environment and Planning 43, 2509–2515 (2011).

Zielinska-Dabkowska, K. M. & Xavia, K. Protect our right to light. Nature 568, 451–453 (2019).

Pollastri, S. et al. More-Than-Human Future Cities. in ACM International Conference Proceeding Series 23–30 (Association for Computing Machinery, 2021). doi:10.1145/3469410.3469413.

Sound and music are in many ways ethereal and, quite literally, float through the air with no environmental impact. But, especially in the electronic music world, the gear that makes sound, transmits sound, records sound, and drives the dance floor does have an environmental impact. What does that mean for a sustainable electronic music scene? Today we talk with Priscilla Haring-Kuipers of This is Not Rocket Science in Amsterdam about all this and more. Together with her husband Stijn, they design, make, sell and perform with modular synthesizers. Her background is in marketing, social sciences, media psychology and game-based-learning. I have had the chance to talk with Priscilla over the years about their company’s approach to sustainability and I’m excited to go deeper with that conversation today.

Bio

Priscilla Haring-Kuipers of This is Not Rocket Science in Amsterdam. Together with my husband Stijn we design, make, sell and perform with modular synthesizers. My background is in marketing, social sciences, media psychology and game-based-learning. Will sing.

Links

TINRS https://www.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/this-is-not-rocket-science/

TINR Sustainability https://www.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/sustainability/

Mastadon https://priscillaharing.info/

Articles at Elektor Magazine https://www.elektormagazine.de/authors/167432/priscilla-haring-kuipers

Vocal pack https://thisisnotrocketscience.bandcamp.com/album/vocal-pack-boom-link-to-zip

Club Synth https://www.thisisnotrocketscience.nl/clubsynth

sustain.fm https://sustain.fm

Contact info@drusnoise.com

Sound is an interesting thing. Sounds can evoke emotions like happiness, anxiety, hope, and calmness. But what I find most interesting is how sound can evoke memories. One of my first memories of sound is my Mum playing the organ at church, laying down on the wooden pew and feeling bass in my whole body. Strong memories of family, connection and childhood – all from sound. In the latest episode of sustain, we are talking with Monica Sand – an artist and researcher based in Stockholm and Gothenburg. Monica has a long history of working with sounds and space. And most recently a project in Gothenburg exploring art, buildings, and human bodies as carriers of cultural memory. Today we chat about sound, memory, art, science, buildings, and bodies.

Bio

Monica Sand, artist and researcher with a PhD in artistic research, from the School of Architecture, KTH, Stockholm. Sand holds a position as Research Adviser at the Artistic Faculty, and affiliated researcher at the Academy of Music and Drama, at Gothenburg University. From 2011 until 2019 she was coordinating research at ArkDes, Stockholm. At KTH and during a postdoc at Konstfack (University College of Arts Crafts andDesign, Stockholm) she produced courses, walk-shops and lectures based on art and artistic research projects with a focus on collective actions in public space. Earlier art work took place in collaborations with different physics laboratories in Sweden and at CERN, the largest particle laboratory in Europe, Geneva: In between art and science and Acting Physics

Links

Playing the Space https://playingthespace.wordpress.com/

Matter Matters – Art, Buildings and Human Bodies as Carriers of Cultural Memory

https://playingthespace.wordpress.com/2023/12/18/en-bage-genom-tiden/

Matter Matters Sound Archive by Louisa Palmi https://palmi.org/The-Sound-Archive

Important message to the public, VMA: https://soundcloud.com/lur_arkdes/sarafranceschi-elegi-short

Forest Improvisations in the Uppsala Cathedral:

https://vimeo.com/55853657

City Experiments with students in an exhibition hall: Färgfabriken

https://vimeo.com/149003424?from=outro-embed

It sounds simple, but what is noise? Is it unwanted sounds? Is it a set of frequencies? Or is it something that is always around us but something we don’t usually notice? Today we talk with Felipe Vareshi about their compositions and performances that give voice to the quietest and most hidden forms of noise pollution that affect us as individuals and as groups coexisting within urban spaces. We talk about sound, noise, listening, and the potentials of sound as a medium for “possible” futures and of the artist as the enabler for these kind of possibilities.

Bio​

Felipe Vareschi is an Experimental Electronic Musician, Performer and Mastering Engineer based in Berlin. Their work explores the way people interact with each other through objects, with a particular focus on the interactions between individuals, technology and nature. 

Felipe Vareschi is developing a new musical language where interactions between electronics, sound objects, performers, and installation sites mimic social interactions and human-object networks. Inspired by the physical and imaginary sounds of everyday life, Felipe aims to empower listeners to value and participate in the soundscape around them and embrace the noise of interconnected life.

Links

https://www.felipevareschi.com/

https://www.vareschimastering.com/

https://www.instagram.com/frmvar/

Your host

Steve Williams / drusnoise https://instagram.com/drusnoise

https://sustain.fm

So what is trash really? What is waste? How do we cut down how much we throw away? And what happens when we throw things away? Is that really the end of things? Many groups like Bye Bye Plastic and Clubtopia are thinking about questions like these; how to reduce waste in clubs and festivals, get rid of plastic water bottles and so on. But a different approach is to completely rethink the idea of waste and trash. Today I talk with Veerle Pennock and Etta Harbar from Utrecht in the Netherlands. They are live performers, teachers, makers, and hackers exploring the crossover between e-waste, art, music, and instruments and I am happy to talk more with them about their work and approach to sustainability. And we hear a recording of their heavy-hitting noisy trash music live at Voltage Control Amsterdam.

Show notes and links

Performance recordings featured:

Modulation, 16.07.2023, de Nijverheid Utrecht, NL

Voltage Control Amsterdam, 21.01.2024, Paradiso Amsterdam, NL

Parallel Problems https://www.instagram.com/parallelproblems/

Veerle Pennock https://veerlepennock.com/

Elektrotek https://www.instagram.com/elektortek/

Etta HarBar https://www.instagram.com/ettaharbar/

Acid Solder Club https://www.instagram.com/acidsolderclub/

Intergalactic Cyber Trash Collective https://www.dbstudio.nl/event/expo-opening-wreckage/ Voltage Control Amsterdam https://www.instagram.com/voltagecontrolamsterdam/

Modulation Utrecht https://www.instagram.com/modulationutrecht/

Bye Bye Plastic Foundation https://www.instagram.com/byebyeplasticlife/

Clubtopia https://www.instagram.com/clubtopia

Today we talk about the intersections of sustainability, health, data and sound in drusnoise’s techno composition ‘We are but dust and shadows’. The composition investigates how sonification of air pollution data can be used for modulation of sound, mirroring the ways that unseen particles in the air affect humans and the environment – usually in ways we do not notice or understand. The live experimental techno set features analog and digital modular synthesizers, samplers, FX pedals, iPad granular synths, and analog drum machines. Additional sounds and modulations come from public air pollution data, live sample and loop manipulation, field recordings, and scientific lectures.

Guest host JacqNoise (host of the Hijack show on RBL Radio) interviews drusnoise and we talk about sustainability and sound, data sonfication, improvisation, geek out on gear, and more.

Show notes

Links and references

• Data artist: Lisa Knolle
• Data sources: World Air Quality Index - Graz Air Pollution: Real-time Air Quality Index (AQI), https://aqicn.org/city/graz/ | Das Serviceportal des Landes Steiermark, https://app.luis.steiermark.at/luft2/suche.php
• European Environment Agency report on Air quality in Europe https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/air-quality-in-europe-2022
• Link to performance at Institut für Elektronische Musik und Akustik, Kunst Uni Graz 23.11.2023 https://youtu.be/CeQQ7NSPBC0
• Link to artist talk https://youtu.be/EMHHu3v6zIA
• JacqNoise https://jacqnoise.cargo.site/
• Hijack RBL https://rbl.media/programs/hijack/ Every 1st Saturday at 9pm

Gear mentioned

• Eurorack modules
  • Intellijel MIDI – CV interface https://intellijel.com/shop/eurorack/1u/midi-1u/
  • Mystic Circuits 3DVCA https://www.mysticcircuits.com/product/3dvca
  • Worng Electronics Soundstage https://www.worngelectronics.com/
• Elektron Octatrack https://www.elektron.se/en/octratrack-mkii-explorer
• Elektron Analog Rytm https://www.elektron.se/en/analog-rytm-mkii-explorer
• Borderlands granular synth iPad app https://www.borderlands-granular.com/app/
• Eowave Quadrantid Swarm https://www.eowave.com/synthesizers/quadrantid-swarm/
• Bastl Instruments Softpop SP2 https://bastl-instruments.com/instruments/softpop2
• Error instruments Cloud Busting https://www.errorinstruments.com/a-74329068/bricky-format-standalone-box/cloudbusting-gold-xo-brickie/#description
• Ableton Live https://www.ableton.com/en/
• Dust granular synth plugin https://www.soundmorph.com/product/49/dust