Tuned City is a platform which proposes an examination of the relations between architecture and sound.

Tuned City – Between sound and space speculation was an exhibition and conference project taking place from July 01.-05. 2008 in Berlin which proposed a new evaluation of architectural spaces from the perspective of the acoustic.

The project draws the traditions of critical discussion about urban space within the architecture and urban planning discourse–as well as its strategies and working methods–into the context of sound art. This expanded discussion reenforces the potential of the spatial and communicative properties of sound as a tool and means of urban practice.

At the foundations of this event are artists’ works and theoretical approaches which examine in a critical and sensitive way the given urban and architectural situations alongside their resulting socio-political implications, that re-use existing spaces or that conceive and open new spaces.

A dialogue will be built at the intersection of both disciplines which traces out the complex relations and interactions of space-sound, both presenting and testing new strategies, methods, possibilities and potentials of sound work within the artistic and applied context.

Tuned City is structured in two main segments – symposium and site-specific installations.

On the individual days the symposium will approach the topic from five different theoretical and spatial perspectives. Spaces built for the production and reception of sound or acoustically flawed or impossible spaces, public and semi-public urban space, finished and planned spaces, wasteland or cultivated spaces, indoors and outdoors – the chosen venues correspond with the individual topic of the day and offer plastic illustration and demonstration. Tuned City will try to break down the conventional conference format and to catalyse the discussion via the space in a mixture of academic talk, artistic presentation, performances, reports from working practice, demonstrations, and walks.

The five days will be accompanied by a dense workshop programme and a performance programme corresponding with the individual topics.

For the programme structure see Programme.

The project Tuned City was initiated by Gesine Pagels and Carsten Stabenow and is produced and organised by a larger production team in cooperation with singuhr hoergalerie berlin and several other partners.