2020, 2-channel video (HD), 1-channel sound, 9:45 min
Courtesy the artist

Research on the bioacoustics of octopuses is slim. Even more opaque than the usual puzzles about octopuses, where we have data and knowledge that however we find difficult to make sense of, it is neither clear whether octopuses can hear nor whether they emit sounds or not. Both possibilities are represented in the scarce literature.
Pascal Marcel Dreier aims to evoke a deeper knowledge and awareness of how the sounds perceived by animals and the soundscapes surrounding them are shaped and controlled by us. Markets are noisy spaces (so are aquaria, as Hörner/Antlfinger confirm). It is also where octopuses pass through on their way from home to consumption.
Using bioacoustic animal studies, “Subaquatic Soundscapes” makes sounds audible that usually remain undetected by us. The work combines this with underwater recordings of aquariums at fish markets, and video documents of animal resistance recorded at wet markets in China and South Korea. Thus, Dreier enables a dense (aesthetic) experience of the soundscapes of aquariums and fish markets.
Listen to noisy, deadly environments and see how animal actors act, flee and make trouble within.

Pascal Marcel Dreier is a researcher, designer and artist based in Cologne. Integrating tools and methods from a range of disciplines, his work focuses on multispecies encounters and is influenced by the posthumanities. In his installation work “Multispecies Archaeology I,” (2019) he turned bones that he collected from leftovers from his partner into a porcelain urn and published the essay “Multispecies Mourning” as part of the work. Currently, he continues his research in the Media and Fine Arts program at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM). His art works have been exhibited at, for example, Weltkunstzimmer Düsseldorf, Temporary Gallery, Köln, Meinblau Projektraum, Berlin, Zollverein Essen, and Palazzo Ricci Montepulciano. — www.pascaldreier.de