© Eric Lanz
Peer-reviewed audio paper

Solastalgia

The voicing of a fading natural resource
Af
2. Juni 2022
Fokus: Sounding Women's Work II
  DOI https://doi.org/10.48233/SEISMOGRAF2804

'Solastalgia' is the feeling of emotional or existential distress, experienced as we witness negatively perceived environmental change unfold in places dear to us. Since coined by environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht in 2003, the neologism has supported suffering people in need of a term to describe their increasingly outspread eco-anxiety in time of ecological breakdown. Through the lens of collaborative composition and the use of audio technology, this audio paper explores what happens when composer Carola Bauckholt and violinist Karin Hellqvist collectively seek to address their solastalgia. The process of composing the violin-electronics-video work Solastalgia (2022), aims at the outset to address environmental change, but with the space of trust that develops between the collaborators, a process of role expansion is additionally catalyzed, challenging the field’s traditional roles of composer and performer. The repetitive act of mapping sonorities of fading ice resources, therefore not only offer the collaborators a space to stay with, and accept, their painful feelings of solastalgia, but further leads them into new collaborative artistic terrain.   

© Malte Giesen
Karin Hellqvist and composer Carola Bauckholt. © Malte Giesen


 

 

 

Bibliography

Albrecht, G. A. (2017) Solastalgia and the new mourning. In Cunsolo, A., and Landman, K. (editors), Mourning nature: hope at the heart of ecological loss and grief. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 292-315

Albrecht, G. A. (2019) Earth emotions. New words for a new world. Cornell University Press

Cunsolo, A. & Landman, K. (2017) Mourning nature: hope at the heart of ecological loss and grief. London: McGill-Queen’s University Press

Keywords

Collaborative composition
music technology
role expansion
climate change
eco-anxiety