This article is an analysis of two sound art performances that took place in June 2015 in outdoor public spaces at the social housing areaUrbanplanenin Copenhagen, Denmark. The two performances wereOn the Productions of a Poor Acousticsby Brandon LaBelle andGreen Interactive Biofeedback Environments (GIBE)by Jeremy Woodruff. In order to investigate the complex situation that arises when sound art is staged in such contexts, the authors of this article suggest exploring the events through approaching them as ‘situations’ (Doherty 2009). With this approach it becomes possible to engage and combine theories from several fields. Aspects of sound art studies, performance studies and contemporary art studies are presented in order to theoretically explore the very diverse dimensions of the two sound art pieces. Visual, auditory, performative, social, spatial and durational dimensions become integrated within the analysis in our pursuit of the most comprehensive interpretation of the pieces possible.

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Within recent years, there has been a renewed focus on sound in urban environments. From sound installations in public space to sound festivals in alternative settings, we find a common interest in sound art relating to the urban environment. Artworks or interventions presented in such contexts share the characteristics of site specificity. However, this article will consider the artwork in a broader context by re-examining how sound installations relate to the urban environment. For that purpose, this article brings together ecology terms from acoustic ecology of the sound theories of the 1970s while developing them into recent definitions of ecology in urban studies. Finally, we unfold our framing of urban sound ecologies with three case analyses: a sound intervention in Berlin, a symphony for wind instruments in Copenhagen and a video walk in a former railway station in Kassel. The article concludes that the ways in which recent sound installations work with urban ecologies vary. While two of the examples blend into the urban environment, the other transfers the concert format and its mode of listening to urban space. Last, and in accordance with recent soundscape research, we point to how artists working with new information and media technologies create inventive ways of inserting sound and image into urban environments.

Paragrana ist eine internationale transdisziplinäre Zeitschrift für Historische Anthropologie, die im Interdisziplinären Zentrum für Historische Anthropologie der Freien Universität Berlin herausgegeben wird. Historische Anthropologie bezeichnet Bemühungen, nach dem Ende der Verbindlichkeit einer abstrakten anthropologischen Norm weiterhin Phänomene und Strukturen des Menschlichen im Spannungsfeld zwischen Geschichte, Humanwissenschaft und Anthropologie-Kritik zu erforschen und für neuartige paradigmatische Fragestellungen fruchtbar zu machen.