e175 sabine breitsameter - an aesthetic of care

• Listening can teach us to appreciate our environment in a critical sense, but also in a kind of admiration for it. If we admire something because we think it has a depth or it has a beauty or some interesting aspects, we want to keep it, we want to foster it.

I first met Sabine at the Tuning of the World Conference in Banff, Alberta in 1993.

Sabine's work focuses on media art, listening culture, cultures of perception, experimental audiomedia, media history, media ecology, acoustic ecology as well trans- and intercultural studies. 

She has worked as an experimental audio media maker, working as director, author, curator and dramaturg for the cultural departments of the German public radio and was co-founder of the Master‘s program Sound Studies at the University of the Arts in Berlin and worked there as a professor for Experimental Audiomedia from 2004-2008.

Since 2006 Sabine teaches and researches as a professor for Sound and Media Culture at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences in Germany where she is director of the Soundscape & Environmental Media Lab and 3D Audio Lab.

As a scientific and artistic director she has curated numerous art projects, symposia and festivals. I was a guest speaker at one of these events in 2018, The Global Composition in Dieburg, Germany where I spoke about the origins of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology in 1993.

While on a trip to Canada in May 2024 Sabine stopped by my home in Ottawa to talk about her work and share her thoughts on art and the ecological crisis with a focus on listening and sound. 

I was struck by Sabine’s observation about how artists are always careful with what they do, which Sabine defines as :

• a consciously shaped relationship with the world in a mindful attitude and with high appreciation for the phenomena of this world and its values.

I was impressed by the parallel she draws between the poly-crisis of today and Frederich Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man, written in 1795, which addresses the dehumanization and alienation of industrial labour through aesthetic education and the arts.

I was also interested in this quote because my father’s relatives emigrated from Germany to North America right around that period in the early 1800’s. 

At the end of our conversation Sabine gave me a copy of the 2nd edition of Die Ordnung der Klänge (The Ordering of Sounds), her German translation of R. Murray Schafer’s The Tuning of the World.

Sabine suggested books were:

• On the Aesthetic Education of Man by Frederich Schiller
• Aesthetics of Care: Practice in Everyday Life by Yuriko Saito

*

END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Note : I'm currently 'pressing pause' and am not producing new content until further notice. 

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020. It’s my way to give back.

This Indigenous Land Acknowledgement statement was developed by members of the Algonquin community for my former employer the Canada Council for the Arts. I have adapted slightly to make it my own.

• I acknowledge that my studio, located in Ottawa, is on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial.
• I recognize the Algonquins as the customary keepers and defenders of the Ottawa River Watershed and its tributaries. I honour their long history of welcoming many Nations to this beautiful territory and uphold and uplift the voice and values of our Host Nation.
• Further, I offer my respect and affirm the inherent and Treaty Rights of all Indigenous Peoples across this land and honour commitments to self-determination and sovereignty that have been made to Indigenous Nations and Peoples.
• I acknowledge the historical oppression of lands, cultures and the original Peoples in what we now know as Canada and fervently believe the Arts contribute to the healing and decolonizing journey we all share together

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish a free ‘a calm presence' monthly Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.  

Your feedback is always welcome at claude [at] conscient [dot] ca and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Thanks for listening. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on March 21, 2026