Pedro Oliveira, "A Song Was the Length of the Night and a Map of the World", 7 min 07 sec, South Atlantic, 2024

“a song...” is a composition and an evocation for the end of (this) world. The piece mobilizes a feedback network between acoustic instruments and analog oscillators to produce and listen to wild electricity (eletricidade selvagem). As the Earth temperature rises, imbalances between particles above and below the surface dramatically increase the occurrence of electrical discharges, heavy winds, and torrential storms. The South Atlantic ranks among the regions with the highest propensity for electric thunderstorms; its population – human and non-human alike – being the most affected by this phenomenon. In 2024, more than half of the southern State of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil has gone underwater after a series of unprecedented thunderstorms – a direct result of negligence, overfarming, and deforestation in the region. Thinking of wild electricity as that which comes back to haunt and threaten the world as we know it, as something to be mobilized to bring (this) world to an end, this composition is a poetic reminder that there cannot be stability in human-made systems that thrive on extracting, extinguishing, and controlling that which has always been and shall remain untamed and elemental.

Pedro Oliveira (1985, São Paulo) is a sound artist and researcher focused on the anticolonial study of listening and its intersections with violence at the European border. His research explores the histories of technical listening in Germany and their aesthetic and material aspects. He has exhibited at the Akademie der Künste Berlin, European Media Art Festival, CTM Festival, and Haus der Kulturen der Welt. He has held fellowships at the Leuphana Institute and Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, and taught at Humboldt University Berlin and Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf. He is currently a freelance senior lecturer at the Universität der Künste Berlin, where he earned his PhD.

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