Thesis Structure & Drafts
Created: Wed Aug 27 2025
v2.
Setting the Scene
- Introduction
Part 1 - Visual
- Three Models of Technology to Nature
- Mimesis
- Reserve
- Prosthetic
- The Picturesque View of La Jonction
- That's So Aesthetic
- Nature's Beauty
- Landscape Model
- A Photographic Study of the Rhône and Arve Rivers
- Format and Display
- Collection of Evidence
- Expressive Qualities
- Quantifying an Image
- Rivers Through Numbers
- Mapping La Jonction
- Cartography
- Psychogeography
- Personal Connections
Part 2 - Sound
- Escaping Soundscapes and Re-Attuning to Them
- The Act of Listening
- All the Sounds
- Acoustic Niche Hypothesis
- Giving Voice to Rivers
- Humanizing Non-Human Entities
- AI as Representative
- Field Recording Practice
- Interviews
- Flux Workshop at La Maison de la Rivière Conclusion
- Summary
- Next steps
20,000 Character Draft
Made edits to previous version based on advisor's notes and wrote two chapters. Continued to refine the structure.
Read Draft
Submitted Oct 6, 2025
v1.
Working Title - The Aesthetics of Rivers / The Philosophical Problem of Appreciating Nature
- Introduction
- Inspiration
- Context
- Problem
- Research Questions
- Methodology
- Limitations
- Roadmap
Part 1 - Visual
- The Pastoral View of La Jonction
- Landscape Model
- Disinterestedness
- Beauty
- Framed & Unframed
- A Photographic Study of the Rhône and Arve Rivers
- Aesthetic Qualities
- Re-Framed
- Beyond Documentation and Memory
- Mapping the Viaduc de la Jonction
- Cartography
- Psychogeography
- Personal Connections
Part 2 - Sound
- Escaping Soundscapes
- The Act of Listening
- All the Sounds
- Acoustic Niche Hypothesis
- Giving Voice to Rivers
- Humanizing Non-Human Entities
- AI as Representative
- Field Recording Practice
- Interview with Jonas Fasching
- Interview with Flavien Gillé
- Flux Workshop at La Maison de la Rivière
Part 3 - Framework (WIP...will come back after writing Part 1 & 2 and conducting further research. Something around the frame/unframed problem.)
- Technology and Its Relationship to Nature
- Copying Nature (Nature as Teacher)
- Revealing Nature (Nature as Resource)
- Extending Nature (Nature as Nature)
- More Than Human Design
- Conclusion
- Summary of findings
- Next steps
What helped with this structure is of course going through the writing process, but we also had a thesis exhibition to present our research. Pulling out key parts of my research and talking about it helped me with exactly what I wanted to say and what is the core of this thesis. And for me, the core is the philosophical problem of appreciating nature.
10,000 Character Draft
Read Draft
Submitted Sept 24, 2025
v0.
A rough outline of what I would like to discuss in my thesis. After doing some reading and prelimary research, I am going to focus on sounds in nature, specifically that of water.
Some research questions:
- What does it mean to listen to a river? And in this case, two rivers that meet at a confluence.
- How does listening to an aquatic soundscape impact our understanding of our environment?
- How can listening bring us closer to nature, similar to how listening can bring us closer to other humans?
- How can we appreciate a water soundscape? And does it always have to relate to the ecological crisis? Can we have a pure aesthetic appreciation or is it our ethical duty to also highlight this cause? My initial inclination is that if you're talking about nature, then you also need to address its current state, and that state is climate change.
- What is it about this moment in time that artists & practioners are interested in rivers and ecologies? How do we mediate and participate in this when there has been a long standing tradition, way of being among indigenious groups?
- How can we appreciate the nature through sounds that goes beyond field recordings and re-presenting?
Questions for Interviews with Artists & Practioners
- When you are listening to a field recording, what are you listening for?
- How much planning is involved before you go into the field?
- How did you get into the field of sounds?
- Why is field recording nature important to you?
- How often do you revisit recordings?
- Can you describe a moment that surprised you from your work?
- If the act of field recording is listening to sounds in an environment, what is the environment saying to you?
Things to consider:
- Describe a situation and its stake
- Discuss opportunities for design: possibly problems and needs, but also opportunities, new questions, even original theoretical concepts, or more broadly the social, cultural and political implications of the phenomenon
Notes
There's this article that displays audio as an infographic. The combination of visual and sound creates a strong impact on the reader because they can experience the empty-i-ness in two ways. But it also made me realize that it may be hard to notice the lack of biophonic + geophonic sounds when anthroponic sounds take over.
When I was working on this reel, I also didn't realize how prevalent the birds were chirping away. This makes sense considering most of the time I had headphones on disconnecting myself from the La Jonction soundscape. This also made me think about the countless people who also wear headphones which not only alienates us from each other, but from the animals around us.
Sounds are also often forgotten because it is the self that is in the foreground when taking a selfie with nature.
Title - Designing With Rivers
Outline
- Introduction
- How Sound Works
- Environmental Aesthetics History
- Philosophy of Technology - Heidegger and river dams
- Projects
- The River by Jana Winderen and Tony Myatt | 2024
- Bodies of Water by Ludwig Berger | 2022
- Co_Sonic 1884 km² by Robertina Šebjanič | 2021
- Natural Networks by Six:Thirty x Matteo Loglio | 2017 & The one from Superflux | 2025
- Coral Sonic Resilience by Marco Barotti | 2025 & Mineral Accretion Factory by David Énon | 2011-present
- Interviews
- Favien Gillié: Sound Artist Based in Brussels
- Framework and Methodologies
- Sensing Rivers
- Advocating for Rivers
- Caring for Rivers
Introduction
Talk about my inspiration and interests.