+ WHO?
Dr. Lea Luka Tiziana Sikau
+ WHAT?
Explore how metabolic acoustics synchronize gut feelings.
+ HOW?
Study sounds from metabolism and their impact on emotions.
The project explores the sonic, microbial, and sensory dimensions of gut activity as a site for artistic speculation and collective resonance. By amplifying internal bodily sounds through hydrophones and spatial sound technologies, it aims to destigmatize the acoustic ecology of digestion and reinterpret it as a space for connection, transformation, and political reflection. It confronts challenges of bodily invisibility, medical alienation, and sensory erasure in urban life. By embedding these inner processes into spatial audio environments, it asks how bodies ferment in relation to others—biologically, politically, and acoustically.
Everyone emits and hears bowel sounds, yet their metabolic acoustics remain stigmatized and often silenced. stoff wechsel / látková přeměna is a multi-sensory installation exploring the acoustic and haptic qualities of gut feeling. It brings gut sounds into collective resonance, encouraging participants to attune to one another not through breath or heartbeat, but via their gastrointestinal systems—inviting reflection, curiosity, and an experience of the body as an ecological system. Within an inflatable sound bath, participants’ gut sounds are woven into a composition—a gutscape—that affects internal organs and nurtures multi-organ communication. Sonic textures unfold from soft effervescence and expansive howls to crescendos of rumbles, squelches, and breathy, oceanic hums. Chewy, textured cushions allow visitors to press against the sculpture, amplifying their internal rhythms and engaging in a shared resonance. By reclaiming what is often dismissed as private or embarrassing noise, the installation highlights the rich sonic compositions of our gastrointestinal systems. Participants become attuned to their own and each other’s gut sounds, exploring a dialogue beyond words. As the gutscape fades, a heightened awareness of silences and reverberations lingers, leaving a renewed sense of what it means to truly “listen to your gut.”
The installation engages with the urban dimension by inviting visitors in dense city environments to reattune to their internal rhythms, merging private gut space with public acoustic architecture. Urban and intestinal environments are both spaces where solid entities acquire sonic qualities. By attuning ourselves to these sounds, we gain insights into the rhythms, behaviors, and health of these ecosystems. Just as cities resonate with the hum of traffic, sirens, and human activity, the gut produces layered sounds from peristaltic movements, digestive processes, and shifting gases. Both are high-density spaces of sonic information, ranging from subtle, almost inaudible noises to sudden, attention-grabbing events. These soundscapes, often unnoticed, reveal the intricate interplay of organic, mechanical, and human elements. A speculative wearable could harmonize urban and gut sounds, allowing users to immerse themselves in the inner and outer environments simultaneously. Such an apparatus emphasizes that the divide between artificial and natural soundscapes is socially constructed and invites reflection on our place within layered ecosystems. Listening to both urban and intestinal sounds fosters awareness of the body as a threshold circulating between environments. It encourages interaction with the textures and patterns of these systems, highlighting how our inner and outer worlds are interconnected. By tuning in to these sonic layers, users experience themselves as part of both the gut and the city, recognizing the profound relationships between bodily rhythms and urban life.
gut sound, fermentation, spatial audio, body interfaces, sensory politics, urban listening, bioacoustics, multispecies kinship
Tools and Methodology: Device-Making Guides
The team developed hydrophone-based sensing systems embedded in soft inflatables to capture internal bodily sounds. These were paired with vibroacoustic cushions and silicone membranes, enabling direct body-sound interaction. The setup included tactile transducers and spatial sound diffusion using 8-channel or 3rd-order Ambisonics systems.
Multisensory Installation
Getting closer to the sonic gutscape facilitates a relation with our bodies beyond the traditional stigma surrounding them. The installation consists of a five-meter-diameter inflatable, made of PVC with an outer silicone layer and hidden actuators. These respond to the visitor’s touch, intensifying the sonic experience through haptic stimulation. Around the inflatable, the audience encounters silicone cushions that can be placed on their abdomen. Each cushion encapsulates a self-built hydrophone, allowing listeners to perceive the sound of blood flowing through their veins. These amplify the body’s internal movements in real time, extending the ear’s natural capacity. The sounds intertwine with a thirty-minute looping electroacoustic composition. The sonic space, evoking the sensation of being absorbed into intestines, unfolds in three layers:
- The live sounds generated by interacting audiences.
- A spatialised composition with dome-like immersive qualities,
- The vibrotactile presence of lower frequencies within the inflatable,
Tools and Methodology: Design Methods & Frameworks
The methodology combines bioacoustic sensing, participatory somatic listening, and fermentation metaphors to explore multispecies and multiphase sonic relations. A nonlinear scripting framework supported real-time composition based on visitor interaction and microbial data rhythms.
Collaborations
The project was developed in collaboration with sound engineers, fermentation scientists, and speculative designers. Input from gastroenterology experts and artists with embodied illness experiences informed both the ethical framing and technical interfaces. Workshops and feedback loops were embedded throughout the process.
Impact
The tools and methods supported the transformation of stigmatized bodily functions into aesthetic and affective material. They enabled cross-domain dialogue between sound, health, and public engagement, and provided infrastructure for ongoing sensory and microbial research within the field of art-science.
Scenarios / Tests / Exhibitions
The project was presented at the Ligeti Center and BASE Milano, where participants engaged with a multisensory installation. Visitors were invited to lie on vibroacoustic surfaces or immerse their heads into soft silicone membranes infused with sound and vibration. Using hydrophone recordings, they could listen to real-time or pre-recorded gut processes, interwoven with ambient sonic compositions. The installation evoked a fermentation chamber for kinship and acoustic kinesthesia.
Lessons learned:
Audience responses revealed a profound sense of curiosity and vulnerability in listening to their own and others’ internal sounds. The work demonstrated significant potential for music therapy. The integration of body-sound interfaces proved technically effective, while also prompting reflections on consent, data ownership, and intimacy. Multisensory entry points emerged as crucial for fostering inclusive engagement.
Artistic, social, technological, or research-based contributions
Artistically, the project reclaims stigmatized sounds as sites of agency and beauty. Technologically, it bridges spatial sound with visceral sensing. Socially, it opens a space for rethinking health, privacy, and kinship in urban life. In research terms, it addresses Pilot Use Cases on bodily perception and inclusive sonic environments.
Adaptability / interoperability:
The approach is modular and adaptable: hydrophone sensing kits, sound mapping techniques, and fermentation-based sound scripting can be recontextualized for education, therapy, or urban interventions. The installation’s components are scalable and compatible with other sonic and biosensing frameworks.