The event offers regular meetings throughout the year, with one-hour sessions (30 minutes of presentation followed by 30 minutes of debate). With a variety of themes anchored in the group’s objectives, the conferences are open to the public, who can participate via Zoom.

The topics covered include algorithmic systems and artificial intelligence; the production, circulation and consumption of music on digital platforms; audiovisual formats such as music videos, digital games and cinema; catalogue music; and online cultures and communities, among others.

The initiative promotes a space for interdisciplinary dialogue on music and sound in digital and audiovisual media, contributing to the expansion of knowledge and the exchange of ideas.

The third session, at 6.30 pm on March 27, will be led by Jonas Runa and moderated by Vinícius de Aguiar and André Malhado. The talk “O Grito da Terra” (‘The Scream of the Earth’) is organised in four parts. Firstly, he will describe how the latest developments on the political scene do not seem to indicate a promising future in tackling the climate crisis. Furthermore, the combination of this political environment with the recent succession of exceptional climate records, which put life on Earth under threat, further reinforces the evidence that we are in the antechamber of disaster. The problem will then be approached from the perspective of the complexity sciences, broadening the debate with an intricate web of heterogeneous issues. After dispelling some misconceptions about energy and entropy, it will be discussed how harmful tipping points and non-linear feedback loops between emissions and global warming present some of the most complex challenges. Speculations on Fermi’s paradox and biogenic climate change in antiquity will lead us to the next section, which focuses on the often ignored or forgotten relationships between climate change and the Earth’s acoustic environment. By crossing a variety of scientific disciplines, sound offers an effective model for comprehensive thinking – a crucial skill for reacting to the climate crisis. After highlighting the impacts on the geophonic and biophonic components, we will reflect on the epistemic value of sound, especially through the perspective of ‘acoustemology’. Finally, the topic will be the possible contributions of the Sound Arts (if any) to this process.

Jonas Runa is a researcher and artist working in the fields of new media art, performance and multimedia, sound sculpture, light art, interactive installation, improvisation/musical composition, and contemporary dance. He is an Associate Professor at Universidade Lusófona, where he is the director of the Degree in Sound Science and Technology and the Master’s Degree in Sound Production and Technologies. His artwork has been presented at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the 55th and 56th Venice Biennale, 798 Art District (Beijing), ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Galerie Scheffel (Frankfurt), Logos Foundation (Ghent), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (Santiago de Chile), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Arnold Schoenberg Hall (Netherlands), Yorkshire Sculpture Park (UK), among others. He has a degree in Sonology from the Royal Conservatory of the Hague (Netherlands) and a PhD in Science and Technology from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. He developed the individual CEEC post-doctoral project ‘Sound at the Edge of Consciousness’ based at FCSH, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and he was co-principal investigator of the ‘TEPe – Technologically Expanded Performance’ project, both funded by FCT. He founded the piano and electronic music duo ZUL ZELUB with Jorge Lima Barreto in 2007. He is the scientific coordinator and co-author of the book «O Elogio da Abertura: Ensaios e Diálogos sobre a Materialidade da Comunicação Estética» (Documenta/Sistema Solar, 2025). In 2021, he was elected to the Young Scientists Seminar of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences.

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