Geschützt: Listening as an act of conservation

»When a landscape is destroyed, the silence that follows is profound. How do we archive a soundscape? And more importantly, how do we hold ourselves accountable to the species that are being silenced?«

Could you walk us through your project and the core ideas that shaped its development?

Mapping Dissonance is a digital archive and memorial for the disappearing bird songs and calls of the Aravalli Ridges in Delhi, India. The core idea behind this project is »listening as an act of conservation. « I wanted to document these acoustic ecologies before urban noise and development displaces them completely. The project also includes local folklore and fables connected to the landscape and environment. It acts as a functional tool and a community space to witness and record the ecological shifts happening around us.

What drew you to work with blockchain structures in this project, and what new possibilities did this medium open up for you?

Last year, the Supreme Court of India stayed its judgment that had adopted a strict 100-meter height criterion for defining the Aravalli hills. The court ordered a high-powered committee to re-examine the definition of the ecosystem to protect it from illegal mining. This move by the court, and other such instances in the past, made me think of decentralized, immutable records that are owned by the community and cannot be tampered with. That drew me to work with blockchain structures for this project. It opened up a new possibility of looking at blockchains as a medium to legitimize communal memory and archives.

At what stage did blockchain become essential to your process, and were there moments when its use felt limiting, excessive, or conceptually challenging?

From the initial stages, blockchain became essential for the project; however, I integrated it near the end. This need came after reading a Supreme Court order. This pushed me to think of a ledger that cannot be modified, secured through the blockchain. I refrained from exploring the broader potential of blockchain and stuck to my necessity for this project and residency, which meant it never felt limiting or excessive for me.

How did the residency shape your practice? Could you reflect on what you learned and how exchanges with fellow participants influenced your work?

The residency gave me the space and the push to build the architecture of Mapping Dissonance. It pushed me to understand blockchains and build a functional website integrating it all. I must thank the team for putting this together, sharing their work, and inviting practicing artists. It was inspiring to see their works; it constantly made me think of my project in different ways. Conversations with Lam Lai, Joshua, Rok, Pavan, and Laura definitely influenced my work. From their ideas to their approach, it took shape in multiple ways through thoughts, designs, execution, and organization. I hope an opportunity arises for us to work together again; I’d very much like that.

What frictions, constraints, or questions were you aiming to explore or challenge through this project?

I was aiming to explore the question of mapping the noisy pace of modern urban expansion through bird songs and local folklore that speaks of nature. I wanted to challenge the way we ignore acoustic environments. When a landscape is destroyed, the silence that follows is profound. How do we archive a soundscape? And more importantly, how do we hold ourselves accountable to the species that are being silenced? The challenge was doing this technically, while also being environmentally and ethically conscious of big tech. This made me choose open-source and environmentally friendly tools for the project.

How do you envision the trajectory of your project beyond the residency period?

Beyond the residency, I envision Mapping Dissonance becoming a living, growing archive for the community in Delhi and beyond. Moving forward, I am facilitating workshops with local organizations to get more people directly involved in field recording and deep listening. The goal is to keep expanding the archive, filling the ledger with more bird calls and local folklore to foster a real urgency around conservation. I’m also connecting with local ornithologists for their expertise. Eventually, I want this to operate as a self-sustaining digital monument – one maintained entirely by local residents and acoustic ecologists as a collective memory.

What are your thoughts on the project’s long-term sustainability – both in technical terms and within a broader social or cultural context?

Culturally, sustainability relies entirely on community adoption. I’m glad I was able to build this prototype during the residency. Now comes the hard work of expanding it further. I intend to create a global archive of oral histories and songs, along with bird calls, that is owned and shared by everyone. In terms of technical sustainability, I’ve used FOSS tools and a carbon-negative blockchain network to build this project. There is, of course, a lot to learn, but I intend to keep this strictly community-driven. If the community feels ownership over this ledger of care, it will outlast any temporary server or residency.

Barbara Cueto conducted this interview in collaboration with Sarah Donderer (Solitude Digital Cultures)

beatnyk is a sound artist based in Delhi/Chennai, India. He is a self-taught programmer and an active member of the Algorave India community. beatnyk uses his practice as a critique of anthropocentric dissonance. He is currently working on a project that extends his environmental inquiry and fuses acoustic preservation with a new exploration of decentralized governance. He was awarded Best Sound Design at the Northeast International Documentary and Film Fest (2023) and was a fellow at Darmstadt Ferienkurse Residency, Germany (2025), Bhoomi Farms Residency, India (2023), and the BeFantastic Fellowship by the Goethe-Institut (2021).