I want to eat the earth': A sonic almanac from the New School of the Anthropocene

NSOTA is a radical experiment in alternative education, away from marketization and arcane specialism towards co-sensing systems change through creative practice.

This is an ecological transmission of DIY ethics, non-hierarchical structures, radical networks, interconnected sensing through sound, text, voice, spoken word, human and more-than-human collaborative practice, patchwork group thinking, and radio art.

This episode is created for the June solstice, a time of long light hours in the north, and long darkness in the south, the extremes of day and night enacting their own rhythms and textures on those who inhabit the earth. The piece is curated and produced by Stephen Shiell and composed using original material from NSOTA scholars.

Scholar contributions:

Stephen Shiell dawn chorus phenomena, recorded at Tir Ysbrydol, Wales, 2025

Simon McClelland Morris and Chris de Sel excerpt of ‘Brone’ - and/or Boundary Drone sounds out the internal machinations and infrastructural analysis that occurred on a virtual tour around the perimeter of Heathrow International Airport, summer 2024

Stephen Shiell field recording at Lisbon port, Lisbon 2025 - check

Clare Whistler & Stephen Shiell ‘Pond Song’ poem with field recordings from Clare’s sussex pond

Rhona Eve Clews Hungarian transit, field recording

Pascal Sleigh a piece borrowing from Tavener’s theme from The Lamb in order to think about mourning modern ecological loss, particularly interested in translating the uncomfortable pairing of beauty (daisies) and the unheimlich (guts) as a form of the emotional displacement that the anthropocene causes. Performed by the Quiron Quartet: Violin I - Edgar Gomes Violin II - Ricardo Vieira Viola - Jose Miguel Freitas Cello - Maria Nabiero, With many thanks to Matthew Brown and Stelios Chatziiosifidis

Rhona Eve Clews Montezuma castle, Arizona 

Abi Andrews ‘Kithness’, an audio essay about cross-species care

Stephen Shiell & Clare Whistler ‘Pond Song’ poem with field recordings from Clare’s sussex pond

Michael Timmerman Paradisum Only Not - In principle, a series of quotations, starting with a Big Bang drone leading into a rendition of Fauré’s In Paradisum theme of his Requiem to interrogate the possibility of oblivion and a future without memory.

Miles Irving & Pascal Sleigh What’s happened to the humans

Chris de Sel recordings at Big Pit, Blaenafon and Lime Kiln, Clydach Gorge, with reading from Michael Bosley and Gwynne Bosley’s ‘The Lonely Shepherd’ and R.S. Thomas’s ‘Song in a Year of Catastrophe"  

Rhona Eve Clews field recording, back of a cab in Latvia

Simon McClelland Morris and Chris De Sel excerpt of ‘Brone’

Rhona Eve Clews Cicada, field recording

Cole Pemberton improv of Blanc Sceol’s ‘We’re All Going to Die’ on piano with Hannah White ‘letter for…’

Stephen Shiell dawn chorus phenomena, recorded at Tir Ysbrydol, Wales, 2025

This radio show is a quarterly reflection of the global network of artists and thinkers gathered through the New School of the Anthropocene’s hybrid learning environment, a seasonal almanac-like montage of creative responses to the interdisciplinary thinking of the school and the discussions, collaborations and systems solutions being nurtured there.

The seasonal transmissions follow the sun-earth movements, each year beginning at the December solstice, moving through March equinox and June solstice and ending with September equinox.