TABOO - TRANSGRESSION - TRANSCENDENCE

Empty Field is a performance sound artwork by Kat Austen that explores the intersections of ecology, digitality, and human intervention. The performance unfolds within a dynamic soundscape projected either from wearable speakers on the artist’s body or through the performance location PA, manipulated in real-time through ring-based controllers. This interaction between sound and movement creates a localized sonic journey through virtual landscapes which juxtapose field recordings with an AI compositional agent's augmentation of the same sounds, controlled through choreography.

Field recordings originate from diverse environments, spanning bustling urban centers like Seoul, Gwangju, and Busan to remote rural sites such as the UN FAO Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Site in Cheongsan-do and extraction zones in Europe, Asia, and North America. These sites reflect themes of wilderness, biodiversity loss, land abandonment, and extractivism, alongside contested redevelopments and borders. The Korean term for wilderness, encompassing meanings like deserted fields (hwang-ya), endless expanses (gwang-ya), and rural plains (beolpan), anchors the performance’s exploration of "Empty Fields."

The soundscape juxtaposes the rhythms of urban life, the serenity of untouched nature, and the dissonance of extractive environments. It weaves these diverse recordings into a sonic tapestry that transcends physical and conceptual boundaries. Central to the work is a contemplation of the shift of diversity—ecological, cultural, and biological—from the corporeal world into the digital realm. The performance interrogates how this transition redefines notions of presence, interaction, and the essence of biodiversity within hybrid virtual-physical ecosystems.

Grounded in theories of embodied knowledge, empathy, and aesthetics in sound and movement, Austen’s performance invites audiences to reflect on the hybridization of environmental, digital, and corporeal worlds. Through this immersive experience, Empty Field becomes a site for reflection, exploration, and reconnection with changing forms of habitability.