Environments 12, 2025
Stereo LP, 35 mins
Label: Future Resistenza

In sum, Environments 12 is deeply perplexing, beautifully garish, and an unbridled pleasure for all its grotesqueries. Rarely do records strike so deft a balance between high-conceptualism and irreverent absurdity, much less while maintaining a distinct emotional core. It is a mind-inverting libretto for the anthropocene: a post-historical field recording; aggressively brash and thoughtfully devious, one for the curling of your inner ear.

Machine Listening is a platform for collaborative research and artistic experimentation, founded in 2020 by Sean Dockray, James Parker, and Joel Stern. The collective works across writing, installation, performance, software, curation, pedagogy, and radio. Their work has been presented at major institutions including the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Cricoteka Tadeusz Kantor Museum (Kraków), Warsaw Museum of Modern Art, Galerie Nord (Berlin), the National Communication Museum, RMIT Design Hub, and MUMA. They have performed at Unsound Festival, Soft Centre, and Melbourne Recital Centre, among others. Machine Listening’s projects frequently focus on the politics of datasets and algorithmic systems.