Phon-Em is both a title and a method of listening. Borrowing from the linguistic idea of the phoneme as the smallest unit capable of changing meaning, the work transfers this principle into the acoustic field: a minimal shift in orientation can reorganise an entire sonic situation.

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Worn as a portable ear sculpture, Phon-Em uses enlarged, rotatable outer ears to collect and direct sound into the ear canal. Each side can be turned independently through 360 degrees, creating a form of analogue acoustic zoom. Listening becomes bound to a visible gesture: the body aligns, the head establishes an axis, and distance and direction become active parameters. Listening no longer simply occurs; it is produced.

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What comes into the foreground is never more true than what falls behind, only more present. In this way, Phon-Em reveals attention as a social and spatial negotiation shaped by habits, hierarchies, and the environments we inhabit. A landscape, a street, or a station is never heard neutrally, but through shifting relations of presence and absence. By making the acoustic foreground physically adjustable, Phon-Em allows public space to be encountered differently and listening to emerge as an embodied, relational, and collective act.

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A custom algorithmic design process generates the geometry of each headphone individually, so every Phon-Em becomes a unique object within a shared formal system.

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displayed at Festival Rümlingen (CH) | Klangspuren (AT)