Warnings in Waiting by Aura Satz, is part of Proximity Music: Echoes of Entropy, a joint exhibition program initiated by iii and Rewire.

In an age of intersecting political, human-made, and ecological disasters, Warnings in Waiting is an ode to the sirens that are and those that could be. Aura Satz invited over 20 collaborators, including Laurie Spiegel and Moor Mother, to reimagine the sound of the siren. Using the siren as a compositional tool and as a prompt, the resulting resonant voice poses questions like: Does an alarm have to be alarming? How can alarm fatigue be addressed, both as lived reality and as a metaphor for the current state of the world? Become engulfed by this disconcerting and intense video installation experience, housed in the basement of WEST, The Hague (the former US Embassy).

Aura Satz is a London-based visual artist whose work encompasses film, sound, performance, and sculpture. Her work explores modes of listening as both subject matter and medium, often considering the role that technologies play in these alternative soundscapes. Satz has worked with a wide range of contemporary composers, vocalists, and sound artists, frequently using this collaborative practice to trace the lineage of the unsung women pioneers of electronic music.

More detailed project information

How do we hear and understand emergency signals at a time of intersecting environmental and sociopolitical crisis? Does an alarm have to be alarming? And can we imagine sirens beyond the human? Composed of footage shot at sites where sirens are deployed, Aura Satz works collaboratively with a roster of musicians to speculatively reimagine what a siren is.

The project reimagines sirens in order to forge a new understanding of present and long-term emergency. The siren serves as a worldwide symbol of potential trauma, an emblem warning of climate catastrophe, a mouthpiece for sonic governance and crisis management. Many sirens are relics from WW2 and the cold war, repurposed to communicate the threats of extreme weather, a collective commemorative pause, or resurrected to test disaster preparedness.

Drawing on Aura Satz’s ongoing documentary film project Preemptive Listening (2017-2024), the triangular installation explores the lifecycle of a siren: sirens in situ, placed within landscapes and architectures of threat; sirens in a factory, suspended in a preliminary limbo; and sirens in a state of obsolescence, in a siren ‘cemetery’ or junkyard.

The site-specific installation consists of films shot across America, Lapland and Fukushima that rotate across different soundscapes, with newly composed siren sounds by an array of experimental musicians. The soundtrack features the endlessly escalating sounds of planetary data; animal howls and the grief of extinction; soaring banshee-like warnings; defiant trumpets; intricate harp permutations; the sounds of the earth’s core.

Warnings in Waiting offers an experiment in listening, exploding the soundtrack within a permutational logic specific to the gallery context, and echoing the modular logic of the siren’s code that can be used to communicate diverse messages across war, weather and civil unrest.

Warnings in Waiting draws on the project Preemptive Listening, which was funded by AHRC (2022–2024), hosted at RCA, London.

Originally commissioned by Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo. Supported by AHRC, OKRE, RCA, Walker Arts Centre, Kunsternes Hus, with support in kind from Kadist. Presented in association with Walker Arts Centre, Tate Modern, and EMPAC.

Musicians (in order of appearance):
Laurie Spiegel (astronomical planetary data, electronica); Evelyn Glennie (percussion); Maja Ratkje (voice, bells); Anton Lukoszevieze (cello); BJ Nilsen (wind, electronica); Elaine Mitchener (voice and whistles); Laurie Spiegel (manatees, dogs, mice, electronica); Ilpo Väisänen (electronica); Rhodri Davies (harp); Debit (Mayan instruments, AI, Schumann resonance).

Producer: LONO Studio – Luke W Moody
Associate Producers: Mika Taanila (Testifilmi) and Tendai John Mutambu;
Cinematography: Aura Satz; USA: Brandon Mendel, Jason Boulware; Japan: Hikaru Suzuki with FiveStar; Finland: Mika Taanila with Flatlight
Sound Mix and Sound Design: Chu-Li Shewring
Associate researcher and podcast producer: Irene Revell
Associate researcher: Francesca Cavallo
Production transport and assistance in Milwaukee: Jonas Sun and Seamus Carey
Special thanks to American Signal, Westshore Services, Lou Mallozzi, Carole McCurdy, Deborah Stratman, Jason Waite and Hiroko Tasaka.