DEAFNOTES015: XENOFIELD NOTES

XENOFIELD NOTES is an explorative study based on a concept paper I wrote in 2023. It tells the short story of xenobiologists exploring new territories and life forms on an alien planet.

The short describes the arrival of xenobiologists on a foreign, bioluminescent planet whose soundscapes and atmospheres resemble distorted memories of the long-lost Earth. 

> What is a Xenobiologist?
Xenobiologists are conceptualized as scientists who study extraterrestrial life forms and alien ecosystems. They investigate organisms, environmental conditions, and interactions on other planets or in non-Earth habitats in order to understand how life can emerge and exist under radically different physical, chemical, and biological conditions. Their work often combines biology, astrobiology, ecology, and sometimes anthropology to systematically observe and interpret unfamiliar living worlds.

Although the protagonists of the short story have never been to Earth, they recognize fragments of archived knowledge in the sounds, vibrations, and environments: forests, water, animals—familiar yet alien. The planet appears as an acoustic reconstruction of a vanished world, not authentic but fragmented and unsettling in its imitation.

As the exploration continues, the sense of an unseen presence intensifies, manifesting less as a concrete creature than as the planet’s own consciousness. Sounds, shadows, and movements suggest that the world itself is observing and remembering. The open ending implies that the planet has found a medium in the xenobiologists through whom it attempts to reconstruct its own lost memory of Earth - it's a meeting point between alien ecology and externalized memory.

This work explores the theme of alienation and unfamiliarity as a mirror of one’s own identity in a thought-provoking manner. The concept deals with topics that have been the focus of my work in 2025 and which I already stated in Paragraph 3 of the XENOVERSES series recently (see DEAFNOTES014): 

[…]documenting a fragmented world against the backdrop of my sensorineural hearing loss, recognising and reflecting on how we deal with the unknown as a mirror of how we deal with our identity. It approaches the idea that when confronted with the utmost strangeness, we may encounter ourselves and gain insight into the ideological beliefs, fears, and prejudices that influence us. The aim is not to cement the dualistic poles between otherness and self, but to attempt to overcome them - and maybe to create a new identity?

In cooperation with Marquis McGee, SIDE A was created during an improvisation workshop in Basel in 2024: the instrumental version based on the short story, allowing you to immerse yourself in the action without vocal / lyric accompaniment.

Marquise McGee is a composer, sound designer, musician, educator, and Foley/sound artist currently based in Geneva, Switzerland // www.marquismcgee.com

His practice centers on using sound and music as tools for discovery, aiming to evoke curiosity, exploration, and a sense of wonder in the audience. Drawing inspiration from the intuitive experimentation of childhood, such as discovering different sounds through everyday objects, he expands this impulse into a broader artistic methodology. Through composition, sound-based environments, and experimental projects, the work establishes atmospheres, communicates ideas, and investigates new sonic possibilities, always inviting listeners and participants to actively engage, explore, and rediscover sound as an experiential and educational medium.

Listen here to SIDE A:

In 2025, Pericopae collaborated with me on SIDE B, in which he lends his voice to the project and also contributes his own sound works and aesthetics which I appreciate and resonate a lot with. Pericopae is the alias of Samuel N. Ortiz Payero, a Dominican-American media artist living and working in south central Pennsylvania https://pericopae.com 

His working method is rooted in an anachronistic, cross-media approach that draws on early digital culture, experimental sound, and visual art to create deliberate temporal dissonance. Through reflective dialogue, theoretical framing, and close attention to language, the author assembles fragmented references from obsolete technologies to noise, ambient music, and early video art into cohesive artistic concepts. Noise is treated not merely as sound but as a productive friction between ideas, materials, and media, allowing technological failure, dissonance, and historical echoes to become central tools for exploring contemporary artistic meaning.

SIDE B is the continuation of the concept and casts the events in a new aesthetic of lost radio waves and a fragile documentation at the end of the known universe. It is no less immersive but offers a different, new perspective than SIDE A.

Listen here to SIDE B:

Now XENOFIELD NOTES is being retrieved from the extraterrestrial archive and released as a cassette in a strictly limited edition of 12 pieces with a Zine (including artworks and the short story).
 
The digital download comes with SIDE A + B + ZINE as PDF and is available  

> on Bandcamp as pay-what-you-want download

> or DM me via deaf.anthro@gmail.com