Subterranean Reverberations and the Horror of the Chemical Sublime
Abstract
This article examines how the faint, persistent hum of groundwater pumps exposes the limits of industrial clean-up. Focused on efforts to manage groundwater contaminated by a century of coal-based chemical industrialization in Bitterfeld-Wolfen, it draws on sonic methods and the concept of transmediation to explore how sound and water unsettle the illusion of containment. Attuning to these peripheral vibrations offers a way of sensing pollution as ongoing, relational, and irreducible – within what the paper frames as a toxic common.
Presentato: 22 Marzo 2025 | Accettato: 26 Maggio 2025 | Pubblicato 21 Luglio 2025 | Lingua: en
Keywords Toxic commons • Slow violence • Transmediation • Sonic epistemologies • Legacy pollution • Remediation • Toxicity
Copyright © 2025 Caroline Ektander. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/LGSP/2785-2709/2025/01/005