Live stream: ortler_end_der_welt_ferner.mp3
Recording: Elemental Foley - Lia Mazzari
End of the World Glacier, Mount Ortles, Stelvio National Park, Italy
Lia Mazzari
Latitude: +46.515594557514945°
Longitude: +10.568775572073212°
Transmitting since July 2025 from the ‘End of the world’ glacier in Northern Italy’s Stelvio National Park, the solar-powered listening station sits at roughly 2,700 metres above sea level on Ortles (3,905m), within the Ortles Alps. Once measured in 1867 at 2,417 metres long and 377 metres wide, the glacier has since receded dramatically, and its surface is strewn with moraines and tumbling debris.
The live stream is a living archive of the glacier’s and mountain’s sonic and material life, from meltwater rhythms to torrential sediment flows carving the ice, and the impacts of wind and weather stroking the microphones. Due to the harsh weather conditions and extremely pronounced winter and summer seasons, the stream can go silent, very noisy or disappear entirely because of signal or technological failures.
The long-form audio broadcast ask us:
What new knowledges emerge when we listen to the glacier in real time?
How does it feel to become ecological witnesses to our rapidly shifting glacial landscapes?
What does it mean to listen with ice and water from a distance?
How does the act of melting invite us to think of these shifting states and vanishing landscapes?
What does it mean to be a part of this transitional moment from afar?
This live transmission creates an continuously evolving portal between ‘here’ and ‘there’, connecting us, as listeners, to more-than-human environments as they change, and attuning us to the accelerating transformations of our planet through sound, technology and listening.
I invite you to listen, to share your observations and interpretations, and to reflect on what you hear, how you listen, how it makes you feel to listen with a remote environment and to be part of this listening community.
If you want to get in touch or use this stream in your science, educational or art projects, please contact me via lia.mazzari.2023@live.rhul.ac.uk
Project website: https://teleconnections.xyz/
The listening station is part of my practice-based PhD research project at the Centre for GeoHumanities, Department of Geography, at Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL) undertaken by Lia Mazzari and funded by the Techne AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership (until 2027).