Sonic Sunset — Climate Week NYC through 63 Channels of Sound

Location: Museum of the Moving Image, NYC

Date: Sept 27, 3 PM (Climate Week NYC)

Project: Sonic Sunset — immersive 63-channel sound journey through endangered ecosystems

Why it Matters: Shows how technology + art can turn climate urgency into visceral experience

On Saturday, the Museum of the Moving Image turns into a resonant chamber for the planet. Sonic Sunset, presented by Media Art Xploration (MAX), offers a one-night preview of an ambitious sound installation designed to make visitors feel what is at risk of vanishing. The work employs a 63-channel spatialized sound system — one of the most advanced in existence — to create the sensation of standing inside disappearing ecosystems, surrounded by the calls, pulses, and textures of their inhabitants.

Developed during Climate Week NYC, the project is the result of close collaboration between scientists, bio-acousticians, and artists. Director Kay Matschullat, Emmy and BAFTA-winning sound designer Nick Ryan, and projection designer David Bengali translate raw field recordings into a layered, sensory environment. Their approach resists the conventional modes of climate communication. Rather than charts, statistics, or explanatory text, Sonic Sunset delivers an encounter — a full-bodied immersion in places we may never travel to, or that may not survive the coming decades.

This focus on sound is crucial. Audio is visceral, immediate, and often bypasses rational distance. The cries of whales or the rustle of endangered forests are not arguments but experiences, carrying their own urgency. MAX has long framed its mission as incubating art that draws from science and technology to engage contemporary audiences. Here, that mission becomes unusually sharp: the exhibition transforms the abstract idea of “climate change” into an embodied presence, amplifying the stakes in real time.

Though Saturday’s showing is only a preview, the project’s trajectory is already mapped: Sonic Sunset will premiere officially in 2026 as the inaugural exhibition at Public Science Common, the new extension of the Boston Museum of Science. If this preview is any indication, the full version will not simply document loss but allow us to hear — and feel — what’s at risk before it disappears.