Sounding Bodies: Resonance in and Between Bodies (2018 – 2020) was a research initiative funded by the Danish Ministry of Culture that explored resonance in and between human and non-human bodies. The first phase (2018 – 2019) involved the creation of a 20-person research group from disciplines ranging from sound, dance, healing and anthropology who partook in research about how the entire body acts a sonic apparatus. Research took place through workshops, visits by sound artists and scholars, and through a 3-day symposium and performances with international sound and senses researchers such as Hidegard Vesterkamp, Juhanni Pallasmaa, Holger Schulze, Linda Ruth Salter, Garth Payne and others. More on the Sounding Bodies Research project can be found here.

The second phase of the project (2019-2020) deals with exposing the physical, electro-magnetic and sonic aspects of audio speakers to create various tactile sculptural instruments. For this, Sheppard worked in collaboration with instrument-makers Karl Ekdahl/Knas, Victoria Shen and Valdemar Kristensen/Ekkoflok, who each added particular expertise to the experimenting phase of the project. Planar speakers made from different materials the experiments consisted of exploring flat speakers and their potential for kinetic movement, resonance capacities, integrating electronic “bendable” circuits into the planar speaker, and creating work flows. For a glimpse of some of the experiments, see the video archive of tests here.