Who has seen the sound?
Cinema Sensate presents: A screening of Who has seen the sound? with Xiaohui Liu.
Who has seen the sound?
Friday, February 27 2026. 5:00pm – 6:00pm
Location: WCP 4.120
Within the epistemological framework of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, sound is understood not merely as the result of physical vibration, but also as a carrier of consciousness. The relationship between Tibetans and sound thus exceeds the bounds of singular auditory perception: sound is at once a sensory experience emerging from everyday multispecies interactions between Tibetans and their natural environment, and a vessel of affect and historical memory. Certain histories resist full articulation through ordinary language, yet they can be reactivated through the reverberation of particular sounds.
In this short film, we follow Bayang, a Tibetan woman environmental activist, as she seeks out and records sounds specific to the Tibetan region. These sounds transform spectral memories into a layered soundscape that, mediated through the camera as a kind of medium, resound once again across the Tibetan landscape.
This film has been selected for 2026 AAS Film Expo.
Xiaohui Liu is an independent documentary filmmaker, curator, and anthropological researcher. She is particularly interested in how sensory media—especially sound—can reconfigure ethnographic knowledge production and open alternative modes of narrating history and memory. Through experimental documentary forms, her work also explores emerging narratives and practices in multispecies research that challenge and expand disciplinary boundaries. She is currently a PhD student in Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin.
