be patient if stream is unable to load - sometimes the station runs out of signal which normally passes within 5-10 min.  


A live audio transmission from 

End der Welt Ferner
Vedretta Fine del Mondo
End of the World Glacier

The glacier live audio stream is a  long-form audio broadcast, transmitting since July 2025 from the ‘End of the world’ glacier in Northern Italy’s Stelvio National Park. The listening station sits at roughly 2,600 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 debris.

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?

This live transmission creates an continously 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.
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 dissapear entirely due to signal or technological failures.
To some this glacier broadcast may sound dramatic, or even dystopian, and for others it will become a refuge and listening space to feel connected to our environments. This listening experiment is just one among many live microphones tuned to a place and time. Ultimately, the stream’s significance lies not only in bearing witness to environmental transformation, but in how it enables a communal practice of listening: a kind of radio commons that resists the commodification of environmental sound and values instead the glitchy, ephemeral, and fragile forms of collective learning and listening it makes possible.

I invite you to listen, to share your observations and interpretations on the glacier logbook ( or send them to endderweltferner@gmail.com ), 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.

Please get in touch if you would like to organise a listening event or want to mause the glacier stream in any shape or format.


Hosting and tech

The  live audio stream is hosted via the "Locustream Soundmap" server, a project designed by Locus Sonus research group, hosted by the Aix en Provence School of Art (l'École supérieure d'art d'Aix en Provence Félix Ciccolini).
I was introduced to these audio transmission technologies during the global lockdown in 2020 via the london-based arts collective Soundcamp . They taught me how to build a live audio streamer box. As an arts collective they work on transmission ecologies from DIY broadcasting devices to public sound and radio projects and have been a strong suporter and collaborator in various creative projects and situations since then.


Ortles Alps Geography


The Ortler Alps rise in the heart of South Tyrol, stretching across the borders of Italy’s Trentino and Lombardy regions. At their centre stands Ortler (3,905 m), the highest mountain in South Tyrol and the crown of the range. Alongside it rise other striking peaks such as Königspitze/Gran Zebrù (3,851 m) and Monte Cevedale (3,769 m).

The range is still home to some of the largest glaciers in the Italian Alps — among them the Ortlerferner, the Suldenferner, and the vast Forni Glacier. These ice masses feed the headwaters of the Adige (Etsch) and Adda rivers, linking the high alpine environment with the plains of northern Italy.

Ortles Alps Geology


The Ortler Alps are primarily composed of metamorphic and crystalline rocks, including gneiss, schist, amphibolite, and granite, forming a rugged and massive landscape that contrasts with the lighter limestone of the nearby Dolomites. These rocks were deeply buried and transformed under heat and pressure during the Alpine orogeny, the mountain-building event that shaped the Alps over the last 40–50 million years.
The Ortler Massif itself is part of a larger structure known as the Ortler Nappe, a tectonic block that was thrust northwards and uplifted as the African and Eurasian plates collided. The range also lies along the Periadriatic Fault Zone, a major geological boundary separating the Southern Alps from the Central Alps, which has shaped the region’s complex structure of folds, thrusts, and faults.
Glacial activity has further sculpted the landscape over tens of thousands of years. Cirques, sharp ridges, and U-shaped valleys are all remnants of repeated glacial advances and retreats since the Last Glacial Maximum around 20,000 years ago. Moraines, lateral ridges of rock and sediment left by melting glaciers, are visible throughout the valleys, recording the movement of ice across the mountains.
Beneath the ice, the Ortler glaciers slowly carve the bedrock, shaping deep crevasses and icefalls. As the climate warms and glaciers retreat, these hidden geological processes become more visible, revealing both the ancient rocks of the Alps and the recent traces of glacial erosion, creating a landscape that is constantly evolving.

Ortles Alps History

The Ortler Alps have long shaped human life in this corner of the Alps, where people have lived in high valleys and alpine pastures for centuries. The region’s valleys, including Vinschgau (Val Venosta), Val Martello, and Val di Solda, were shaped by seasonal transhumance, alpine dairying, and trade routes linking Tyrol with Lombardy. These traditions have left a lasting mark on the cultural landscape, from terraced fields to mountain huts and pastoral paths.
In 1804, Josef Pichler made the first ascent of Ortler under orders of Archduke Johann of Austria, marking it as one of the earliest great conquests in alpinism in the Eastern Alps.

A century later, the mountains became the setting for the “White War” of World War I. Soldiers of Austria-Hungary and Italy fought at over 3,000 metres, building tunnels and shelters and supply routes in the ice, enduring extreme cold and perilous conditions. As glaciers retreat today, objects, structures, and sometimes human remains continue to re-emerge from the ice, silent witnesses to that history.
Today, the Ortler Alps remain a living landscape of transition: from ancient glaciers to rapidly changing climates, from cultural traditions to contemporary mountaineering and ski tourism; this landscape remains a living archive where ice, rock and human intersect.