Deep Listening

This Bachelor Thesis in composition explores an alternative compositional process for creating
improvised music through the approach of sound design.

The questions addressed in the thesis are
concerned with how the soundscape can be controlled by the composer while still maintaining the
expressivity of an improvised performance. Thus, the composer’s role as both sound designer,
producer and performer is investigated using live electronics and score design.

The theoretical framework for the thesis is to be found in the intersection between Anglo-American
experimental music, electronic music, sound design and electroacoustic improvisation. Key influences
include indeterminacy as expressed in the music of John Cage, Deep Listening practices pioneered by
Pauline Oliveros as well as the aesthetical paradigms of electronic and electroacoustic music.

The artistic methods revolved around the following steps: studio workshops with musicians (Fredrik
Ekenvi and José Louis Relova Gallego) exploring timbres, playing techniques and music technology in
real-time followed by associative discussions about the soundscapes created; composing audio and
graphical drafts influenced by the workshops; designing diagrams for the electronics and compiling
these to a design document; workshopping and performing the final piece (Towards the Event
Horizon).
Towards the Event Horizon (for bass clarinet, electric guitar and live electronics) is the final result of
the work, comprising a score with accompanying design document as well as a recording of the original
performance at Studio Acusticum in Piteå 20th of March 2021. The artefacts and associated
documentation are presented in their entirety on the dedicated Research Catalogue exposition.

Conclusions include how composition and sound design are tied together and cannot be considered as
isolated processes, especially in the context of live electronics; the interrelationship between the
improviser, the acoustic soundscape and the artistic associations that inform the improvisation; the
importance of form as the defining element of a composition and lastly; how a score for improvised
music can be devised in the shape of a blueprint of form and texture, setting certain technical, sonic
and gestural conditions while leaving the performer to play freely within this frame.

Our culture has learned its lessons only too well. We listen to the voice of authority—be that authority a medical or legal practitioner, a manager, an officer of the law, or a religious leader. Listening has, consequently, come to be associated with passivity, often times with weakness. As a result of this attitude which trivializes listening, listening training has been largely ignored in the classroom, as well as in business and industry.

It had nothing to do with trying to find new sounds...

Concerned with the control of “musical time,” and the realization that we could hear so much more. A sentiment that would culminate serial composer, Milton Babbitt influenced a variety of other Experimental Music Composers and premier electronic music genres. He dreamt of an era where we could differentiate so much more and discriminate exponentially more than we could expect performers or ensemble to accommodate. “The hand is seldom faster than the ear.” –  Milton Babbitt, April 2000

身体変容技法研究会での研究報告内容にもとづく。上智大学グリーフケア研究所では、米国の臨床牧会教育(Clinical Pastoral Education)に基づきながらも、日本の事情に合わせた傾聴者のトレーニングを2009年から大阪で行ってきた。著者は2014年の東京での開講に併せて教員としてプログラムに関わった。このプログラムは大阪での鉄道大事故の遺族を支援するためにはじめられたが、現在では、病院、在宅医療、福祉、心理などの各種ヒューマンケア専門家の現場を始めとして、社会一般において広く活用されるべく訓練を重ねている。その訓練プログラムの内容・詳細と、目的とするところを、訓練当事者として記した。

Pauline Oliveros no necesita presentación. Es sin duda una de las figuras más importantes que dio la música en la segunda parte del siglo XX y en la primera del XXI. Una compositora con mayúsculas, que impuso su obra con todo lo que significaba ser mujer en un contexto dominado casi exclusivamente por hombres. Ante tanto machismo imperante, la contracara fue nada menos que John Cage, cuando manifestó que a través de la obra de Pauline-y habiendo dejado atrás sus diferencias con Schönberg-finalmente pudo comprender lo que era la armonía (1). Pauline fue una artista que desafió las categorías y los prejuicios sociales para desarrollar una trayectoria única. Desde su paso pionero por el San Francisco Tape Music Center hasta el desarrollo del concepto de Deep Listening. Desde la elección de un instrumento tan poco utilizado en la música contemporánea como el acordeón hasta la expansión que hizo de él con medios electrónicos. Desde sus Sonic Meditations hasta sus experimentos virtuales en internet con la Avatar Orchestra Metaverse. Desde el desarrollo de composiciones de texto hasta la exploración del potencial de la improvisación. Desde su activa crítica feminista hasta su trabajo como investigadora, docente y activista social. De ahí que resulte difícil catalogar su obra; esta se resiste a ser encasillada en cualquiera de los compartimientos estancos que la crítica musical convencional propone, precisamente porque trasciende las etiquetas con una fuerza y libertad que no sabe de limitaciones. Por eso, todas estas categorías toman una dimensión diferente. Para poner un ejemplo: su acercamiento a la espiritualidad hay que pensarlo en el contexto de una sociedad tan materialista como la norteamericana y, en ese sentido, tal vez resulte un gesto más cercano a la crítica ácida de la contracultura que a la mera complacencia del New Age. A la distancia, resulta claro que su obra es orgánica, fluida y consistente, y que tiene una vitalidad que resiste el paso del tiempo.

Esta investigación consistió en programar una serie de herramientas computacionales capaces de generar modelos descriptivos que dan cuenta de las formas arquetípicas en que algunos improvisadores libres nos acercamos a dicha práctica. Esto sucede a través de una aproximación basada en la escucha y el aprendizaje automático, y que devino en resultados analíticos dirigidos hacia la densidad, la tímbrica y la amplitud sonora. Cabe señalar, que la metodología planteada presenta un fuerte carácter heurístico, basado en la comprobación de las clasificaciones de materiales que hacen los modelos de aprendizaje automático a partir de mi escucha atenta. Además, se aborda de manera técnica el funcionamiento de algunas aproximaciones de la la escucha de máquina y el aprendizaje supervisado y sin supervisión que hicieron posible la clasificación espectromorfológica de improvisaciones libres. Paralelamente se hizo una revisión de proyectos que parten del paradigma del aprendizaje de máquina aplicado a la creación musical destacando las aproximaciones metodológicas que fueron útiles para conocer el estado del arte en términos de la experimentación creativa dentro de sistemas interactivos aplicados a la improvisación. Asimismo, se propuso pensar a estas máquinas como instrumentos erráticos y limitados, capaces de producir en los ámbitos estéticos desviaciones que evoquen experiencias ligadas a la cultura del glitch en contraposición de la idea prometéica del progreso que acompaña la eficiencia tecno-científica. Esta aproximación para generar modelos descriptivos de improvisaciones libres, además de las discusiones y menciones sobre proyectos similares, dio cuenta de cómo las herramientas del aprendizaje y la escucha de máquinas, más allá de sus fines y aplicaciones originarias, pueden ser encaminadas hacia la generación de proyectos artísticos capaces de fomentar el surgimiento de otros imaginarios posibles. Se aborda la idea de que la tecnología no necesariamente debe tener un funcionamiento óptimo/validado para producir resultados estéticos, sino que es posible emplear estas precariedades, errores u omisiones para intentar transformar la misma práctica artística así como las utilidades finales de estas herramientas, y, de este modo, ampliar el panorama de acción entre el cruce del arte, ciencia y tecnología.

This paper focuses on the pieces that are gathered together under the name of Sonic Meditations, published in 1971. My work begins with a short biography about Oliveros, then I present the social and historical context in which the Sonic Meditations were created, before providing a brief explanation about the theory of Oliveros’s oeuvre. This is followed by a possible way of cataloguing and analysing the Sonic Meditations and, finally, I share my personal ideas as a mediator about the potential practical applications of these compositions nowadays.

This thesis examines the performance of people–place relationships on the Lurujarri Dreaming Trail, an ancestral dreaming track in north-western Western Australia. Storytelling and ethnographic practices are employed to explore the agency of stories in making visible and holding together people–place relationships, and for their potential to invoke ways of being that involve both people and place as ‘country’ in an Indigenous sense. A broader realisation of ‘country’ on the Trail, by more than just Indigenous peoples, shows that a relational ontology of being with country is also being performed by non-Indigenous people. This thesis shows how relationships between non-Indigenous people and the land, and Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples are being transformed, and how these relationships offer pathways towards reconciliation.

The essence and inspiration of Music for Brainwaves came from Alvin Lucier’s iconic piece Music for Solo Performer. Neurofeedback and physiological data (EEG) are explored as components in the relationship among sound, space, and the body of the performer. Although EEG registrations have been well explored for sound installations, music performances, and music cognition, relatively little is as yet known of the application of physiological data (EEG) within a system including the projection of sound into an architectural space, and the consequent embodiment, as inner experience, by a performer.

In the context of corporate research, questions of foresight and oversight are always present.  But there are different ways to address them.  From a theoretical point of view, many of the issues are clear.  From a practical point of view, however, attempts to discern unfolding technological and social trajectories are always clouded by what I call "the fog of reality."  What I'd like to do in this paper is take the practical rather than theoretical road and address the topic of foresight and oversight from my practical experience of life in the fog.

Dissociative experiences involving music have received little research attention outside the field of ethnomusicology. This paper examines the psychological characteristics of normative dissociation (detachment) across musical and non-musical experiences in ‘real world’, everyday settings. It draws upon a subset of data arising from an empirical project designed to compare transformative shifts of consciousness, with and without music in daily life, and the ways in which use of music may facilitate the processes of dissociation and absorption. Twenty participants kept unstructured diaries for two weeks, recording free descriptions of involving experiences of any kind as soon as possible after their occurrence. All descriptions were subsequently subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).

Results suggest that dissociative experiences are a familiar occurrence in everyday life. Diary entries highlight an established practice of actively sought detachment from self, surroundings or activity, suggesting that, together with absorption, the processes of derealization (altered perception of surroundings) and depersonalization (detachment from self) constitute common means of self-regulation in daily life. Music emerges as a particularly versatile facilitator of dissociative experience because of its semantic ambiguity, portability, and the variety of ways in which it may mediate perception, so facilitating an altered relationship to self and environment.

Can there be a border that divides sound? What is the significance of the soundscape of the Tijuana-San Diego border? Which sound is the voice of this society? In this study, our aim is to analyze how sound defines society in a place where, in spite of sharing the same space, we listen to both parts as they imitate each other, join each other, but mostly reject each other. This soundscape emerges and creates a sociocultural barrier where each part defines its position before the other. Thus the intention of this chapter is to demonstrate how the identity of each community in this strip of border can be identified, and recognized as unique through the study of the soundscape and the particular sound of each locality. In this study of the border sonorities, we can find diverse sound dimensions where the sonorities emerge from the characteristics of its people and environment.

This paper articulates the design for the first stage of INTIMAL: a physical/virtual embodied interactive system for relational listening in the context of human migration, set within the artistic practice of improvisatory telematic sonic performance. Informed by the Deep Listening experiences of nine Colombian migrant women in Europe and integrating Embodied Music Cognition Methods, INTIMAL draws upon sensorial experience in dreams, virtual spaces, and physical spaces to develop a holistic understanding of the body as an interface that keeps one's memory of place. Technologies are intended to be used as mediations aiding the co-relations in listening for the sensing, processing and retrieval of an oral archive of other women's testimonies from the Colombian civil war, while improvisers' body movements, voices, and spoken words resonate with these voices. The author suggests how INTIMAL system could act as catalyst for creating new layers in the reconstruction and transformation of embodied memory, opening paths for individual and collective healing of feelings associated to the migratory experience and the armed conflict.

The following thesis paper accompanies the body of artwork that I have been creating throughout the past two years of the Master of Visual Studies program (2012-14). To a large extent, the form and content of this paper are derived directly from the ideas and processes of my artistic work. For this reason, this thesis is written in an aphoristic format that consists of various textual meditations that can be read in any order, with each fragment touching upon key recurring themes of my artwork and working process. The goal of this thesis paper is to propose terrains of thought, reflections and questions that are meant to be considered in dialogue with the exhibited work.
The exhibited body of artwork, appearing in a variety of mediums, is comprised of several overlapping narratives that unfold as a series of artistic revelations in dialogue with a fragmented, poetic manuscript of my late grandfather. Since he passed away when I was nearly fourteen years old, I have been left with a strong sense of loss. His manuscript and diverse artistic work, although insignificant to me at that time, has become increasingly important to me. By telling a story and re-imagining its narratives, I interpret in and through this personal archive. The current body of artwork tries to recreate the possibility of a shared biography through artistic dialogue.

http://idogovrin.net/index.php/fields/vaalbara/

Interview with Pauline Oliveros at the Deep-Listening Retreat in the Alps at Murren, Switzerland July 4 - 11, 1999 (German short version, English version on demand: lutz@felbick.de)

Pauline speaks about the word harmony she uses and John Cage uses, humor, improvisation, philosophy of time, MUSAK...

Excerpt:

"Grounded.
Cross-legged, in dust.
We sit amongst murga. They fringe our camp, sheltering us from the south-easterly winds that blow across this country during Barrgana time.
Returning to the same buru each year.
Ground re-visited, fires re-lit.
Ashes mounding up.
Remnant coals glowing once more under fires that dot the dry, sandy creek bed."

This study examines an untested research assumption that a key component of supportive communication is active listening. Participants (N = 383) viewed a five-minute conversation featuring a person who disclosed an emotionally upsetting event to a confederate who provided emotional support that varied in verbal person centeredness (VPC) and nonverbal immediacy (NVI). Participants then evaluated the extent to which the support provider was an active listener. Results showed that helpers who used higher levels of both VPC and NVI were rated as better listeners than those who used less person-centered and immediate support, although effect sizes were small. Results were also dependent on the operationalization of active listening.

'The ocean is a sensorium: it records the transformations of the earth in its complex dynamics, and it inscribes back into the forms of life its own cycles… 'John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog                                                    Can you imagine the sound of the resonant frequency of the earth? One fundamental tone, radiant with spectra of harmonics that rival the dance of magma in the volcanic eruption at Fagradalsfjal on the Reykjanes peninsula, Iceland 2021.

INTIMAL is an interactive system for relational listening, which integrates physical-virtual interfaces for people to sonically improvise between distant locations. The aim is to embrace two key aspects in the context of human migration: the sense of place and the sense of presence. This paper reflects on the use of INTIMAL in a long-distance improvisation between the cities of Oslo, Barcelona and London in May 2019. This improvisation was performed by nine Colombian migrant women, who had been involved in a research process using the Deep Listening® practice developed by Pauline Oliveros. Here we describe the performance setting and the implementation of the first two interfaces of the system: MEMENTO, an “embodied” navigator of an oral archive of Colombian women’s testimonies of conflict and migration; and RESPIRO, a sonification system that transmits and sonifies live, breathing signals between distant locations. We reflect on how the two interfaces facilitated and challenged the improvisers’ listening experiences and connections.

The construct of absorption (effortless engagement) has been the subject of a small number of discipline-specific studies of involvement, including music. This paper reports the results of an empirical project that compared psychological qualities of absorption in everyday music listening scenarios with characteristics of non-music-related involvement. Absorption was located in “real-world” settings, and experiences across different activities in a variety of contexts were tapped as soon as possible after they occurred. The inquiry was designed to test two assumptions that have underpinned previous absorption research: first, that certain activities are inherently particularly absorbing; second, that absorption is best conceptualized primarily as a trait as opposed to a state. Twenty participants kept diaries for two weeks, recording descriptions of involving experiences of any kind. Eight weeks after submitting descriptive reports they completed the Modified Tellegen Absorption Scale (Jamieson, 2005). Diaries indicated that different activities shared a subset of involving features, and confirmed the importance of multi-sensory perception and the imaginative faculty to absorbed experiences. Music may be a particularly effective agent in the facilitation of absorption because it affords multiple potential entry points to involvement (acoustic attributes, source specification, entrainment, emotion, fusion of modalities) and because its semantic malleability makes it adaptable to a variety of circumstances. The MODTAS provided insufficient evidence for establishing correlations between state and trait absorption. It is argued that state and trait divisions are constructs that are inherently problematic.

This paper articulates the design for the first stage of INTIMAL: a physical/virtual embodied interactive system for relational listening in the context of human migration, set within the artistic practice of improvisatory telematic sonic performance. Informed by the Deep Listening experiences of nine Colombian migrant women in Europe and integrating Embodied Music Cognition Methods, INTIMAL draws upon sensorial experience in dreams, virtual spaces, and physical spaces to develop a holistic understanding of the body as an interface that keeps one's memory of place. Technologies are intended to be used as mediations aiding the co-relations in listening for the sensing, processing and retrieval of an oral archive of other women's testimonies from the Colombian civil war, while improvisers' body movements, voices, and spoken words resonate with these voices. The author suggests how INTIMAL system could act as catalyst for creating new layers in the reconstruction and transf...

Can KAZAZ " Akşamleyin, ormanın ötesinden gelen bir inek böğürtüsü çok melodik ve tatlı geldi kulağıma. Önce tepe ve vadilerde dolanan ozanlardan birinin zaman zaman duyduğum serenatlarından biri sandım ama ses uzayarak ineğin doğal ve adi sesi şeklinde ayırt edilince, keyifli bir hayal kırıklığı yaşadım. O gençleri eleştirmek için değil, aksine şarkı söylemelerini takdir ettiğimi ifade etmek için söylüyorum. Şarkıları inek sesine benziyor, ikisi de doğanın dile getirilmesi. " diyor Thoreau, Walden kitabının sıklıkla romantikleşen " Sesler " kısmında. Doğal yaşam ya da kimisi için doğaya uyumlu yaşam, doğaya bakışın derinleşmesini gerektirir. Ortak kanı o ki, doğa karmaşık örüntülerden oluşuyor ve neyin, nasıl, neden ve ne zaman olabileceğini algılayabilmenin yolu da bu örüntüleri okuyabilmekten geçiyor. Bu beceriye ister yeni-köylü olun, ister bir elinde baltayla odun yarıp diğer eliyle kılıç bileyen badass çiftçi olun, bir şeyler yapmak istiyorsanız ihtiyacınız var. Kendim de dahil doğaya mümkün olduğunca uyumlu yaşama çabasında olan insanların, sesle ve müzikle farkında veya olmadan kurduğu ciddi bir ilişki gözlemliyorum. Bu ilişkiyi " yahu müzik işte, aç ordan bir şey dinleyelim " gibi yüzeysel bırakan da, dinleme pratiklerini irdeleyerek daha derin bir noktaya götüren de vardır muhakkak. Şahit olduğum kadarıyla bu iki ucun arası da var. Doğaya uyumlu yaşayanların bu beceriyi geliştirmesi gerekir. Çünkü örüntü okuma dediğimiz becerinin çok önemli bir parçasını kulaklarımızdan dalgalar halinde girip beynimizde elektrik sinyalleri oluşturan şeyler; yani sesler oluşturuyor. Kulağımıza; havada, suyun içinde ya da katı bir cisme kulağımızı dayadığımızda titreşen moleküller çok karmaşık bir halde ama belli bir örüntüye sahip olarak giriş yapıyorlar. Bedenimizin süper kabiliyetli filtreleri sayesinde, o sesi tanımlayabiliyoruz. Filtre dediğim şey işte kulak mesela. Laf kalabalıksız bir özetle; kaynağından ayrılan ses dalgaları, hava gibi bir iletici bir ortamdan kulağa girer ve beyinde elektriksel sinyal halinde algılanır. Tabii tüm bu geçişler arasında bir çok mekanik ve biyolojik aktarım oluyor ki bu aktarımların detayları yazımın konusu değil ama devamı için bu temel bilgi önemli. Kulak, günümüzde bir diğer filtremizin önem sırasına göre arkasında kalıyor. O filtre de gözlerimiz. O kadar çok gördüğümüz şeylere dayalı hareket ediyor ve iletişim kuruyoruz ki sesleri tanımlamak, algılamak ve hatta duymak konusunda doğuştan gelen becerilerimizi kaybediyoruz. Bir nevi sağırlaşıyoruz. Bu durum tıpkı çok gürültülü ortamların, ses çıkaran makinelerin, yakında bir yerde uçan bir kuşun kanat sesini duyamamamıza yol açması gibi. Gürültü eşiğimiz çok yüksek ve bu gürültü, sadece fiziksel değil aynı zamanda iç sesimizin gürültüsünün yol açtığı algısal bir bariyer de olabiliyor. Bunun gibi sebeplerden ötürü detayları duymak ve tarif etmek konusunda vasatız. Tanımlayıp aktaracak ortak bir dile sahip değiliz. Tam da bu yüzden Thoreau'nun bu alıntısıyla yazıya başlamayı uygun gördüm. Kitabın aynı bölümünde sesleri ifade ederken geliştirdiği dil, içinde bulunduğu ses manzarasını bize oldukça başarılı bir şekilde aktarmasını sağlıyor. Ses manzarası demişken aslında İngilizcesi soundscape olan kavramı kastediyorum. Ses manzaralarına yalnızca kayıt cihazlarıyla erişmek durumunda değiliz, her zaman o lükse de sahip olamayabiliriz. Bu dili geliştirmek için sesle olan ilişkimizi geliştirmeliyiz. Bunun yolu kulağa kolay gelecek ama; dinlemek. Akustik Ekoloji topluluğu Sonospheria'nın Adalar kayıt çalışmalarından sağanak yağmurlu bir fotoğraf. Toplum olarak dinleme eylemi konusunda çok başarısız bir haldeyiz. Bunu müzik dinlemekten, karşımızdakini dinlemeye kadar, çevreyi dinlemekten, kafamızı dinlemeye kadar genişletebilirim. İç sesini dinleyemediği için müzik açanlar, karşısındakini dinlemediği için ve dinlenmeyeceğini bildiği için bağırarak derdini anlatanlar, yanlış anlayanlar, yanlış aktaranlar, bağıranlar, yüksek sesle yürüyenler, temizlik yapanlar, günün her saati tadilat ve inşaat yapanlar, hep bağırarak nutuk atanlar, bulundukları mekanın akustik problemlerini yok sayanlar bu iddiamın ispatı gibidir. Bunun gibi örnekleri çoğaltmak mümkündür. Sesi sesle bastıran yüksek sesli topluluklar ve fertleri, derinde bir yerde ya da bariz şekilde saldırgandırlar. Fakat tüm bunların temelinde yine karşımıza ses ve onunla olan ilişkimiz çıkıyor. Onunla olan en doğrudan ilişkimizin, eylemimizin adı da; dinlemek.

Listening requires attention, engagement toward an environment, and relies on subjectivity and (self) consciousness. The paper explores mechanisms of listening in the sonic arts through an ongoing research based on art process informed by cognitive science. The project focuses in particular on the American composer Pauline Oliveros’ concept of deep listening (Oliveros 2005). She proposes an expansion to all what is humanly possible to listen to. It leads to the phenomenal world that lies inside the auditory cortex about one’s personal space perception. To engage toward an environment as a sonic architecture and as a perceived atmosphere, necessarily involves the body. Sound and space are linked to vibration, and resonating energy within the body may result in mental imagery of space. The vibrational aspect of sound through experience provides new ways for spatial perception, as well as new paths in novel philosophy of sound and auditory perception. That is, the paper investigates fields of possibility of sonic meaning and experience in mind in relation to the world. Collaboration with cognitive science includes the investigation of body perception in relation to a spatial ecology.

This study examines an untested research assumption that a key component of supportive communication is active listening. Participants (N = 383) viewed a 5-minute conversation featuring a person who disclosed an emotionally upsetting event to a confederate who provided emotional support that varied in verbal person centeredness (VPC) and nonverbal immediacy (NVI). Participants then evaluated the extent to which the support provider was an active listener. Results showed that helpers who used higher levels of both VPC and NVI were rated as better listeners than those who used less person-centered and immediate support, although effect sizes were small. Results were also dependent on the operationalization of active listening.

[English below]
Współcześnie można zauważyć rosnące zainteresowanie radiem internetowym w Polsce. Stanowi ono alternatywę dla rozgłośni publicznych i komercyjnych. Przeniesienie radia do Internetu ma również duże znaczenie dla wolności wypowiedzi i poszukiwania nowych form ekspresji. Powstałe w ostatnim okresie rozgłośnie, tworzone oddolnie i społecznie, budują nowe rozumienie radiofonii. Przedstawiona praca bada wymienione konwencje radiowe i stara się wskazać podstawowe, etyczne dążenia, jakie może wypełniać radio w XXI wieku. Ważnym aspektem staje się eksploracja koncepcji Radio Utopii, a także jej opozycji - Radia Thanatos. Praca jest również inspirowana filozofią Martina Heideggera i jego rozważaniami wokół języka. Celem przedsięwziętych refleksji jest ochrona medium przed nadużyciami władzy, propagandy, a także przed zagrożeniem cenzury.

Nowadays, internet radio is getting more popular in Poland. It is an alternative to public and commercial broadcasting. Moving radio to the Internet has also a great importance, because of the freedom of expression and the search for new ways of expression. Radio stations established recently, created indepedently and socially, provide a new understanding of radio broadcasting. The presented work examines the above-mentioned radio conventions and tries to indicate the basic, ethical aspirations that can be fulfilled by radio in the 21st century. Exploration of the concept of Radio Utopia, as well as its opposition - Radio Thanatos, it is important then. The text is also inspired by Martin Heidegger's philosophy and his reflections on language. The purpose of the considerations is to protect the medium against abuses of power, propaganda, as well as against the threat of censorship.

This chapter weaves together provocations "from artists, activists, academics, radical walkers and psychogeographers" at the Walking's New Movements conference (Hind et al 2020) with a particular research practice of ‘sign walks’.
My visual art making tunes in to the overlaps between being-in-a-body, listening and mutual space. Conversation is often an early stage of an iterative research process. I set out to both emit and receive vibrations; the work emerges through this echo-location. Behind the conversations with other members of my species lies another, more private series of dialogues with the beyond-human which crosses into the realm of ‘magical aesthetics’ (Dixon, 2015; Burrows & O’Sullivan, 2019). These conversations take place primarily through the means of ‘sign walks’, which I have been making for around 10 years now: walking out from a place of intention and request, walking in soft absorbency, alert to the polyphony of the cosmos.
Please consider buying the book from independent publisher Triarchy Press.

Read online: http://journal.sonicstudies.org/vol02/nr01/a03 or https://www.researchcatalogue.net/profile/show-exposition?exposition=261722
This essay probes the nature of listening by refusing to pin it down to a single essence. The epistemological value of metaphor is explained in terms of the cognitive metaphor and embodied mind theories of Lakoff and Johnson as well as the philosophies of Rorty and Fiumara. Then the various natures of listening are explained via seven metaphors: (1) Digestion, (2) Recording, (3) Adaptation, (4) Meditation, (5) Transport, (6) Improvisation, and (7) Computation. As a positive example, this set of metaphors promotes recognition of the inherent plurality of listening by staking out distinct facets which cannot be reduced to one another. This irreducibility is made more vivid and conceptually manageable by associating each of these facets with more concrete activities that are literally irreducible, or indeed seemingly unrelated. Moreover, some of these metaphors suggest the complementary and sometimes interdependent nature of diverse aspects of listening.

Through an analysis of the sonic performance artwork GRETA//A PLASTIC POEM (2020), this paper analyzes why and when participatory art practices can intra-sect and converge with ecologies to imagine posthuman futures and challenge pre-existing structures of thought. From an activist position that considers art and the environment as a participatory collective model, this article argues for a reappraisal of human influence in complex humannon-human interactional systems. More specifically, this text, as a component of GRETA//A PLASTIC POEM, approaches oceanic and sea pollution (notably the dumping of plastics) as a form of environmental degradation that has generated a space inhabited by varied and vibrant forms of matter. In this way, the sea and the sonic space show strikingly similar potentials. In turn, Plastic Activism, which advocates for a world free of plastic pollution and its toxic impacts, is adopted as an underlying ethos and aesthetic response, with single-use plastics being incorporated into the performance artwork itself. Relational to this enquiry is sensing how we use our bodies to explore the potential thousands of distinct material ecologies embodying a sonic performative practice, especially combining the materiality of artistic and political action in public space and focal practices. In this way, the sonic space becomes comparable to a sea of sound, where complex assemblages of matter exist and intra-act to challenge the discordant systems and dynamics in which we are currently entangled.

Through an analysis of the sonic performance artwork GRETA//A PLASTIC POEM (2020), this paper analyzes why and when participatory art practices can intra-sect and converge with ecologies to imagine posthuman futures and challenge pre-existing structures of thought. From an activist position that considers art and the environment as a participatory collective model, this article argues for a reappraisal of human influence in complex humannon-human interactional systems. More specifically, this text, as a component of GRETA//A PLASTIC POEM, approaches oceanic and sea pollution (notably the dumping of plastics) as a form of environmental degradation that has generated a space inhabited by varied and vibrant forms of matter. In this way, the sea and the sonic space show strikingly similar potentials. In turn, Plastic Activism, which advocates for a world free of plastic pollution and its toxic impacts, is adopted as an underlying ethos and aesthetic response, with single-use plastics being incorporated into the performance artwork itself. Relational to this enquiry is sensing how we use our bodies to explore the potential thousands of distinct material ecologies embodying a sonic performative practice, especially combining the materiality of artistic and political action in public space and focal practices. In this way, the sonic space becomes comparable to a sea of sound, where complex assemblages of matter exist and intra-act to challenge the discordant systems and dynamics in which we are currently entangled.

In 'PAN' 13 John Bradley responded to a rhetorical question put to him by Dinah Norman a-Marrngawi, a mentor of his in the Yanyuwa language and ways of North East Arnhem Land, which I have not been able to forget since: can her Country hear English? For a fully committed animist like myself, this gentle interrogation works away at the craw like a Zen koan: how can we live 'here' - wherever that is - as full ecological citizens, if we cannot do so in communication with the land and sea, forests and mountains and rivers? If this Country cannot hear English, it cannot receive my blessings, it can only sense my thanks mutely at best, and surely it cannot return any sort of grace when I speak my native language. My relationship with non-human kin is mute; or worse, marked by the violence, disdain and assumed mastery that comes with colonizing history.

Lessons As Art, Intro Note - Editor: a meditation on Palle Nielsen's A Model artwork and the role of pedagogy in contemporary art.
On The Breakdown Break Down - interview with Brett Bloom
taisha pagget : A Movement Of Technicolor People - Interview
Supercuts - notes on lesson planning by artist/educators  Sarah Ross, Ryan Griffis, Carol Zou, Caroline Wollard, and Jennifer Moon.
Ephemera Corner- The Center For Tactical Magic

Critical Practice Notes is a low-fi print-only newsletter, available through the US Postal Service. It lays somewhere between mail art and art writing. The letter contains unique writing, essays, interviews, and ephemera. The letter explores the nature of a critical creative practice in the era of cognitive capitalism.

¿Cuál es la música más avanzada de nuestro tiempo? ¿Qué la hace ser avanzada? ¿Es la música electrónica música avanzada per se? ¿De dónde viene esta idea? ¿Acaso de las ficciones de la historia de la música occidental, de sus obsesiones de progreso y sus decadencias? ¿Cuántas voces de fantasmas (volviendo a Didi-Huberman y Warburg), podemos escuchar en la música avanzada de hoy?, ¿cuánta persistencia espectral en su experimentalismo? ¿Cómo podemos pensar sus ideas y procesos desde esta perspectiva?