Ecologies of Listening
Imaginary Institute — 9–11 April, CLEA House, Brussels
Listening.
Listening is relationship.
To listen is to be in relation.
To be in relation is to listen.
( silence here. the text listens. )
Making sound is relationship too.
Without making sound you don't have anything to listen to.
Well, you have the environment.
You always have the environment.
But when we make sound together, when we listen together,
we are making a relationship.
We are making an ecology.
Listening is relationship.
And between listening and sounding there is a coordination —
a skill —
a collective skill:
learning to propose and listen at the same time.
Learning when to sound and when to be still.
Learning when to copy.
When to diverge.
When to go off on your own
and come back with something new.
These are simple things. Simple tricks.
But from simple tricks,
complex worlds.
( listen. )
So we have protocols for listening.
Still listening.
Guided listening.
Closed-eyes listening.
Discussing with closed eyes.
Listening to the dynamics between us.
Recalling our experiences of listening.
Maybe our first experiences of listening.
Listening to relations.
Listening to relations as we move through space together.
Blindfolded.
One person blindfolded.
Or one person not blindfolded
and everybody else blindfolded.
Listening is relationship.
Relationship is listening.
And we have protocols for making sound.
Singing.
Layering.
Feet stomping,
stamping.
Stomping feet, each in their own tempo.
The voices of nature and the sounds of animals.
Voices finding each other,
or not finding each other,
or finding each other later.
( a rest. something decomposes here. )
What did we hear?
What did we hear before that?
What have we already forgotten?
What is composting, beneath?
What sound returns to soil?
…
Listening.
And we have protocols for recording.
Field recording.
Composing a soundtrack in relationship to
a pre-existing sonic environment of your choosing.
And then something very generative happens —
once you start layering sounds
and finding contexts to layer sounds,
scores to layer sounds with existing sounds,
introducing new sounds,
repeating sounds —
there is an evolving practice.
You take a recording somewhere else.
You re-record it in another context.
You add a song.
You re-listen.
You re-compose
in terms of each other's recordings,
each other's compositions,
each other's recordings of their own listenings
and their own engagements with sonic environments.
And each recording becomes its own imaginary.
Its own sonic imaginary.
Its own imaginary ecosystem.
Which has the power to inspire
further
imaginary
ecologies.
Listening is relationship.
Recording is re-listening.
Re-listening is new relationship.
( the text breathes. something goes dormant. )
And we have protocols for repeating.
Looping.
Iteration.
Phrases that repeat.
Phrases that repeat.
Ways of noticing change.
Ways of understanding change.
Ways of creating rules based on changes —
and then changes based on those rules,
and so on.
Looping,
repeating,
iterating.
Some of what we made is gone now.
Some of it was always going.
That is also the ecology.
Listening.
And we have protocols for navigating.
Graphic notations.
Interacting graphic notations.
Notations as maps.
Ways of navigating as paths —
paths of listening,
paths of interacting.
Moving through space together,
listening to relations.
And from all of this —
from listening
and sounding
and recording
and repeating
and navigating
and forgetting
and re-listening —
people self-organise.
Into similar tempos
or dissonances of tempos.
Convergences.
Divergences.
Swarm dynamics.
You have the choice to copy —
to generate positive feedback and coherence —
or the choice to diverge,
or the choice to stay in your own space.
Each of these choices shifts the collective field.
A sonic field.
A sonic ecology.
A collective imagination.
An ecology of imaginations, together.
Listening is relationship.
Agency is listening.
Listening is already intervention.
( silence. the field holds. )
This is how we gain agency in a system.
By learning these simple tricks.
Knowing when to listen.
Knowing when to attune.
Knowing when to copy.
Knowing when to layer.
Knowing when to diverge.
Knowing whether to go off on your own
and come back with something new.
Knowing when to stop.
Knowing when to let go.
Knowing when to forget.
We have space.
Space to iterate, evolve, explore, play.
Emergent complexity.
Generation of new protocols, new scores, new graphic notations.
The Imaginary Institute is about process.
The procedural, and the relational.
About learning the skills to be together.
Listening is relationship.
And we begin there.
listening
listening