The Practice of Listening in Unsettled Times
Type
Publication
Authors
Category
Keynote Address
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Publication Year
2017
URL
[ private ]
Abstract
Keynote Address at Invisible Places 2017, Sound Urbanism and Sense of Place
São Miguel Island. Azores, Portugal, April 7-9, 2017
The seemingly simple act of listening to the environment often leads to unexpected complexities of thoughts, sensations and emotions that are not quantifiable or measurable. When we listen for example on a soundwalk, we simultaneously take in the current conditions of the acoustic environment and those of our innermost sound world, our thoughts and emotions. The nature of this fluidity between our inner and outer sound worlds is both highly personal and at the same time universal. It is here where the real journey of listening starts.
Once we learn that listening in itself is a grounded and grounding place, which nevertheless is always in motion, we recognize its inspirational nature. Its inherent motion forms the real base for grappling with the deeply personal in ecology and culture, for moving beyond self-absorption and navel gazing, and finally facing, accepting and integrating the complexities of listening as a type of depth approach towards caring ecologically for the health of our soundscapes and the beings within it.
The complexities of ‘just listening’ will be traced throughout this presentation by dipping into examples of soundwalk experiences, as well as into a personal case study of sorts that I have conducted throughout much of my adult life, as a way to reach that which we share universally between us.
São Miguel Island. Azores, Portugal, April 7-9, 2017
The seemingly simple act of listening to the environment often leads to unexpected complexities of thoughts, sensations and emotions that are not quantifiable or measurable. When we listen for example on a soundwalk, we simultaneously take in the current conditions of the acoustic environment and those of our innermost sound world, our thoughts and emotions. The nature of this fluidity between our inner and outer sound worlds is both highly personal and at the same time universal. It is here where the real journey of listening starts.
Once we learn that listening in itself is a grounded and grounding place, which nevertheless is always in motion, we recognize its inspirational nature. Its inherent motion forms the real base for grappling with the deeply personal in ecology and culture, for moving beyond self-absorption and navel gazing, and finally facing, accepting and integrating the complexities of listening as a type of depth approach towards caring ecologically for the health of our soundscapes and the beings within it.
The complexities of ‘just listening’ will be traced throughout this presentation by dipping into examples of soundwalk experiences, as well as into a personal case study of sorts that I have conducted throughout much of my adult life, as a way to reach that which we share universally between us.
Description
https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/writings/writingsby/?category=Artist%20Talk
Number of Copies
1
