Listening to the Listening
Type
Publication
Authors
Category
Article
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Publication Year
1995
URL
[ private ]
Abstract
A talk presented at a panel discussion "Sounding Out Genders: Women Sound Artists/Composers Talk about Gender and Technology", International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Montreal, 1995.
Published in Start very quiet and get very loud, a publication as part of Every Sound is a small action and broke world, an exhibition by Christopher Willis, 8-11 Gallery, December. 10, 2016 - January 3, 2017.
"Much as technology can annoy and frustrate me and much as the environments in which sound studios exist tend to be unhealthy, it works better for me than composing for instruments. I use technology in my work because it is the best tool for me to express what I want to say through composition. As well, the sound studio allows for immediate interaction with sound, an intimacy, a conversation, like a slow motion improv. In a sound studio one can be a musician and composer at the same time.
But I also perceive sound technology as a dangerous tool for composition: it can distract endlessly from the content of what we want to say; it can demand an inordinate amount of attention to technical detail and it can also distract our audiences from really hearing our work. But no matter how much technology we put between our composing selves and our final composition, between ourselves and our audiences, it is still ears and bodies and psyches that perceive our pieces.
That is all I have to say about technology today.
I will probably say more about gender.
Most likely my way of speaking and your ways of listening to me will reveal more than my actual words about my inner stance towards technology and gender. So, perhaps one could say that the listening that occurs in this room today creates the real meanings. The quality of our listening can change the quality of a speaker's or a musician's presentation, the quality of a musical composition and yes, even the quality of the soundscape itself.
There is a complex and mysterious place between a sound and the listener's experience of it. A sound occurs. And is heard. But by which person? From which culture? In what mental state? What physical state? What psychic space? With what intellectual knowledge? Which past experiences? What age? From which gender? And so on..."
Published in Start very quiet and get very loud, a publication as part of Every Sound is a small action and broke world, an exhibition by Christopher Willis, 8-11 Gallery, December. 10, 2016 - January 3, 2017.
"Much as technology can annoy and frustrate me and much as the environments in which sound studios exist tend to be unhealthy, it works better for me than composing for instruments. I use technology in my work because it is the best tool for me to express what I want to say through composition. As well, the sound studio allows for immediate interaction with sound, an intimacy, a conversation, like a slow motion improv. In a sound studio one can be a musician and composer at the same time.
But I also perceive sound technology as a dangerous tool for composition: it can distract endlessly from the content of what we want to say; it can demand an inordinate amount of attention to technical detail and it can also distract our audiences from really hearing our work. But no matter how much technology we put between our composing selves and our final composition, between ourselves and our audiences, it is still ears and bodies and psyches that perceive our pieces.
That is all I have to say about technology today.
I will probably say more about gender.
Most likely my way of speaking and your ways of listening to me will reveal more than my actual words about my inner stance towards technology and gender. So, perhaps one could say that the listening that occurs in this room today creates the real meanings. The quality of our listening can change the quality of a speaker's or a musician's presentation, the quality of a musical composition and yes, even the quality of the soundscape itself.
There is a complex and mysterious place between a sound and the listener's experience of it. A sound occurs. And is heard. But by which person? From which culture? In what mental state? What physical state? What psychic space? With what intellectual knowledge? Which past experiences? What age? From which gender? And so on..."
Description
https://www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca/writings/writingsby/?post_id=21&title=listening-to-the-listening
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