August 9, 2024 • 60 mins
Welcome Home Everybody!
In this episode, the second of two which have been created as part of HomeSounds ‘Lessons from Listening’ series, Martin talks with Ximena Alarcon, a sound artist-researcher interested in listening and sounding human sonic migrations, and experiencing the resonances left in between the borders we cross when we tune in and meet others across distant locations.
Throughout her career, Ximena has created what she calls telematic sonic improvisations and interfaces for relational listening, in order to understand migratory experience from a sensory perspective.
Our conversation explores Ximena’s work, the points of connection between this and HomeSounds, and the subtle power of listening to cross physical borders, cultural context, political circumstance and personal experience.
LINKS
Ximena Alarcon
Three Listening Rituals in Sonic Migrations
HomeSounds Show Supporters Club
In this episode, the second of two which have been created as part of HomeSounds ‘Lessons from Listening’ series, Martin talks with Ximena Alarcon, a sound artist-researcher interested in listening and sounding human sonic migrations, and experiencing the resonances left in between the borders we cross when we tune in and meet others across distant locations.
Throughout her career, Ximena has created what she calls telematic sonic improvisations and interfaces for relational listening, in order to understand migratory experience from a sensory perspective.
Our conversation explores Ximena’s work, the points of connection between this and HomeSounds, and the subtle power of listening to cross physical borders, cultural context, political circumstance and personal experience.
LINKS
Ximena Alarcon
Three Listening Rituals in Sonic Migrations
HomeSounds Show Supporters Club
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
M hm.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Mm hmmmmmmmm mm hmmm mm hmmmm. I do not have children,
(00:39):
but eleven children. Sounds a lot. Eleven children to the
one from the countryside to the city. I ask, what
is Chico Boca and Boca Chico is a fish.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Welcome home, every and welcome to the Home Sounds Show.
My name is Martin and I'm a field recordist and teacher.
I'm the creator of the Home Sounds Project and your
co host for the show along with Rob.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Hello, everybody. My name is Rob and I'm an educator
and naturalist. I work for the National Trust at Sheringham
Park in Norfolk as part of their Children and Young
People Hub. The Home Sound Show invites everyone to become
active environmental listeners.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
In this episode, the second of two which have been
created as part of Home Sounds As Lessons from Listening series,
I talk with Jimena a Lacon, a sound artist for
Searcher interested in listening and sounding human sonic migrations and
experiencing the residence is left in between the borders we
cross when we tune in and meet others across distant locations.
(01:52):
Throughout her career, Jimene has created what she calls telematic
sonic improvisations and interfaces for relational listening in order to
understand my greatory experience from a sensory perspective. Our conversation
explores him and his work, the points of connection between
this and home sounds, and the subtle power of listening
(02:13):
to cross physical border, cultural context, political circumstance, and personal experience. Yeah,
I was thinking as you were talking then, really about
again to talk about the young person's side of things,
how incredibly vulnerable they are to the influence of their
(02:41):
acoustic habitat or that you know, that the human credited sounds,
but also the wider sounds around them, and that you know,
you're talking about my great experiences and the things that
force people to be migrated, and the amount that you
have to have to process is enormous. And everyone always
(03:05):
talks about how resilient young people are, and they can
they can you know, be this, that and the other.
They can be very strong, they can overcome difficulties very easily.
That is true to a degree, but it's also not
true because these the legacies of that experience last for
a very long time. And as you're saying, you know,
you do the performance with adults, and they're stirring up
(03:25):
deep seated emotions, deep seated experiences and which they need
to process. And there is referring in your work to
sort of a healing element to what you're doing, but
it's not explicitly that And is that part of your
(03:47):
to what degree is that part of your motivation? The
kind of healing side of things?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
You know? Yeah? Yeah, I think is their their motivation
to be honest, if I if I am a polutely
honest you mean the people taking part and the people
taking part and my my inner motivation has been let's
(04:11):
say that, as an artist, I'm creating my own medicine
and when it works, I share it with so so
so yes, I mean it doesn't work all the time.
If indeed I would be a doctor, yes, so yeah,
(04:36):
because the healing is very complex and so yes, I
have mentioned a lot the word healing. It's very complex
even to mention it, depending on the context in which
you are. A healing is a word that also it
(04:59):
was controversial, always has been controversial, but since twenty twenty,
when we all found ourselves in with this kind of
world issue or threat or directly to deal with our
(05:19):
own health uncertainty. Then the healing world became more into
the realm, and then there are lots of different approaches
for healing. And then there is the healing industry and
the well being industry. So when you go into all
(05:42):
of this series of expertise, you become a bit scared
of promisingly because it's very complex. But is there so
when I talk about healing is definitely you have is
a sense of loss. So migration this connection from what
(06:08):
you knew that was giving you a sense of safety,
a sense of belonging. When that is no longer with you,
you feel a sense of loss. That happens in migration.
Now that is the world creates lots of loss. Sense
of loss. The the environmental breakdown is creating a sense
(06:33):
of loss with with with the planet. Sense of loss
also bring other other many emotions associated to this, emotions
that are really helpful to express, between sadness and anger
(06:54):
and all of these things are very human. Others that
are not that helpful, like guilt, for example, why I
didn't do what I could have done for that and
now I'm here and I'm not there, and all of
these things that happens a lot in migration. So healing
(07:16):
it could be with the fragmentation that you experienced. That's
my let's say, my artistic approach is that when you migrate,
you experience fragmentation, meaning what you knew, that street that
you knew is not longer the street that you knew,
(07:37):
So you sometimes this park, Ah, this is very similar
to the neighborhood where I was living across the ocean. Yeah,
so this is a bit add Yes, this person looks
a lot like my uncle. But yeah, but and like that.
So that's why I I went a lot into exploring
(07:59):
listening in dreams, because dreams work with all this fragmentation,
and that's very interesting. And then these ways of embracing
this with technology and these forest spheres of migratory memory.
I offered to them and I said, let's have a
(08:19):
migratory journey, which is an embodied metaphor, and let's improvise
with that. What I notice is that when you do that,
you try to join the dots. So you try to
join the dots within the fragmentation. Because eventually a process
of healing these issues of fragmentation with different levels of
(08:42):
trauma is you need to find a way to understand it,
to join the dots. You cannot understand fully the full thing,
but you can understand one part and your location within that,
your position within that situation. So that's my my approach
(09:06):
to healing within artists about opening spaces so we can
make connections, we can make connections. There are other approaches
which are also for example, Pauline Olivero's talk about healing,
when you when when you are heard by others and
(09:31):
you are accepted as as you are, as you sound,
and people don't don't judge you because you sound in
which way or another, or you don't judge yourself because
you sound in one way or another, is when healing
starts to come. I would say that healing is not
(09:51):
something that comes as a passion as we know, but
but healing is is something is a process. It's very
compon and what what I'm interested is in open spaces
for that healing to start or to to to help
(10:12):
this this healing, not meaning that will heal.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
You don't make any promises.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Not not promises, but but listening is a very good
promise sounding too, and listening and sounding together without judgments.
Mm hmm, it's a very good promise.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I have the same issue in relation to not being
trying to not be to explicit about what help the
listening experiences that I'm offering will make. And that's sometimes well,
(11:04):
particularly in dealing with young people. Often organizations and people
want very crystal clear things that you know you're going
to prove, and particularly as the kind of health and
wellbeing industry as you as you call it, which it is,
has become so much more developed, people want a very
(11:24):
explicit outcomes and what to I've got this young person
feels this. I don't want them to feel that anymore,
or that they behave like this, and I don't want
them to behave like that anymore. And hopefully the thing,
the thing that you do will help towards that. And
it may, it may, but you know, I'm not a
(11:45):
I'm not a doctor. I'm not going to promise people that.
But it's more I sent I can sense that there
is something richer from the listening experience that you're only
going to find out if you do it. So I
can't keep and you can only tell people so much,
(12:05):
and you have to try. And it's really when you
get the opportunity to get people together in a room
to sit and listen together. That is a win, you know,
just creating that scenario and wherever it goes from there,
obviously you have to you know, manage it and take
care of it and ensure that it's done properly and everything.
(12:26):
But it's and so on some of the occasions that
we've done it. For example, we take young people on soundwalks,
they will because we provide a space, provide somewhere where
kids can feel safe, and the act of listening makes
them feel safe, and it's done without sort of adult
(12:49):
judgment and a sense of acceptance that things come out
that are very complicated and emotions that are very sometimes
for some young people that have some some uh bad
experiences in their life, things can be and because their children,
(13:11):
they just come out without any restriction, and it's a
great it's often a good opportunity to explore that in
a safe way. And obviously, you know, we are education
orientated people, so we understand that, you know, if someone
tells you something, you might need to do something about
(13:32):
it or whatever when you're looking after a young person.
But uh, but I I worry about this, this this
thing about just saying to people, you know, try listening
and there's kind of a fashion for you know, just meditation,
just sit quietly and listen as if that will that
will do it. You can, It's that's not enough. It
(13:54):
has to be you have to engage with the consequences
of that of that listening in somewhere or another. And
that's something I find quite difficult. I wonder whether whether
whether you find with audiences maybe or with participants are
sort of they've got themselves into something that they didn't know,
(14:16):
you know, they didn't they didn't really know what to expect,
and then there's things are suddenly happening, and then do
lots of complex emotions and confrontation and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
It's true, it's true. I also I teach deep listening
practice in the Center for Deep Listening, and we do courses,
and I mean, I'm thinking in this moment in that first,
and then I can think about the audiences. But when
people go into a deep Listening experience course, so we
(14:49):
have we have actually the disclaimer and we say to
people that we know that deep listening can bring things
that you didn't expect, and it's good to have help
in place. Meaning if you have a special I don't
(15:14):
know a therapist because we we are all artists educators,
we are not therapists, but we know that listening and
deep listening has therapeutic possibilities. So it's kind of to
distinguish between the therapeutic and the therapy, and and that
(15:38):
has been helpful for us when when something happens that's
that's only with the adults, that which is kind of
my most direct experience. So when something happens, we we
we always could teach. That's another thing. It's important to
have at least two to two or three tutors. Well
(16:02):
we have actually we're in a cohort. We are about
six tutors per cohort. And we help each other too
when that something happens because people tend to, of course open.
But the disclaimer has been very helpful also to talk
between us and to learn because we don't know everything
(16:25):
so so so we need to learn each time something
happens about our our awareness of different things. It's not
that we become the therapists, but it's good that we
become even more aware because as the world becomes more
(16:46):
and more pressing and more complex, we need to become
more aware of things that are going on other many
practices that could be helpful. But but the other part
is to approach the creative self and try to highlight
(17:08):
that within the creative self, you can go to the
places that are dark hard, but also you can go
to places that are super light and full of joy.
And for example, just talking about my deep listening teaching.
(17:30):
Depending on the moment, depending on the group, you also
could listen in advance, listening to the future to what
could happen to these groups. So there are certain exercises
that we do more with certain groups that with others.
(17:50):
So for example, in terms of adults, there are some
groups are okay sounding childhood memories while other groups probably not.
Or there are other moments in the world, for example,
during the pandemic, that certain exercise is better not to
do it. It's better to do something more abstract. So we
(18:13):
know that listening is many things. Listening is memory, Listening
is sounding in the present moment, what is right now
is also listening is imagination, and listening is also anticipation.
So if you feel that you need to sound in
(18:34):
there right now, in the present, that's probably the approach
for that moment. So what we can do is probably
to anticipate and to manage the level of depth that
we want to offer to a group to experience and
(18:56):
to trust that seem all is good enough too.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, that's yeah, that's a big message that's come to
me in the in the in the years that I've
done it, that you don't need to do much in
terms of the design of a of a session, of
a listening session. That often people including including young people,
(19:27):
and often in my experience, very often young people come
ready to listen and and wanting wanting to listen not
just because they need quiet time, but also because they
know that that is the that's a way of communicating
that that just instinctively know that back and forth that
(19:50):
it's a you know that it's a two way street,
particularly as an adult, if you treat them with respect
and as you know, just treat children with respect, that
they will come to you with that treat you treat
you in the same way. Yeah, that's a message. The simplicity,
it is a message that's very much, very much come
across and with all ages from my experience as well.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yes, and actually in terms of relationality, like if we
just take out the technology of this, but but we
I think as adults or as educators or well whatever.
The education that we had is that we need to
(20:37):
become kind of experts and fully responsible of whatever will happen,
particularly if we are with a group of people who
are younger. So I think it's also interesting in the
word trust here, and it is to trust in the
(20:58):
relationality and in the is kind of more collective intelligence.
Well you can call it intelligence sensing. So when you
have it's like a game. And children know that very
well because they okay, let's go and play with the
ball and then two minutes I know, but what about
(21:20):
also if you are jumping? And also I know, but
now you are this, and now they are making it
and they are changing all the time. So in terms
of listening, I do it with adults, but I think
for children the game is and now what would you
like to listen to? And now what would you like
(21:41):
to listen to? Because they know and we know as adults, Okay,
the thing is that because we are so in a
rigid structures routine, of course we said I would like
to do that now, but I have to do this
so anyway, so I will do this first, and then
we postponward we would like to do. But children are
(22:03):
in the moment where they they have the allowance to
do somehow what would you like to do? Yeah, at
least I mean in terms of listening, of course, or
in many parts. But if we take listening in the
pure creative possibility of imagination and listening to the right
(22:28):
now and listening to the imagined future, what do you.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Think the impact of migration experiences, however you define them,
are on that sense of willingness to play, or willingness
to listen, or ability you know not people have don't
necessarily have control of it. But what impact does that?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
How? You know?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I imagine it might shut you down more, you know,
you've been a little bit more reluctant you try to
understand the language, or feel a place, or understand the
behavior or cultural cultural difference.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah, I think, yeah, I think it's very different each migration.
Let's say, let's say I can speak. I have the
fortune to have a voluntary migration. So but even with
the voluntary migration is hard because in terms of playing,
(23:33):
probably you don't understand the other people's games. Particularly what
is to do a lot with intellect, Anything to do
with intellect is very is harder because let's say we
I don't know quiz games that are now the kind
(23:53):
of Christmas. There are so many things I not only
with intellt but with collective memory and with interests. There
are so many things that it takes. It takes a
while for you to get into something that is that
(24:14):
matthers you. So so yes, it's more difficult to to
get kind of to lose your body, I think because
because there there is yeah, I think there there is
(24:35):
there is a trauma and how you experience the space
and sorryally and how you experience yourself. So so that's
that's I would I say, I think the migration when
you are an adult is harder than the migration when
you are a child. I just I went recently to
(24:58):
the Radical Ecology exhibition and in Plymouth were lots of
migranty stories. So it was called the Climate Apartheid in
the Crest Gallery and there were many stories and I
remember stories of I don't remember. There were Syrians of
(25:22):
refugees and coming with the full family and you see,
you see the whole family of course struggling physically struggling,
and eventually you see here once they are established in
some place in England and they actually it is the
child is the girl who is filming the dad and
(25:47):
asking the dad about the migrations with the camera. Yes,
and they are in a playground.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And then.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
And then he starts to ask her also, I know,
but how about you? You're asking me, but how about you?
And then of course she starts to talk about the
things that she like about the place and about the
parts and about the trees. And it's kind of very,
(26:19):
very different because this is part of their discovery. I mean,
the new place where they migrate is part of the discovery.
The whole journey is part of It's a very traumatic
and very part of the yeah of the trauma of migrating,
particularly in the extremely harsh circumstance circumstances. But I think
(26:45):
children make again the place, making the place, make the place,
and they of course there is the whole system of
going to schools, which is not that easy also for
migrants and refugees, depending the school where you go, it's
(27:06):
not easy. It is the language. But then it could
be faster than for an adult. I think the adult
becomes we could become more stiff, because it's our memory,
is our attachments and attachments are also physical. You can
feel it, so to detach to enjoy with other people
(27:30):
even if you don't understand them. Not mentioning the weather,
the cold many places where it's migrating from the global
south to the global north. Many places are with tropical
weather or warm weather, where the body also performing a
(27:55):
very different way, in a more relaxed way. So yes,
there are so many, so many aspects about this. But
I will say in terms of sonic and the body movement,
language is a key thing to play with Gibberish first
(28:18):
to allow ourselves to do the giverish in my case
is the Spannglish that that allows myself to speak probably
with as I can reinvent, you can reinvent your language
and also try to make any connection with the body
(28:39):
that is possible. Some people do with the sports, and
that's fine. It doesn't have to be necessarily with a dance,
an art or pree body movement or to go into
the full industry the well being. Yes, I think again
going back to deep listening because it's a practice that
(28:59):
has taught me a lot. When the part of deep
listening body is it also brings lots of chickong and
Tai chip practices. But let's say the chickong is for energy,
body warm the body in a loose way, going back
to baby, going back to childhood, not locking the knees,
(29:24):
all of these things. But after that, it's just as
free as you can do. Bring is bring joy in
the movement, playful, be playful. Now I become a snake.
Now I have the eyes of a snake. Now yeah,
and now I move as a snake. So all of
(29:44):
these is anything that helps to remove the heart boundaries
that are built with migration, which is a geographical full
change and cultural.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I've got well, I'm just I'm aware of the time,
and I mean we could I've got a million questions
and areas we could we could talk about, which I'd
love to talk to you about. How much time do
you have.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I'm happy to continue talking.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, okay, that's great. Well, so a couple of things
I was interested in talking about, or that again that
occurred to me, was thinking about other living things that
migrate and the connections between the experiences of the human
(30:49):
experience and you know, and what you can learn from
listening to listening to my grade migratory animals that might
inform you know the human experience of that. Obviously, you know,
birds are the obvious target, and particularly in in England,
(31:10):
there's a big you know, bird watching community awareness. It's
one of the first things that they encourage kids to
do in terms of awareness of nature, you know, as
well as as well as bugs and you know the
usual things bugs and plants and things. But yeah, no,
I think I sort of only felt a little bit
(31:30):
from from from your web. But I wonder whether you
could talk a little bit about that, whether you've looked
into that, whether you've looked into that in any way.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yes, yes, yeah, I think the first thing that you
in terms of migration, the first thing that comes is birds,
whales and butterflies, and originally they have come as metaphors
(31:59):
in my word. Yeah, let's say, there are so many
things there in the work, but let's let's go probably
to the most recent work that I have. Well, one
(32:20):
thing just coming again from technology is that these frequencies
with the intimal app the connection to birds has been
really strong. People's connections with birds.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
The other part is in what in what way could
you describe that?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yes, people start to listen more to birds, to tune
in frequencies, so they start to tune in frequencies that
birds are sounding because you are ususe a frequency, meaning
it hurts. The app offers the possibility when you come.
(33:03):
It asks in which frequency are you vibrating today? And
then you listen to three possible frequencies and then you
can move within that range.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Okay, amplifies those frequencies for.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Them, It amplifies. Yeah, So it's one hundred and seventy
four herds, then three hundred and ninety six, and then
five hundred and twenty eight. So when you should so
it sounds, let's say too, and then between So as
you walk, the frequency that you shows is the is
(33:42):
the sound that will make that wave as you walk
as your step, so that's how it works. But also
as you rotate, you can go up or down in
the frequency. You are a tuner, so tunings like a
guitar tuner more or less so, but you are tune
in with the body. So there are two things that
(34:05):
when people tune in, if they are doing it in
in outdoors environments, then they start to match not only
with the question that I have from like in which
frequency you vibrate today, but they start to listen to
(34:25):
others immediately, like they hear a bird, so they are
listening to the frequency and they can contrast or something.
So and then when when I ask what did they
hear and all of that, people report a lot of
birds birds or I was more aware of the birds.
I didn't notice they were birds. And what happens also
(34:48):
with the frequency when you disconnect is that you keep
tune to the environment for a while. You start to
listen to many other frequencies, but birds a lot in that.
So that's one one part. I was also exploring at
(35:09):
some point that I had the opportunity to teach something
about human computer interaction. So I was there is a
popular science book called Sentient where they show these different
animals and how they relate to humans. And there was
(35:31):
a particular animal I think it's a bird, but it's
about the sense of location. So how birds they can
travel across I mean miles and miles and they know
where they're going to arrive and that and and that's
a mystery still for for humans. So scientists are trying
(35:54):
to understand what is actually the sensor the sensorial that
they have to do that. So that's more like an inspiration.
Now in terms of a more metaphor, I recently, exactly
one year ago, I was invited by a group called
(36:16):
Performing Borders to compose three exercises listening exercises, which I
called ritual sym sonic migrations. So one is ground grounding
from the Sea of dreams. This is actually there on
the web for anyone to listen and to practice. It's
(36:39):
an audio also score and is bilingually in Spanish and English.
So one is grounding from the Sea of dreams, and
in grounding from the seal of dreams, I invite people
to connect to the setation that you are. So when
(37:01):
you are waking up, I invite people kind of to
basically just to wake up, to be able to stand
up from your bed and from all these things that
you have experienced, but to stand up as if you
were a citation and you start to move your body
(37:24):
in waves as you can, and then you can start
to bring your citation voice, which is this first voice
that you have when you wake up, which is not
necessarily very tune they are waking up, but then you
just bring this voice and then you create a song
(37:47):
when you are waking up to tune in with the
waking time when you are coming from dream time. So
that's a big thing about more than human. And then
in this in the in the same trilogy of of scores,
(38:10):
the second ist word in land, where I invite people
to connect to the memories of land that they shareish
from their childhood. And then in my experience I have
experienced it with now with two groups in a public
spaces and it's very interesting how people start to bring
(38:33):
different animals but also plants, but also different things. And
I call it, I call it the rituals in sonic migration.
So so it's they don't have to be necessarily this
migrant that comes from fire. Geography is anyone is about
(38:55):
the migration of our of the land and ourselves with land,
with the environment. And the third one is about trees.
And in the in the trees it's called trilling the score,
and I invite people to connect with a tree that
(39:16):
wants to listen to you, and then you go and
then you experience a ritual that basically you are going
to walk in circles around the tree. The tree needs
to tell you a story of the land where you are,
(39:37):
and mentally you are telling the story to the tree,
a story of a tree from your native land wherever
it is your native land. So you do that with
the tree, and then you do that in circles. So
you walk around the tree first telling the story. Then
you listen to the story of the tree. And then
(39:59):
in a still ill in front of the tree, you
are going to bring a word of the story, a
word or a sound, because the tree probably doesn't have words,
but a sound that of the story that the tree
told you aren't a word of the story that you
(40:23):
told to the tree. And then you are going to
make a composition with this. You repeat and repeat and repeat,
and many people are doing that in distant locations with
the trees. And then you connect with your palms to
the tree, connecting also through the network of trees with
(40:44):
the other people who are doing there in different places.
And then also you can connect via technology and then
you can talk about the experience. And that has been
very fun because to talk about the experience of trees,
and so there are some synchronicities to that happened. And
(41:08):
I have also used in one occasion, I use the
Intima lapp to test this. So people go do the
circles with the app and then the song what I
call it the song that they sing that is the
mix with the three story they recorded also in the app,
(41:30):
and then the others also at some point can listen
to everyone's stories.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
It's really interesting that point about listening can take you
away from that anthropomorphization of the living world. You know
that you're not always trying to want because it's not
talking to you in a language that you understand. That
means you can't understand it, and listening try to take
(42:00):
you out out from that. And that's one of the
things I think it's very hard for particularly nowadays. I
think information overload, you know, single language overload, things like
that mean that it's very hard to convince people that
(42:20):
connecting with nature is a serious business, that it's not
some sort of hippyish activity, or that it's you've got
to be expressing your concern for the climate or whatever
in a very lucid way that you know, in a
very you know, you've got the language to be able
to express that that it's you know that there is
(42:43):
there is a place and it's sometimes a better place
for making that connection, that that it doesn't involve language
that is maybe about movement or about sound, and that
sound can be a great, great breach for that hm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Yes, definitely, definitely, and it's a great connection. And and
also I mean there are many works now about sensing
the plants and then to bring to Sonify data that
(43:24):
come from plants, which I appreciate. I think many people
are doing very nice work, but I have doubts about
again making it in the human logic. I mean, I'm
working mm hm with human data, let's say, with steps
(43:47):
and breathing, and even if I still feel it's not
that simple and it's human and I'm a human, so
I'm trying to understand human to humans.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
So that's what I liked about your about your work.
You could feel a kind of you know, human fallibility
in it. Uh. You know, it wasn't just getting the
tech to do something you know, amazingly technological that you
still had to have some kind of relationship with the
(44:20):
people around you or the or the human ah, you
know that the actual living world, you know, instead of
the dead world technology sort of you know. And yeah,
that's that's an interesting place to be.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Yeah. Yeah. People have asked me about the more than
human and the only thing that I know it I mean,
I'm trying technologically. Of course, I am just one person
with some help here, help there in terms of technology.
But even if if I'm in the big technological technology
(45:04):
company where I am able to do whatever I want,
I'm not sure if I will move that fast to
the more than human I mean, still we have, we
still are developing so many things that are censorially. I mean,
(45:30):
just to go to the park and listen to birds.
I don't even know the names of these birds. I
don't know the kinds of these birds. I cannot even
identify these birds. So I need to be super honest
with the level of proximity that I have in this moment,
and how much do I want to intervene that environment
(45:53):
to become closer.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. That's really interesting the question of
to what degree the tech is a barrier ah or
or or a help And you can you can see
(46:15):
with your cross consonants experience work that that is you
know that wouldn't happen without the tech. But can you
are we sure that that it could that it's not happening?
Are we sure that people are not sensing things?
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (46:36):
You know, beyond that.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
That's a very interesting very interesting point, and.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
You're having to use the The tech is kind of
a culturally specific tool at the moment, but you know,
there are plenty of cultures that would say that might
say that they have those kinds of connections already, or
individual people that would say they have those kinds of connections.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
And yeah already, yeah, yeah, I work. At the beginning
of this year there was the launch of the Sonic Meditations,
the second edition after fifty years of Pauline Oliveros Sonic Meditations,
and in Cafeota in London, I had an experience of
(47:24):
a performance called what is important Now? Oh gosh, I've
forgotten this moment the name of the performance, but the
important thing is that it was to explore this this
(47:44):
telematic and telepathic ideas and basically telematically with very good tech,
with very good sound streaming connections with using jack, I
invite three musicians, three performers from one from connecting from
(48:07):
New York, one connecting from Vienna, and one connecting from Boston.
I work with them, and then the audience in Cafeoto,
and then we had all these microphones and the speakers
and the ideas that we play. I made a composition
of two compositions more or less of all in olivers
(48:28):
that is about the musicians. Ah, yes, what is happening
now is the name of the performance. So they were
telling with their music with each instrument what was happening
now in the location with sound, and then the audience
(48:49):
in Cafel Don needed to listen to that transmission and
to trans translated into only one so one of the
members of the audience need to go to the microphone
and to say the word that is being transmitted, and
then based on that word, then the musician also start
(49:14):
to improvise with that word in their instrument that was
not let's say vocal, although yes there was a vocal performer,
and the audience needed to repeat and repeat that word
to meditating the word until with speed increasing the speed
(49:34):
of the word. So that was very magical in sense
that was a forty five minis performance where we could
listen within an audience that were about one hundred three
words actually you know four words because someone said can
(49:57):
I go again? I say yes, yes if you have
another word going and then with the whole So that's
basically to say that's a very specific performance. But also
with all the technology. What is very meaningful is the
(50:18):
connections that happen after the performance. So the event and
the connection is there we needed. I mean, this is
why we are doing this interview. The way I have
to travel to knowledge, so you have to travel too bad,
et cetera. So we need that and that connection is
doing something super strong because I also kind of trust
(50:40):
the strength of technologies to do things incredibly fast for connection.
But then when there is this connection, what is left.
It's also other sets of connections. Is the connection probably
with ideas to your group or to people who are
listening to this program. And in my case probably I
(51:05):
even connect I was able to connect with ideas and
to see this space in a different way. So there
is something very important that happened after the when when
the technological disconnection happened. And and yes we we are
very urban and but indigenous cultures they have these these possibilities,
(51:31):
these telepathic possibilities more related to dream space, to anticipation.
This is something that they have highly trained and our
ancestors they did too, So we have the capabilities. We
now use all of these means because because that's what
(51:56):
what we have. But but this said good way of
remembering because we are taking this for granted, what happened
if suddenly we cannot connect by those by these means,
so so we might it's great to use this to
train again.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
Yeah, it's very Yeah, I was just thinking about the
question of actually maybe a greater sense of loss when
you turn the tech off.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Oh yeah, yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Know it can be, it can be stronger since because
you you've met you know, you know, lots and lots
of different people all over the world or whatever. You
can talk to somebody very easily, but then know that
you'll may never see them face to face, you may
never smell them, you may never touch them, and that
your connection is purely well it's not. It's not purely,
(53:01):
but it's it's in a different way. It doesn't have
an immediacy. And you know, that's the kind of thing
that everyone talk about in terms of nature connection, trying
to get a sense of immediacy and feeling safe in
or at least at least Yeah, that that question of
(53:22):
you know, you don't want to connect to nature by
jumping into a volcano. You know you don't want to
that's not connect I mean, I mean it is, but
you know, most people don't want to do that. Yeah,
I was just thinking about again about the young people
that we work with and that experience of when you
(53:44):
first if you've got a group listening and you're using
a microphone, and you like we did the other day,
we had a binaural head and then we got ten
twelve young people to sit around and listen, slowly turn
up the microphone and then slowly turn it down. That's great,
and that's okay in that setting because it kind of
attunes them a little bit and they're always gobsmacked and
(54:07):
sort of will happily sit and listen for a while.
But I haven't really thought about that question of so
you present this opportunity to them to connect in a
way that has to be done or that does use technology,
So you use the technology to do it, and then
you can't then do it again, you know they can't
then then do it again. So building I guess, I
(54:30):
guess it's about building a lots of different ways to listen.
And that's just one way. That's just one way to
do it.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Yes, I think that there's lots of ways to listen
and also to trust in that well listening is there
is the field of sound, and there is the field
of vibration, and vibration never ends. So whatever is this
encounter with these young people is great that they are
(54:59):
doing it slow, because when you say immediacy, I was
thinking of time. I mean that we our relationship with
time is being forced of being more and more and
more immediate. So it's good to again open the spectrum
(55:21):
of time as we had before technology. There is an
author called Villain Flowser, Looser and Flosser, and he talks
about the different gestures and this is only with the telephone,
but he says that the hanging off the telephone line
(55:44):
is one of the most violent gestures that we have
in terms of communication. And I know it and I
have worked a lot that with tele in the performances
and with migration. It's like living the airport or leaving
the train. Is kind of this disconnection mediated with technology,
(56:05):
you just cut the cable basically. So so to do
that fast, to do that slow. We have practices in
the listening where these connections. Let's say we are a
couple of hours with a group of people and then
we say, okay, people have created lots of emotional connections,
(56:30):
so how to disconnect. So we talk a lot of okay,
now breed or make a gesture everyone and not everyone
might want to disconnect at the same time. That is
kind of this thing about just a zoom call when
this says the host has ended this call. I found
(56:52):
that very interesting in all these messages from technology, because
because it's someone closed the door, turn that's it, no one.
That's very institutional, pragmatic. Yeah, in our routine, we might
need that say yes because now I go to the
(57:13):
other call okay. But when a meeting that is very emotional.
It's about creating community. You have shared things, you have
shared listening. It's important that people also have a space,
even if it's I mean, two minutes can be super long.
Two minutes to disconnect in their own way or five minutes,
(57:37):
and they could disconnect in creative ways, which is something
that I've been learning, how to disconnecting creative ways, how
to go back to I mean, I'm a lot there.
I probably forget what is going on here because I'm
talking to you, I'm seeing your environment. So I need
to stand up, and how about it standing up about moving? Okay,
(58:01):
we are going to say goodbye bye, dancing things like that,
so it's important the disconnect. The ritual of this connection
is even more important than the ritual of connection.
Speaker 1 (58:14):
Fascinating. I'm wondering whether we maybe should finish here.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
Yeah, yeah, that's very good, a good place on which
the god.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
So we'll make our disconnection slowly. But just to say
thank you very much for the time. I really appreciate it.
I could definitely keep talking to you for much longer.
Maybe I'd like to put links into the podcast. So
(58:52):
if you have any links for some of the things
you've mentioned today, yes, but also those three excess those exercises,
the tree one and anything you could send a link
and I'll put links to your website and to the
SoundCloud page and any anything else. Let me.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
That's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (59:21):
You've been listening to Thanks go to Jimena alla Con
for her generosity of time. If you'd like to keep listening,
please subscribe to the Home Sound Show through your podcast provider.
You can also visit homesounds dot org, where you will
find all previous episodes of the Home Sound Show, as
(59:43):
well as many more opportunities to actively listen and numerous
ways to support and get involved with the Home Sounds project.
Links relating to this episode can be found in the
description thanks for listening and welcome home everybody.
Speaker 2 (59:59):
M I think
M hm.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Mm hmmmmmmmm mm hmmm mm hmmmm. I do not have children,
(00:39):
but eleven children. Sounds a lot. Eleven children to the
one from the countryside to the city. I ask, what
is Chico Boca and Boca Chico is a fish.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Welcome home, every and welcome to the Home Sounds Show.
My name is Martin and I'm a field recordist and teacher.
I'm the creator of the Home Sounds Project and your
co host for the show along with Rob.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Hello, everybody. My name is Rob and I'm an educator
and naturalist. I work for the National Trust at Sheringham
Park in Norfolk as part of their Children and Young
People Hub. The Home Sound Show invites everyone to become
active environmental listeners.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
In this episode, the second of two which have been
created as part of Home Sounds As Lessons from Listening series,
I talk with Jimena a Lacon, a sound artist for
Searcher interested in listening and sounding human sonic migrations and
experiencing the residence is left in between the borders we
cross when we tune in and meet others across distant locations.
(01:52):
Throughout her career, Jimene has created what she calls telematic
sonic improvisations and interfaces for relational listening in order to
understand my greatory experience from a sensory perspective. Our conversation
explores him and his work, the points of connection between
this and home sounds, and the subtle power of listening
(02:13):
to cross physical border, cultural context, political circumstance, and personal experience. Yeah,
I was thinking as you were talking then, really about
again to talk about the young person's side of things,
how incredibly vulnerable they are to the influence of their
(02:41):
acoustic habitat or that you know, that the human credited sounds,
but also the wider sounds around them, and that you know,
you're talking about my great experiences and the things that
force people to be migrated, and the amount that you
have to have to process is enormous. And everyone always
(03:05):
talks about how resilient young people are, and they can
they can you know, be this, that and the other.
They can be very strong, they can overcome difficulties very easily.
That is true to a degree, but it's also not
true because these the legacies of that experience last for
a very long time. And as you're saying, you know,
you do the performance with adults, and they're stirring up
(03:25):
deep seated emotions, deep seated experiences and which they need
to process. And there is referring in your work to
sort of a healing element to what you're doing, but
it's not explicitly that And is that part of your
(03:47):
to what degree is that part of your motivation? The
kind of healing side of things?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
You know? Yeah? Yeah, I think is their their motivation
to be honest, if I if I am a polutely
honest you mean the people taking part and the people
taking part and my my inner motivation has been let's
(04:11):
say that, as an artist, I'm creating my own medicine
and when it works, I share it with so so
so yes, I mean it doesn't work all the time.
If indeed I would be a doctor, yes, so yeah,
(04:36):
because the healing is very complex and so yes, I
have mentioned a lot the word healing. It's very complex
even to mention it, depending on the context in which
you are. A healing is a word that also it
(04:59):
was controversial, always has been controversial, but since twenty twenty,
when we all found ourselves in with this kind of
world issue or threat or directly to deal with our
(05:19):
own health uncertainty. Then the healing world became more into
the realm, and then there are lots of different approaches
for healing. And then there is the healing industry and
the well being industry. So when you go into all
(05:42):
of this series of expertise, you become a bit scared
of promisingly because it's very complex. But is there so
when I talk about healing is definitely you have is
a sense of loss. So migration this connection from what
(06:08):
you knew that was giving you a sense of safety,
a sense of belonging. When that is no longer with you,
you feel a sense of loss. That happens in migration.
Now that is the world creates lots of loss. Sense
of loss. The the environmental breakdown is creating a sense
(06:33):
of loss with with with the planet. Sense of loss
also bring other other many emotions associated to this, emotions
that are really helpful to express, between sadness and anger
(06:54):
and all of these things are very human. Others that
are not that helpful, like guilt, for example, why I
didn't do what I could have done for that and
now I'm here and I'm not there, and all of
these things that happens a lot in migration. So healing
(07:16):
it could be with the fragmentation that you experienced. That's
my let's say, my artistic approach is that when you migrate,
you experience fragmentation, meaning what you knew, that street that
you knew is not longer the street that you knew,
(07:37):
So you sometimes this park, Ah, this is very similar
to the neighborhood where I was living across the ocean. Yeah,
so this is a bit add Yes, this person looks
a lot like my uncle. But yeah, but and like that.
So that's why I I went a lot into exploring
(07:59):
listening in dreams, because dreams work with all this fragmentation,
and that's very interesting. And then these ways of embracing
this with technology and these forest spheres of migratory memory.
I offered to them and I said, let's have a
(08:19):
migratory journey, which is an embodied metaphor, and let's improvise
with that. What I notice is that when you do that,
you try to join the dots. So you try to
join the dots within the fragmentation. Because eventually a process
of healing these issues of fragmentation with different levels of
(08:42):
trauma is you need to find a way to understand it,
to join the dots. You cannot understand fully the full thing,
but you can understand one part and your location within that,
your position within that situation. So that's my my approach
(09:06):
to healing within artists about opening spaces so we can
make connections, we can make connections. There are other approaches
which are also for example, Pauline Olivero's talk about healing,
when you when when you are heard by others and
(09:31):
you are accepted as as you are, as you sound,
and people don't don't judge you because you sound in
which way or another, or you don't judge yourself because
you sound in one way or another, is when healing
starts to come. I would say that healing is not
(09:51):
something that comes as a passion as we know, but
but healing is is something is a process. It's very
compon and what what I'm interested is in open spaces
for that healing to start or to to to help
(10:12):
this this healing, not meaning that will heal.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
You don't make any promises.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Not not promises, but but listening is a very good
promise sounding too, and listening and sounding together without judgments.
Mm hmm, it's a very good promise.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
I have the same issue in relation to not being
trying to not be to explicit about what help the
listening experiences that I'm offering will make. And that's sometimes well,
(11:04):
particularly in dealing with young people. Often organizations and people
want very crystal clear things that you know you're going
to prove, and particularly as the kind of health and
wellbeing industry as you as you call it, which it is,
has become so much more developed, people want a very
(11:24):
explicit outcomes and what to I've got this young person
feels this. I don't want them to feel that anymore,
or that they behave like this, and I don't want
them to behave like that anymore. And hopefully the thing,
the thing that you do will help towards that. And
it may, it may, but you know, I'm not a
(11:45):
I'm not a doctor. I'm not going to promise people that.
But it's more I sent I can sense that there
is something richer from the listening experience that you're only
going to find out if you do it. So I
can't keep and you can only tell people so much,
(12:05):
and you have to try. And it's really when you
get the opportunity to get people together in a room
to sit and listen together. That is a win, you know,
just creating that scenario and wherever it goes from there,
obviously you have to you know, manage it and take
care of it and ensure that it's done properly and everything.
(12:26):
But it's and so on some of the occasions that
we've done it. For example, we take young people on soundwalks,
they will because we provide a space, provide somewhere where
kids can feel safe, and the act of listening makes
them feel safe, and it's done without sort of adult
(12:49):
judgment and a sense of acceptance that things come out
that are very complicated and emotions that are very sometimes
for some young people that have some some uh bad
experiences in their life, things can be and because their children,
(13:11):
they just come out without any restriction, and it's a
great it's often a good opportunity to explore that in
a safe way. And obviously, you know, we are education
orientated people, so we understand that, you know, if someone
tells you something, you might need to do something about
(13:32):
it or whatever when you're looking after a young person.
But uh, but I I worry about this, this this
thing about just saying to people, you know, try listening
and there's kind of a fashion for you know, just meditation,
just sit quietly and listen as if that will that
will do it. You can, It's that's not enough. It
(13:54):
has to be you have to engage with the consequences
of that of that listening in somewhere or another. And
that's something I find quite difficult. I wonder whether whether
whether you find with audiences maybe or with participants are
sort of they've got themselves into something that they didn't know,
(14:16):
you know, they didn't they didn't really know what to expect,
and then there's things are suddenly happening, and then do
lots of complex emotions and confrontation and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
It's true, it's true. I also I teach deep listening
practice in the Center for Deep Listening, and we do courses,
and I mean, I'm thinking in this moment in that first,
and then I can think about the audiences. But when
people go into a deep Listening experience course, so we
(14:49):
have we have actually the disclaimer and we say to
people that we know that deep listening can bring things
that you didn't expect, and it's good to have help
in place. Meaning if you have a special I don't
(15:14):
know a therapist because we we are all artists educators,
we are not therapists, but we know that listening and
deep listening has therapeutic possibilities. So it's kind of to
distinguish between the therapeutic and the therapy, and and that
(15:38):
has been helpful for us when when something happens that's
that's only with the adults, that which is kind of
my most direct experience. So when something happens, we we
we always could teach. That's another thing. It's important to
have at least two to two or three tutors. Well
(16:02):
we have actually we're in a cohort. We are about
six tutors per cohort. And we help each other too
when that something happens because people tend to, of course open.
But the disclaimer has been very helpful also to talk
between us and to learn because we don't know everything
(16:25):
so so so we need to learn each time something
happens about our our awareness of different things. It's not
that we become the therapists, but it's good that we
become even more aware because as the world becomes more
(16:46):
and more pressing and more complex, we need to become
more aware of things that are going on other many
practices that could be helpful. But but the other part
is to approach the creative self and try to highlight
(17:08):
that within the creative self, you can go to the
places that are dark hard, but also you can go
to places that are super light and full of joy.
And for example, just talking about my deep listening teaching.
(17:30):
Depending on the moment, depending on the group, you also
could listen in advance, listening to the future to what
could happen to these groups. So there are certain exercises
that we do more with certain groups that with others.
(17:50):
So for example, in terms of adults, there are some
groups are okay sounding childhood memories while other groups probably not.
Or there are other moments in the world, for example,
during the pandemic, that certain exercise is better not to
do it. It's better to do something more abstract. So we
(18:13):
know that listening is many things. Listening is memory, Listening
is sounding in the present moment, what is right now
is also listening is imagination, and listening is also anticipation.
So if you feel that you need to sound in
(18:34):
there right now, in the present, that's probably the approach
for that moment. So what we can do is probably
to anticipate and to manage the level of depth that
we want to offer to a group to experience and
(18:56):
to trust that seem all is good enough too.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yeah, that's yeah, that's a big message that's come to
me in the in the in the years that I've
done it, that you don't need to do much in
terms of the design of a of a session, of
a listening session. That often people including including young people,
(19:27):
and often in my experience, very often young people come
ready to listen and and wanting wanting to listen not
just because they need quiet time, but also because they
know that that is the that's a way of communicating
that that just instinctively know that back and forth that
(19:50):
it's a you know that it's a two way street,
particularly as an adult, if you treat them with respect
and as you know, just treat children with respect, that
they will come to you with that treat you treat
you in the same way. Yeah, that's a message. The simplicity,
it is a message that's very much, very much come
across and with all ages from my experience as well.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Yes, and actually in terms of relationality, like if we
just take out the technology of this, but but we
I think as adults or as educators or well whatever.
The education that we had is that we need to
(20:37):
become kind of experts and fully responsible of whatever will happen,
particularly if we are with a group of people who
are younger. So I think it's also interesting in the
word trust here, and it is to trust in the
(20:58):
relationality and in the is kind of more collective intelligence.
Well you can call it intelligence sensing. So when you
have it's like a game. And children know that very
well because they okay, let's go and play with the
ball and then two minutes I know, but what about
(21:20):
also if you are jumping? And also I know, but
now you are this, and now they are making it
and they are changing all the time. So in terms
of listening, I do it with adults, but I think
for children the game is and now what would you
like to listen to? And now what would you like
(21:41):
to listen to? Because they know and we know as adults, Okay,
the thing is that because we are so in a
rigid structures routine, of course we said I would like
to do that now, but I have to do this
so anyway, so I will do this first, and then
we postponward we would like to do. But children are
(22:03):
in the moment where they they have the allowance to
do somehow what would you like to do? Yeah, at
least I mean in terms of listening, of course, or
in many parts. But if we take listening in the
pure creative possibility of imagination and listening to the right
(22:28):
now and listening to the imagined future, what do you.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Think the impact of migration experiences, however you define them,
are on that sense of willingness to play, or willingness
to listen, or ability you know not people have don't
necessarily have control of it. But what impact does that?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
How? You know?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I imagine it might shut you down more, you know,
you've been a little bit more reluctant you try to
understand the language, or feel a place, or understand the
behavior or cultural cultural difference.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah, I think, yeah, I think it's very different each migration.
Let's say, let's say I can speak. I have the
fortune to have a voluntary migration. So but even with
the voluntary migration is hard because in terms of playing,
(23:33):
probably you don't understand the other people's games. Particularly what
is to do a lot with intellect, Anything to do
with intellect is very is harder because let's say we
I don't know quiz games that are now the kind
(23:53):
of Christmas. There are so many things I not only
with intellt but with collective memory and with interests. There
are so many things that it takes. It takes a
while for you to get into something that is that
(24:14):
matthers you. So so yes, it's more difficult to to
get kind of to lose your body, I think because
because there there is yeah, I think there there is
(24:35):
there is a trauma and how you experience the space
and sorryally and how you experience yourself. So so that's
that's I would I say, I think the migration when
you are an adult is harder than the migration when
you are a child. I just I went recently to
(24:58):
the Radical Ecology exhibition and in Plymouth were lots of
migranty stories. So it was called the Climate Apartheid in
the Crest Gallery and there were many stories and I
remember stories of I don't remember. There were Syrians of
(25:22):
refugees and coming with the full family and you see,
you see the whole family of course struggling physically struggling,
and eventually you see here once they are established in
some place in England and they actually it is the
child is the girl who is filming the dad and
(25:47):
asking the dad about the migrations with the camera. Yes,
and they are in a playground.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And then.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
And then he starts to ask her also, I know,
but how about you? You're asking me, but how about you?
And then of course she starts to talk about the
things that she like about the place and about the
parts and about the trees. And it's kind of very,
(26:19):
very different because this is part of their discovery. I mean,
the new place where they migrate is part of the discovery.
The whole journey is part of It's a very traumatic
and very part of the yeah of the trauma of migrating,
particularly in the extremely harsh circumstance circumstances. But I think
(26:45):
children make again the place, making the place, make the place,
and they of course there is the whole system of
going to schools, which is not that easy also for
migrants and refugees, depending the school where you go, it's
(27:06):
not easy. It is the language. But then it could
be faster than for an adult. I think the adult
becomes we could become more stiff, because it's our memory,
is our attachments and attachments are also physical. You can
feel it, so to detach to enjoy with other people
(27:30):
even if you don't understand them. Not mentioning the weather,
the cold many places where it's migrating from the global
south to the global north. Many places are with tropical
weather or warm weather, where the body also performing a
(27:55):
very different way, in a more relaxed way. So yes,
there are so many, so many aspects about this. But
I will say in terms of sonic and the body movement,
language is a key thing to play with Gibberish first
(28:18):
to allow ourselves to do the giverish in my case
is the Spannglish that that allows myself to speak probably
with as I can reinvent, you can reinvent your language
and also try to make any connection with the body
(28:39):
that is possible. Some people do with the sports, and
that's fine. It doesn't have to be necessarily with a dance,
an art or pree body movement or to go into
the full industry the well being. Yes, I think again
going back to deep listening because it's a practice that
(28:59):
has taught me a lot. When the part of deep
listening body is it also brings lots of chickong and
Tai chip practices. But let's say the chickong is for energy,
body warm the body in a loose way, going back
to baby, going back to childhood, not locking the knees,
(29:24):
all of these things. But after that, it's just as
free as you can do. Bring is bring joy in
the movement, playful, be playful. Now I become a snake.
Now I have the eyes of a snake. Now yeah,
and now I move as a snake. So all of
(29:44):
these is anything that helps to remove the heart boundaries
that are built with migration, which is a geographical full
change and cultural.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I've got well, I'm just I'm aware of the time,
and I mean we could I've got a million questions
and areas we could we could talk about, which I'd
love to talk to you about. How much time do
you have.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
I'm happy to continue talking.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, okay, that's great. Well, so a couple of things
I was interested in talking about, or that again that
occurred to me, was thinking about other living things that
migrate and the connections between the experiences of the human
(30:49):
experience and you know, and what you can learn from
listening to listening to my grade migratory animals that might
inform you know the human experience of that. Obviously, you know,
birds are the obvious target, and particularly in in England,
(31:10):
there's a big you know, bird watching community awareness. It's
one of the first things that they encourage kids to
do in terms of awareness of nature, you know, as
well as as well as bugs and you know the
usual things bugs and plants and things. But yeah, no,
I think I sort of only felt a little bit
(31:30):
from from from your web. But I wonder whether you
could talk a little bit about that, whether you've looked
into that, whether you've looked into that in any way.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yes, yes, yeah, I think the first thing that you
in terms of migration, the first thing that comes is birds,
whales and butterflies, and originally they have come as metaphors
(31:59):
in my word. Yeah, let's say, there are so many
things there in the work, but let's let's go probably
to the most recent work that I have. Well, one
(32:20):
thing just coming again from technology is that these frequencies
with the intimal app the connection to birds has been
really strong. People's connections with birds.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
The other part is in what in what way could
you describe that?
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yes, people start to listen more to birds, to tune
in frequencies, so they start to tune in frequencies that
birds are sounding because you are ususe a frequency, meaning
it hurts. The app offers the possibility when you come.
(33:03):
It asks in which frequency are you vibrating today? And
then you listen to three possible frequencies and then you
can move within that range.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Okay, amplifies those frequencies for.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Them, It amplifies. Yeah, So it's one hundred and seventy
four herds, then three hundred and ninety six, and then
five hundred and twenty eight. So when you should so
it sounds, let's say too, and then between So as
you walk, the frequency that you shows is the is
(33:42):
the sound that will make that wave as you walk
as your step, so that's how it works. But also
as you rotate, you can go up or down in
the frequency. You are a tuner, so tunings like a
guitar tuner more or less so, but you are tune
in with the body. So there are two things that
(34:05):
when people tune in, if they are doing it in
in outdoors environments, then they start to match not only
with the question that I have from like in which
frequency you vibrate today, but they start to listen to
(34:25):
others immediately, like they hear a bird, so they are
listening to the frequency and they can contrast or something.
So and then when when I ask what did they
hear and all of that, people report a lot of
birds birds or I was more aware of the birds.
I didn't notice they were birds. And what happens also
(34:48):
with the frequency when you disconnect is that you keep
tune to the environment for a while. You start to
listen to many other frequencies, but birds a lot in that.
So that's one one part. I was also exploring at
(35:09):
some point that I had the opportunity to teach something
about human computer interaction. So I was there is a
popular science book called Sentient where they show these different
animals and how they relate to humans. And there was
(35:31):
a particular animal I think it's a bird, but it's
about the sense of location. So how birds they can
travel across I mean miles and miles and they know
where they're going to arrive and that and and that's
a mystery still for for humans. So scientists are trying
(35:54):
to understand what is actually the sensor the sensorial that
they have to do that. So that's more like an inspiration.
Now in terms of a more metaphor, I recently, exactly
one year ago, I was invited by a group called
(36:16):
Performing Borders to compose three exercises listening exercises, which I
called ritual sym sonic migrations. So one is ground grounding
from the Sea of dreams. This is actually there on
the web for anyone to listen and to practice. It's
(36:39):
an audio also score and is bilingually in Spanish and English.
So one is grounding from the Sea of dreams, and
in grounding from the seal of dreams, I invite people
to connect to the setation that you are. So when
(37:01):
you are waking up, I invite people kind of to
basically just to wake up, to be able to stand
up from your bed and from all these things that
you have experienced, but to stand up as if you
were a citation and you start to move your body
(37:24):
in waves as you can, and then you can start
to bring your citation voice, which is this first voice
that you have when you wake up, which is not
necessarily very tune they are waking up, but then you
just bring this voice and then you create a song
(37:47):
when you are waking up to tune in with the
waking time when you are coming from dream time. So
that's a big thing about more than human. And then
in this in the in the same trilogy of of scores,
(38:10):
the second ist word in land, where I invite people
to connect to the memories of land that they shareish
from their childhood. And then in my experience I have
experienced it with now with two groups in a public
spaces and it's very interesting how people start to bring
(38:33):
different animals but also plants, but also different things. And
I call it, I call it the rituals in sonic migration.
So so it's they don't have to be necessarily this
migrant that comes from fire. Geography is anyone is about
(38:55):
the migration of our of the land and ourselves with land,
with the environment. And the third one is about trees.
And in the in the trees it's called trilling the score,
and I invite people to connect with a tree that
(39:16):
wants to listen to you, and then you go and
then you experience a ritual that basically you are going
to walk in circles around the tree. The tree needs
to tell you a story of the land where you are,
(39:37):
and mentally you are telling the story to the tree,
a story of a tree from your native land wherever
it is your native land. So you do that with
the tree, and then you do that in circles. So
you walk around the tree first telling the story. Then
you listen to the story of the tree. And then
(39:59):
in a still ill in front of the tree, you
are going to bring a word of the story, a
word or a sound, because the tree probably doesn't have words,
but a sound that of the story that the tree
told you aren't a word of the story that you
(40:23):
told to the tree. And then you are going to
make a composition with this. You repeat and repeat and repeat,
and many people are doing that in distant locations with
the trees. And then you connect with your palms to
the tree, connecting also through the network of trees with
(40:44):
the other people who are doing there in different places.
And then also you can connect via technology and then
you can talk about the experience. And that has been
very fun because to talk about the experience of trees,
and so there are some synchronicities to that happened. And
(41:08):
I have also used in one occasion, I use the
Intima lapp to test this. So people go do the
circles with the app and then the song what I
call it the song that they sing that is the
mix with the three story they recorded also in the app,
(41:30):
and then the others also at some point can listen
to everyone's stories.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
It's really interesting that point about listening can take you
away from that anthropomorphization of the living world. You know
that you're not always trying to want because it's not
talking to you in a language that you understand. That
means you can't understand it, and listening try to take
(42:00):
you out out from that. And that's one of the
things I think it's very hard for particularly nowadays. I
think information overload, you know, single language overload, things like
that mean that it's very hard to convince people that
(42:20):
connecting with nature is a serious business, that it's not
some sort of hippyish activity, or that it's you've got
to be expressing your concern for the climate or whatever
in a very lucid way that you know, in a
very you know, you've got the language to be able
to express that that it's you know that there is
(42:43):
there is a place and it's sometimes a better place
for making that connection, that that it doesn't involve language
that is maybe about movement or about sound, and that
sound can be a great, great breach for that hm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
Yes, definitely, definitely, and it's a great connection. And and
also I mean there are many works now about sensing
the plants and then to bring to Sonify data that
(43:24):
come from plants, which I appreciate. I think many people
are doing very nice work, but I have doubts about
again making it in the human logic. I mean, I'm
working mm hm with human data, let's say, with steps
(43:47):
and breathing, and even if I still feel it's not
that simple and it's human and I'm a human, so
I'm trying to understand human to humans.
Speaker 1 (43:59):
So that's what I liked about your about your work.
You could feel a kind of you know, human fallibility
in it. Uh. You know, it wasn't just getting the
tech to do something you know, amazingly technological that you
still had to have some kind of relationship with the
(44:20):
people around you or the or the human ah, you
know that the actual living world, you know, instead of
the dead world technology sort of you know. And yeah,
that's that's an interesting place to be.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Yeah. Yeah. People have asked me about the more than
human and the only thing that I know it I mean,
I'm trying technologically. Of course, I am just one person
with some help here, help there in terms of technology.
But even if if I'm in the big technological technology
(45:04):
company where I am able to do whatever I want,
I'm not sure if I will move that fast to
the more than human I mean, still we have, we
still are developing so many things that are censorially. I mean,
(45:30):
just to go to the park and listen to birds.
I don't even know the names of these birds. I
don't know the kinds of these birds. I cannot even
identify these birds. So I need to be super honest
with the level of proximity that I have in this moment,
and how much do I want to intervene that environment
(45:53):
to become closer.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. That's really interesting the question of
to what degree the tech is a barrier ah or
or or a help And you can you can see
(46:15):
with your cross consonants experience work that that is you
know that wouldn't happen without the tech. But can you
are we sure that that it could that it's not happening?
Are we sure that people are not sensing things?
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (46:36):
You know, beyond that.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
That's a very interesting very interesting point, and.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
You're having to use the The tech is kind of
a culturally specific tool at the moment, but you know,
there are plenty of cultures that would say that might
say that they have those kinds of connections already, or
individual people that would say they have those kinds of connections.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
And yeah already, yeah, yeah, I work. At the beginning
of this year there was the launch of the Sonic Meditations,
the second edition after fifty years of Pauline Oliveros Sonic Meditations,
and in Cafeota in London, I had an experience of
(47:24):
a performance called what is important Now? Oh gosh, I've
forgotten this moment the name of the performance, but the
important thing is that it was to explore this this
(47:44):
telematic and telepathic ideas and basically telematically with very good tech,
with very good sound streaming connections with using jack, I
invite three musicians, three performers from one from connecting from
(48:07):
New York, one connecting from Vienna, and one connecting from Boston.
I work with them, and then the audience in Cafeoto,
and then we had all these microphones and the speakers
and the ideas that we play. I made a composition
of two compositions more or less of all in olivers
(48:28):
that is about the musicians. Ah, yes, what is happening
now is the name of the performance. So they were
telling with their music with each instrument what was happening
now in the location with sound, and then the audience
(48:49):
in Cafel Don needed to listen to that transmission and
to trans translated into only one so one of the
members of the audience need to go to the microphone
and to say the word that is being transmitted, and
then based on that word, then the musician also start
(49:14):
to improvise with that word in their instrument that was
not let's say vocal, although yes there was a vocal performer,
and the audience needed to repeat and repeat that word
to meditating the word until with speed increasing the speed
(49:34):
of the word. So that was very magical in sense
that was a forty five minis performance where we could
listen within an audience that were about one hundred three
words actually you know four words because someone said can
(49:57):
I go again? I say yes, yes if you have
another word going and then with the whole So that's
basically to say that's a very specific performance. But also
with all the technology. What is very meaningful is the
(50:18):
connections that happen after the performance. So the event and
the connection is there we needed. I mean, this is
why we are doing this interview. The way I have
to travel to knowledge, so you have to travel too bad,
et cetera. So we need that and that connection is
doing something super strong because I also kind of trust
(50:40):
the strength of technologies to do things incredibly fast for connection.
But then when there is this connection, what is left.
It's also other sets of connections. Is the connection probably
with ideas to your group or to people who are
listening to this program. And in my case probably I
(51:05):
even connect I was able to connect with ideas and
to see this space in a different way. So there
is something very important that happened after the when when
the technological disconnection happened. And and yes we we are
very urban and but indigenous cultures they have these these possibilities,
(51:31):
these telepathic possibilities more related to dream space, to anticipation.
This is something that they have highly trained and our
ancestors they did too, So we have the capabilities. We
now use all of these means because because that's what
(51:56):
what we have. But but this said good way of
remembering because we are taking this for granted, what happened
if suddenly we cannot connect by those by these means,
so so we might it's great to use this to
train again.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
Yeah, it's very Yeah, I was just thinking about the
question of actually maybe a greater sense of loss when
you turn the tech off.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Oh yeah, yeah, you.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Know it can be, it can be stronger since because
you you've met you know, you know, lots and lots
of different people all over the world or whatever. You
can talk to somebody very easily, but then know that
you'll may never see them face to face, you may
never smell them, you may never touch them, and that
your connection is purely well it's not. It's not purely,
(53:01):
but it's it's in a different way. It doesn't have
an immediacy. And you know, that's the kind of thing
that everyone talk about in terms of nature connection, trying
to get a sense of immediacy and feeling safe in
or at least at least Yeah, that that question of
(53:22):
you know, you don't want to connect to nature by
jumping into a volcano. You know you don't want to
that's not connect I mean, I mean it is, but
you know, most people don't want to do that. Yeah,
I was just thinking about again about the young people
that we work with and that experience of when you
(53:44):
first if you've got a group listening and you're using
a microphone, and you like we did the other day,
we had a binaural head and then we got ten
twelve young people to sit around and listen, slowly turn
up the microphone and then slowly turn it down. That's great,
and that's okay in that setting because it kind of
attunes them a little bit and they're always gobsmacked and
(54:07):
sort of will happily sit and listen for a while.
But I haven't really thought about that question of so
you present this opportunity to them to connect in a
way that has to be done or that does use technology,
So you use the technology to do it, and then
you can't then do it again, you know they can't
then then do it again. So building I guess, I
(54:30):
guess it's about building a lots of different ways to listen.
And that's just one way. That's just one way to
do it.
Speaker 2 (54:37):
Yes, I think that there's lots of ways to listen
and also to trust in that well listening is there
is the field of sound, and there is the field
of vibration, and vibration never ends. So whatever is this
encounter with these young people is great that they are
(54:59):
doing it slow, because when you say immediacy, I was
thinking of time. I mean that we our relationship with
time is being forced of being more and more and
more immediate. So it's good to again open the spectrum
(55:21):
of time as we had before technology. There is an
author called Villain Flowser, Looser and Flosser, and he talks
about the different gestures and this is only with the telephone,
but he says that the hanging off the telephone line
(55:44):
is one of the most violent gestures that we have
in terms of communication. And I know it and I
have worked a lot that with tele in the performances
and with migration. It's like living the airport or leaving
the train. Is kind of this disconnection mediated with technology,
(56:05):
you just cut the cable basically. So so to do
that fast, to do that slow. We have practices in
the listening where these connections. Let's say we are a
couple of hours with a group of people and then
we say, okay, people have created lots of emotional connections,
(56:30):
so how to disconnect. So we talk a lot of okay,
now breed or make a gesture everyone and not everyone
might want to disconnect at the same time. That is
kind of this thing about just a zoom call when
this says the host has ended this call. I found
(56:52):
that very interesting in all these messages from technology, because
because it's someone closed the door, turn that's it, no one.
That's very institutional, pragmatic. Yeah, in our routine, we might
need that say yes because now I go to the
(57:13):
other call okay. But when a meeting that is very emotional.
It's about creating community. You have shared things, you have
shared listening. It's important that people also have a space,
even if it's I mean, two minutes can be super long.
Two minutes to disconnect in their own way or five minutes,
(57:37):
and they could disconnect in creative ways, which is something
that I've been learning, how to disconnecting creative ways, how
to go back to I mean, I'm a lot there.
I probably forget what is going on here because I'm
talking to you, I'm seeing your environment. So I need
to stand up, and how about it standing up about moving? Okay,
(58:01):
we are going to say goodbye bye, dancing things like that,
so it's important the disconnect. The ritual of this connection
is even more important than the ritual of connection.
Speaker 1 (58:14):
Fascinating. I'm wondering whether we maybe should finish here.
Speaker 2 (58:22):
Yeah, yeah, that's very good, a good place on which
the god.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
So we'll make our disconnection slowly. But just to say
thank you very much for the time. I really appreciate it.
I could definitely keep talking to you for much longer.
Maybe I'd like to put links into the podcast. So
(58:52):
if you have any links for some of the things
you've mentioned today, yes, but also those three excess those exercises,
the tree one and anything you could send a link
and I'll put links to your website and to the
SoundCloud page and any anything else. Let me.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
That's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (59:21):
You've been listening to Thanks go to Jimena alla Con
for her generosity of time. If you'd like to keep listening,
please subscribe to the Home Sound Show through your podcast provider.
You can also visit homesounds dot org, where you will
find all previous episodes of the Home Sound Show, as
(59:43):
well as many more opportunities to actively listen and numerous
ways to support and get involved with the Home Sounds project.
Links relating to this episode can be found in the
description thanks for listening and welcome home everybody.
Speaker 2 (59:59):
M I think
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