August 9, 2024 • 55 mins
Welcome Home Everybody!
In this episode, the first 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 first 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):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Pretty to borrow. So uh m hm, so.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
You too, you too.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
At this story. Down the story to the story.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Cheers Skiers, yus or loss.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Alas alas Alas, Hiasino, Cimino.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Welcome home, everybody, 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 hosts for the show along with Rob.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
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 4 (01:49):
In this episode, the first of two which have been
created as part of Home Sounds is Lessons from Listening Series.
I talk with Jimena, a lacon bound artists researcher interested
in listening and sounding human sonic migrations and experiencing the
resonances left in between the borders we cross when we
(02:10):
tune in and meet others across distant locations. Throughout her career,
Jimena has created what she calls telematic sonic improvisations and
interfaces for relational listening in order to understand my greater
experience from a sensory perspective. Our conversation explores Himna's work,
(02:32):
the points of connection between this and Home Sounds, and
the subtle power of listening to cross physical border, cultural context,
political circumstance, and personal experience. So I thought maybe we
could just start. So this is part of a series
(02:55):
of talks that I'm trying to do called Lessons from Listening,
which is part of Home Sounds is educational remit really
and so so yeah, I thought we could start with
just maybe if you could give us sort of your
(03:16):
own introduction to yourself, you know, your and and sort
of where you are now, so that people can sort
of get an initial sense of who you are and
what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Okay, thank you, Martin. I am.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
I'm a sound artist working with listening experiences and expanding
forms of listening which are mostly mediated across distant locations.
So I have been for many years opening creative platforms,
(04:00):
created place spaces for people to improvise across distant locations
across the planet, mediated with the Internet and and to sound.
This in betweens between geographical distances and cultures and borders,
(04:22):
and it's something that I have called sonic migrations, which is.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Still kind of trying to to understand.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
But whatever is there is that it's kind of the
resonance that is left in between distant locations. And I
have found technologies, networking technologies, telematics as forms of helping
to listen to this in between space and UH. And
this this UH is supported by research by practices such
(04:58):
as deep listening, and I have used platforms that are
already there, and I since five years ago, I've been
developing my own platform, which is called Intima Interfaces for
Relational Listening, which is a way to experience sensing place
(05:21):
with body movement and the physical place where you are,
and sensing presence of feeling the presence of others, humans
and more than humans across distant locations.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
So yes, this is in a nutshell, that's a very
good nutshell, very very good, a very good description. So
I thought it might be useful for the audience to
maybe just get an initial sense of some of the
terminology that we might use, so things you know, like
(05:54):
you know, deep listening for those people that aren't aware
of it or telematics or and the terms you have
coined to describe your work too. I thought that might
be useful for people listening, So maybe you could give
us a brief review of some of the key concepts.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
That's very good. Yes. Deep listening deep listening is is.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
A term used in many cultures. Is kind of an
ancient terms in many cultures associated with meditation. The deep
listening I'm talking about it is associated with meditation, but
its specifically the deep listening practice developed by the composer
Pauline Oliverus, which she developed it incorporating listening meditations, full
(06:50):
body listening inviting us to listen with the full body.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Energy body.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Exercise iis, and dream dream work or listening in dreams.
So the practice of listening as much as you can
humanly can during the twenty four hours. This is deep
listening deep listening, Polynodiverous.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Deep listening.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Telematic is the form of connecting communicating across the distance tele.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
And using computers.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
You can find associated terms like telematic music on network music,
or telematic art or telematic performance.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
This has been taking since we are using.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Distant communication, actually involving also radio, but let's say, involving
networks by many artists working with sound and also with
the dance or body experience.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
And this takes share in many, many different forms.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
The forming which I am interested in telematic is in
improvisatory performance, which I call sonic. So I don't call
it music directly, because I'm interested in working with people
who are not necessarily trained in music as we know
(08:33):
music traditional music. So it's also transmitting the full body.
So telematic for me is the sonic. The sonic is
the vibration. The listening is all this complexity that happens
within the listening experience, which is complex enough when you
(08:53):
listen in a site in a physical location, but when
you try to listen to resistant locations. There is this
mediation that we have right now, and it doesn't depends
on our devices, the computers, the way that we are
listening to our headphones, but also about all the network
connections and the delay and how good or bad is
(09:16):
the network. So all of that is interesting to me
because I find that telematic mission and interaction, as well
as actually dream environments coming from deep listening are for
me metaphors and vehicles of our own migrations. So and
(09:41):
then I moved to what I have coin, which is
sonic migration. I when I started to work with paulin
Ulverarius with deep listening, I wanted to go deeper in
my listening. And she asked me what would you like
to listen to and I said, I want to listen
to my migration. That means my geographical migration. I am
(10:04):
from Colombia, living in the UK for twenty two years,
with two years away in Norway. By the total here
like twenty two years. So and even if all the
time in my art before I said this is about migration,
I was working with networking with mobility, with trains. I
(10:29):
was listening a lot to trains and commuting experiences. Listening, yeah,
commuting experiences. So I spent that about seven years and
exploring how this train technology, mobility technology is also that
we also embodied. And then I moved to the network
(10:52):
and I said, I want to listen to the migrations
using deep listening and using telemantic. And this is what
I've been doing with groups of people, developing narratives of
migration and at.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
The same time.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Understanding what is it that that sounds When I share
my soundings and you listen and you resonate with my soundings.
And that I have explored experience with the surrounding environment.
How strange it is when we move. When we migrate,
(11:37):
many things changed, and also voice language, which is part
of our our identity, of our many identities. So there
is something that changes, and it's so important to listen
to this just to have a balance of the big
(12:01):
loss that anyone who migrates between geographies with more or
less traumatic situations experience. So so that's what I call
soonic migration. And uh I have eventually said is what
is in between?
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Its left in.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Between is the resonance. It's not the here or there
is to be in this resonance.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
And and then intimate.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Is the technology of the platform that that I want
I'm being developing to to listen to those resonances, but
with full body movement or not necessarily full body movement,
but at least with somebody movement that is meaningful for
(12:54):
for what I'm trying to get. And and then I
have been exploring with intimal intimal is interfaces for relational listening.
And then I also said what is relational listening and
how difficult, different, well, difficult, but different is from deep listening.
(13:17):
So there are many other authors and scholars artists who
have talked about relation and listening. In my case, relation
and listening, I approached it as the negotiation between sense
of place, sensing the physical place like I'm here in
(13:39):
the UK in Bath actually, and sensing distant locations, either
the location where you are right now. I'm not sure
if it's exactly Norwidge, it's just outside knowledge and everything
that you could transmit from that location, whatever I perceive,
(14:03):
but also the locations that are in my memory, which
is usually to do with the native place.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Yeah, well fascinating, Thank you, Thank you very much. There
are so many things to explore there. Maybe we could
talk a little bit about your what it is about
the migratory experience that triggers your interest in trying to
(14:34):
build relations across distances. There's obviously there's some there's a
kind of conflict between the sense of constant movement of
migration and then also trying to remain still to sense
movement or be aware of your surroundings where you are.
Your sense of place. How you develop a sense of places,
(14:55):
generally by trying trying to be still or absorb that
sense of place to yourself. But that's a that that
clashes with the notion and migration of constant movement or
being forced to move. So what what what is it
about the experience that really? I mean, where does it
come from for you? Maybe? But maybe you could talk
(15:16):
a little bit about about that.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
M that's a very interesting question. Let's see.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yes, it's about movement and it's about a stillness.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I think is not that easy to be in a
stillness in general?
Speaker 1 (15:42):
In general there isn't an issue with with the stillness.
But in terms of migration, I think there is something
that we leave a place that we knew, the core
innates that we knew, and sensorial coordinates too. We need
(16:05):
we knew how to move in that space because it's
a space. Probably we were born or we spent many
years in a place and we learned how to move
that involves full body movement, space and how to interact with.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
The space and with people in the space. When we
when we.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Change voluntarily or forced, everything changes our our speciality, our
sense of interaction with others. It's something really sensorial of
our bodies, which I think we learn very fast as humans,
(16:54):
so we can add incorporate in a place. But then
there are other parts. That is the is the mobility,
but it's then the sonic part two. So if you
move to a place that is the same language, then
(17:15):
you deal probably with different accents.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
So and that that's that's a.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
That's already creates a kind of interference in the interaction
and when you and when you don't know the language,
so you need to go through the food process of
learning the language, which is not necessarily to learn in maths.
Is something that is a life language, is something that
(17:42):
is a life voice is something so incorporated in our
way of perceiving ourselves and how others perceive ourselves.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
And our voice, but also the way in which we
say things and how that.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Is being accept it or not within the new environment
that we are trying to build, because we are trying
to build to be understood and to build a full story. Again,
depending of course of your level of migration, there are
so so many stories of migration.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
In terms of the sonic experience.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Particularly for me, I have migrated, let's say, in three
places in the world.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
First I went to Barcelona for two years. Then I
went back to my home country.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Also within my country, I migrated between cities, say from
a capital to a small city.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
That's also an.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Internal migration, and then I moved here and within these
twenty two years, two of those years I spent in Norway,
so I have experienced that again and again, including them
(19:01):
internal migrations within within the UK.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean there's so many things to
to come come back relating to that. So one of
the things that we do on the Home Sounds Project
is try to think about those questions, but relating them
to children, and particularly trying to understand the impact of
(19:35):
place or separation from place, or sense of security and
safety and familiarity, and what impact that has when you
are when you're young and you can't really you may
physically be able to you know, interpret it, or you
(19:56):
may you know, you're going to get used to what
it feels like to be in place, but you're not
really going to able to express it or explain it
or you know, sort of understand in intellectually, and the
legacy of that, how long those legacies might last, and
how they might affect your interactions with the world around
(20:17):
you as you get older. So how essentially how how
particularly and relating to sound, how it shapes your emotions,
your behavior, your attitudes to other people, your attitudes to
the world around you, in particularly in particular. And so
I'm interested to kind of to understand a little bit
(20:39):
more about that side of that less immediately understandable side
and how you think, how you feel what you're doing,
because I felt listening to your works and the talk
that you're trying to get to areas which are not
possible really to express by language, and you're trying to
kind of understand you'll experience that connection or the relationships
(21:03):
between people and places, and maybe you could talk, you
could talk a little bit about that from your perspective.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah. Wow, that that's an amazing universe to think about
that and very important.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
In my work.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Well, first of all, just the listening experiences, as thought
by Pauline Olivers, invites us to lose the rigidity that
we have built as adults in our body minds. And
(21:45):
when you lose the rigidity, we are invited a lot
to play within the deep listening work. So basically, adults
we become more like children in this in the.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Is practice and in.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And specifically when you were talking about that. I was
thinking of my work in TIMAL not only as the
technological platform that I have been building, but in the
focus in the cases study that I work, which is
my own migration. I work with nine Colombian women who
(22:25):
have migrated to Europe in these cities in Barcelona, London
and Oslo, and I work with the deep listening process
with them and towards improvisation, And in the improvisation I
proposed kind of a migratory journey. Were involved these forest spheres,
(22:50):
of forest spaces for them to explore.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
One was body sensations and many things to do with
body and feelings or sensing.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
The other was about social body, which involves family and friends,
but all of these relations that are also built in
childhood and native place and hosts at hostland. So when
they when they work on all of these many things
(23:26):
start to come in their memories also in a somehow
in a playful way, even if they were hard things.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
And then I had.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
A final performance of that experience with lots of technology,
with bodies breeding censors. They were listening to oral archives,
they were remembering.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
It was an exercise of.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Memory and it was really incredible how I was physically
in London in that in that performance, how they went
into what is it called and children's song? Children game?
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Riddle? Yes, yeah, I kind of riddle which.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
The three of them, I mean they are different generations.
They didn't knowe. I mean they made each others through
the process. But that was absolutely spontaneous. How they start
to play. Suddenly the performance space became a playground for
these three women in their forties and and suddenly with
(24:44):
a song that we all know, so that is part
of me and and they incorporated that with with memories
of conflict and so.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
So there are two issues here. I think one is how.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
As migrants we go back to childhood as as a
need to.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Sound and move those memories to remember who we are
or who we were in that now and and who
we are now.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
So it's very important to become to go back to this.
Of course, when you go back to childhood, then you
realize how safe, how hard was childhood.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
So there are so many issues of childhood.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Actually could be the reason to migrate, could be something
very deep hard in childhood.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Yeah, so I'm not something that you were involved in
the decision of. It's just something happened very much happens
to you.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yes, yes, so that that is childhood is the place
where well you are informed with so many aspects, but
the possibilities of talking, speaking or silencing or not being understood,
all of these things are so important. I actually wrote
(26:18):
an article together with Ed mckinn that was a conversation
about our migrations about voice and politics, and we in
our conversations we talk a lot.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
About these histories of childhood and.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
About in which moment you start to speak to communicate
actually with language, and these forms of language that only
our siblings understand, like certain gibberish that adults are not.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Understanding.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Sometimes it's because that happens. Sometimes it's because you want
to play and to have.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Your own universe.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
And I think these things actually uh now that I
say gibberish with with the intem well, the work in
Intimal is very big, but we we develop a workshop
in collaboration with two collaborators from the Intimal group, an
(27:21):
intimate collective, and we call it Gibberish heading Gonza, and
that's part of exploring also how we can communicate without words.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
And how also in my work.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
With the technology now jumping into the technology with with
breeding sensors.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
For example, people felt.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Felt each other's presence with those sounds that were coming
from breeding patterns, and and they were not necessarily understanding
they words, so they just were feeling an emotional process.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
Maybe we could just outline that for people listening. So
that's a performance that you did where you attached breathing
sensors to participants.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah, and then.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
Translated the experience into sound.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Yes, Yes, that was part of the Intimal system.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
So the Project Intimal broke lots of things, but the
original purpose is to build a system for relational listening,
meaning a technological system that is physical and virtual. And
how can we communicate using body movement? So the way
(28:57):
in which for that project body movement and is so
big and we can basically dance across distant locations. But
what I wanted is how meaningful is that for.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
The migration.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
So within all improvisations, it shows two movements that we're
walking and breathing. Walking and rotation as ways of funding
directions when you don't understand a place, and breathing as
a way of communicating presence. Even you don't need to
(29:34):
be forced to talk or even to move.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
But we are always breathing.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
It's interesting how the I suppose it's a fashion for
listening now is very very much a sort of you know,
it's of the meditative type, so it's sitting quietly. And
one of the things of trying trying to get across
(30:03):
with the work with Home Sounds project is that that
is a sort of that's a very introductory understanding of
what listening is and talking about the sort of the
relationship between movement and listening and how how those two
are actually one and the same thing. From the experiences
(30:23):
that we have on some of the walks we do
with young people, it's they would be very different if
that we were trying to do them. Well, you can't
do them if you've got young children, you know, seven, eight, nine, ten,
you know, trying to sit still for an hour, you know,
takes a lot of a lot of work, and that
(30:46):
a lot of the time when we do the work
it takes we have to be moving because the kids
need it, you know, they need to be moving around.
It's not it wouldn't be fair. Having said that, we
have found that when you give them the opportunity to
listen regularly and not done in a teachery way or
(31:06):
an adult way, but just providing them a safe space
in which to be quiet. For some children that maybe
have a lot going on in terms of I don't know,
difficulties at home, difficulties with other issues in their life,
(31:27):
that that what wants you. The kind of excess movement
that is often with those kids does start to disappear
and they and they want the time to sit, They
want the quiet time to sit and listen. So it's
this interesting backwards and forwards between whether somebody needs to
move or whether somebody needs to sit still in order
to be able to move, but then in order to
(31:47):
be able to sit still. You know, it's kind of
it's an interesting back and forth. And I was wondering
whether you could, from your perspective, talk a little bit
about that relationship between having between movement and how what
what it's telling you, your movement is telling you, and
then what the listening is it might be, what that
(32:08):
might be adding to your understanding of your body and
vice versa.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
You know, Yes, yes, I might refer to something called
well it is scientific, and then I.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Use it as a way of understanding actually what happened
in terms of body movement and sound in the performance
with with what I just said about the breeding sensors.
So there is a taxonomy of body movement developed by
Alexander Revsum Jensenius which goes from precisely stillness too, that
(32:53):
is the mic well micro movement, because we are never
fully in stillness, like never there is something that moves
in us, and all sounds and all musicals moves, which
is part of his research and the team of research
at the University of Oslo. And so it goes from
(33:16):
the micro movement which has certain millimeters of how much
do you move, then the meso movement which is the
walk for example, and then the micro movement which is
dancing and jumping for example. So what I what I
used to understand these in terms of sound? I was saying, okay,
(33:39):
what what happened?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
What did they did? What did they do?
Speaker 1 (33:43):
So basically breathing goes across.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
All these three.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Spaces of movement from micro, meso and macro, and then
there are different movements that happened there. So the the
stillness in the micro but also silence, and then the
walking also goes a lot with the base of speaking
(34:14):
mm hmm, and then the the macro it goes with
the dancing jumping.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
But also I was bringing this screaming all laughter.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Which there was lots of laughter in this so so
there was kind of explosive sounds the where the body
actually moves a lot, because when you are laughing.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Aloud, you move a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
So so I'm interested in this kind of inter relation
and also how breathing becomes a bridge between these movements
that brings all the emotions.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
And and this is for me like a little table
that I have there to bring back my artistic work.
For example, now that I have.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Developed an app to show the to show this concept,
it's called the intimal app. So people walk and according
to their pace of walk, you can hear a wave
of sound that is being sound, and then others create
(35:31):
these waves of sound and we across distant locations. We
can influence how we move at the pace, if it's
faster or slower. At the same time, I have learned
just with this app developing, that the way in which
I want that people speak is when they go into stillness.
(35:53):
So there is something else about cognition about doing things
at the same time. I mean, when you are walking
with the mobile phone where you can speak people speak,
and I think is different if you are with a
hand like that or if you have hands free. But
there are different studies about these relationships between walking and
(36:15):
talking and how the different rhythms of that, or or
jumping in silence. For example, people who train in dance
and when they work with me in terms of improvising,
they said, oh, as dancers, they told us not to.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Sound when we were dancing.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Yeah, So it's kind of what I have found is
that there is as children, we are extremely spontaneous and
we are just doing what is there.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
And I think a very good way to understand.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Is to look to look at you, to observe, to
observe what they are capable to do, how they want
to play, how they want to sound. There is a
screaming and a stillness, for example, So in terms of
my micro and micro they will be overlapped because because
(37:17):
you are in a stillness. So it's really complex. It's fascinating,
and I think breathing is a very is not necessarily
only two to be within the stillness the breeding, but
it's also how playfully that works when we move and
(37:41):
jump and play with the body and with others too,
because we are not alone.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
So and you can be more relaxed. Some people are
more relaxed when they are moving a lot.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Absolutely moving is super important.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
I think this.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
I mean there are so many meditation practices and you
can choose when to be in a stillness and when
to be in movement. My learnings from deep listening practice
is going across the whole spectrum of movement, so you
can do you can work with the stillness and of
(38:23):
course for children probably will be like one may not
listening in a stillness, but also then.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
A slow walk. That is a way of.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Meditation because it's awareness to your body, how.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
You can.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Perform each step and notice in your body, but also
then notice in your breathing, but also if you do
make that step, and then if you sound. So I
think with children there is lots of space room to
create very interesting games that involve joy, playfulness and awareness.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
When you just again for the people that are listening.
So in some of your performances, you have a group
of people in London, a group of people in you know,
South America, a group of people in Norway or something,
and they will be they will be They're able to
respond through the technology, they're able to respond to not
(39:40):
only what's going on where they are, but to the
places where other people are, so they might feel sounds
that's generated by the breathing senses on people, by their movements,
by the way they by the sounds that they make.
Or you also use oral archives of stories of experiences,
my creative experiences, and from some of those, and looking
(40:01):
at some of your talk and some of your talks
and some of your work, there seemed to be at
moments where there were kind of common experiences across these
different places where almost like they're moving together or sounding
together even though they're and that's only enabled by the technology.
Maybe you could talk a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Yes, yes, that's great. So specifically in the.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Performance of intimoltelematic performance where we were testing these technological developments.
So there were nine women participating in these three located
in Barcelona in a venue, three in Oslo in another venue,
(40:50):
and three in London in another venue. So they each
of them have a breathing censor, meaning an elastic and
place in their.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Stomachs that what is measured.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
It measures the data when when you breathe in and
you breathe out, basically and for each city. I work,
of course, not alone, but in collaboration with a big
team of PhD students and master students and post doc
colleagues at the University of Oslo, so master students from
(41:30):
the music technology and communications masters, a team of them.
They created these sounds where a composition between the three
in each city, the three breathing sensors create a sound that,
for our imagination, meant something to do with that city.
(41:55):
So each sound, let's say, each three breathing sense together,
they make a sound and that sound is being heard.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
In each of the cities.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Because in this venue, each venue has three loudest speakers,
so in each loudest speaker you you were able to
hear the sound of one of the cities, so even
your your own sounds. So the three improvisers were able
to say, oh, this is the sound that we are
(42:30):
making just by breathing. They don't have to do anything
else but just breathing. And of course the breeding changes
if you are in a stillness, or if you are talking,
if you are screaming, if you are laughing, and if
you are dancing or running, which is all.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Of that happened during the performance.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
So what was very interesting is that all of these
at the same time, because it was part of specific
work in Colombia post conflict and migrant and conflict memory.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
They were listening to.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Archives confidentially, I mean via headphones to archives collected by
the organization Diaspora Women, which I have worked with, these
archives and developer form that according to how they walk,
they trigger part of these voices in the archives, and
(43:30):
then they interrelate these voices, so those that was happening
in each.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Place at the same time.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Probably because they walk differently different rhythms, they were triggering
different things. So they were connected to this memory of
the country, but also they were connecting to their own migration.
There was a score, so first about their own stories,
then about the stories of the country, and all the
(43:58):
time they have the breeding sensors. As the performance that
lasted for thirty minutes happened. Also, there is a mix
of all what is happening, including voices that things that
they say, how they respond which are not being heard
(44:19):
by them within the distant locations. The only thing that
they hear about the distant locations is the breathing.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
Yes, this abstracts sensing and a different sensing.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
Yes, this is the only thing.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
So what is what was very incredible also for me
is that all these the only people who could hear
what was going on in the three venues at the
same time they were the online audience because everything was
mixed in obvious to go to YouTube and then when
(44:52):
you're listening YouTube, it's still there. There is There is
a moment in which the night in the I'm the
nine women, although there are so many disconnections and technology,
but they are laughing at the same time, and I
was wondering to say, what what is.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
That going on while they are laughing.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
They are in completely different stories, but they start to
laugh at the same time. And laughter then came into
the questions from the audience, and they said because laughter
is contagious.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
But they haven't realized all what happened. Only after when I.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Interview them again about what happened in the performance, they
were able to listen to the online version. They were
also surprised about that, and that's kind of them. The
beginning of my question about how we can communicate aid
(46:01):
with nonverbal language and and it went actually going back
to childhood. But I wrote about that in a in
an article exploring Julia Christeva's notion of shorta or koda
c h O r a, which is this communication that
(46:21):
happens between parents or usually it's the mother and the baby,
but I would say parents and baby, where you identify
the sounds, pre verbal sounds, so you identify if there
is pain, if there is joy, if if if if
the baby is hungry. You can identify these different things.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
And this is something term as as korda or short
and I found that was very interesting.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
A scholar at some point pointed me into that when
I was talking about this laughter, and then I explored
a bit more and that is a very beautiful way
to go across language, understanding of language, and across cultures
(47:13):
and are ways of understanding each other that are highly
emotional and that are preverable.
Speaker 4 (47:22):
That kind of leads on to again kind of a
modern fashion for nature connection. Let's say, you know, people
feeling that some sort of sense of loss and needing
to reconnect with the world around them, and that you know,
(47:45):
how do you do that when you can't talk? And yeah,
I'm interested because again in your work there's a sense
of people responding physically and for the story, the immense
influence of the environment around them, on their on their
(48:06):
on their bodies, and the way they talk, on the
stories they tell and the games they play, on the
emotions that the experience and all that that that side
of things. But this kind of great.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
You know that the old separate people you manage trying
to separate itself out be something different and then having
to to reconnect.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (48:26):
What's interesting is that from your work there's an element
of you can only do that by partly by reconnecting
with people in that way, in a way that is
non verbal.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Yes, hmm, that's that's that's very interesting.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Because that happens as we were talking about in that
performance that was highly let's say, with high technology, particularly
the breathing sensors. And then now that you in this
let's say a bit more or less technology. I mean
(49:06):
only the phone. I mean everything becomes high technology eventually,
but let's say the mobile phone. That is a technology
that we all have. And the way that I develop
this intimal app, which is what I've been now testing
with different groups. It's very simple but goes with the
(49:27):
same principle. So I don't have breathing sensors, but the work,
the rhythm of the steps creates this sound wave, and
that is creating a very interesting sense of connection for people. Originally,
(49:47):
in the first moment in which I developed the app,
I use a pre recorded material from the voices from
my previous word with Intimal, so.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
It was more about stories of women.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
But then I realized, and that was during the pandemic,
precisely when the whole world goes in this sense of laws,
which I have been trying to communicate from the experience
of migration, but now the sense of laws.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
For everyone.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
Also because the pandemic situation created something very similar in
terms of mobility, about laws, not being able to see
your family. So what happened with this frequency is that
you connect also because you can do it outdoors. So
(50:42):
the connections that are established are very incredible. People connect
with themselves, these frequencies become something super mysterious. They connect
with something that is going in their body or in
their minds body mind. They connect with the surroundings because
(51:04):
they are walking, so there is an awareness of that frequency,
either with the birds if they are in the park,
or with the water, or with the buses if they
are in very urban locations.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
But also they are connecting.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
With the others who are walking at the same time.
So there is a sense of presence that is further
than that what they imagine they could happen. There is
a possibility to record also in the app, but I.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
I mean, I use it. But I have been from
lots of words.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
To start to be less and less words. And I
notice people bring automato bays or more things.
Speaker 4 (51:57):
Like yeah, simple, simple, sounds childish.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Child exactly any And also because I have to invite
them into a sort of choreography.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
This is what I did this.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Year, where there is something specific that they will say
or talk. They need to know something specific because and
I'm trying to work with things that are very simple
like one word or repetitions which become sonic. So I say, okay,
(52:33):
repeat and repeat until it becomes something else. So I
have done different experiences for different groups of people, and
in each place is completely different. So what I know
about this is that yes, it connects. It connects in
a in a deep sense because you are listening. You
(52:56):
are not listening to something, but you are listening with it,
which is kind of the foremost of typicity. But but
this is this is mediated and and with the complexities
of body movement and also people can run or some
(53:18):
people realize with this intimal app that as you rotate
the frequencies change, so they start to like this game.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
So they have to go over and over to see
how far can go down in the frequency. I mean
this is the adults game.
Speaker 4 (53:37):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
So, yes, that that's super interesting because these particular simple
sounds which are the frequencies, are incredibly complex because we
are surrounded all the time by frequencies all the time.
Speaker 4 (54:02):
You've been listening to Thanks go to Jimena Alah Khan
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
(54:23):
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.
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Pretty to borrow. So uh m hm, so.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
You too, you too.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
At this story. Down the story to the story.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Cheers Skiers, yus or loss.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Alas alas Alas, Hiasino, Cimino.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Welcome home, everybody, 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 hosts for the show along with Rob.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
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 4 (01:49):
In this episode, the first of two which have been
created as part of Home Sounds is Lessons from Listening Series.
I talk with Jimena, a lacon bound artists researcher interested
in listening and sounding human sonic migrations and experiencing the
resonances left in between the borders we cross when we
(02:10):
tune in and meet others across distant locations. Throughout her career,
Jimena has created what she calls telematic sonic improvisations and
interfaces for relational listening in order to understand my greater
experience from a sensory perspective. Our conversation explores Himna's work,
(02:32):
the points of connection between this and Home Sounds, and
the subtle power of listening to cross physical border, cultural context,
political circumstance, and personal experience. So I thought maybe we
could just start. So this is part of a series
(02:55):
of talks that I'm trying to do called Lessons from Listening,
which is part of Home Sounds is educational remit really
and so so yeah, I thought we could start with
just maybe if you could give us sort of your
(03:16):
own introduction to yourself, you know, your and and sort
of where you are now, so that people can sort
of get an initial sense of who you are and
what you're doing.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Okay, thank you, Martin. I am.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
I'm a sound artist working with listening experiences and expanding
forms of listening which are mostly mediated across distant locations.
So I have been for many years opening creative platforms,
(04:00):
created place spaces for people to improvise across distant locations
across the planet, mediated with the Internet and and to sound.
This in betweens between geographical distances and cultures and borders,
(04:22):
and it's something that I have called sonic migrations, which is.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Still kind of trying to to understand.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
But whatever is there is that it's kind of the
resonance that is left in between distant locations. And I
have found technologies, networking technologies, telematics as forms of helping
to listen to this in between space and UH. And
this this UH is supported by research by practices such
(04:58):
as deep listening, and I have used platforms that are
already there, and I since five years ago, I've been
developing my own platform, which is called Intima Interfaces for
Relational Listening, which is a way to experience sensing place
(05:21):
with body movement and the physical place where you are,
and sensing presence of feeling the presence of others, humans
and more than humans across distant locations.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
So yes, this is in a nutshell, that's a very
good nutshell, very very good, a very good description. So
I thought it might be useful for the audience to
maybe just get an initial sense of some of the
terminology that we might use, so things you know, like
(05:54):
you know, deep listening for those people that aren't aware
of it or telematics or and the terms you have
coined to describe your work too. I thought that might
be useful for people listening, So maybe you could give
us a brief review of some of the key concepts.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
That's very good. Yes. Deep listening deep listening is is.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
A term used in many cultures. Is kind of an
ancient terms in many cultures associated with meditation. The deep
listening I'm talking about it is associated with meditation, but
its specifically the deep listening practice developed by the composer
Pauline Oliverus, which she developed it incorporating listening meditations, full
(06:50):
body listening inviting us to listen with the full body.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Energy body.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Exercise iis, and dream dream work or listening in dreams.
So the practice of listening as much as you can
humanly can during the twenty four hours. This is deep
listening deep listening, Polynodiverous.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Deep listening.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Telematic is the form of connecting communicating across the distance tele.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
And using computers.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
You can find associated terms like telematic music on network music,
or telematic art or telematic performance.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
This has been taking since we are using.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Distant communication, actually involving also radio, but let's say, involving
networks by many artists working with sound and also with
the dance or body experience.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
And this takes share in many, many different forms.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
The forming which I am interested in telematic is in
improvisatory performance, which I call sonic. So I don't call
it music directly, because I'm interested in working with people
who are not necessarily trained in music as we know
(08:33):
music traditional music. So it's also transmitting the full body.
So telematic for me is the sonic. The sonic is
the vibration. The listening is all this complexity that happens
within the listening experience, which is complex enough when you
(08:53):
listen in a site in a physical location, but when
you try to listen to resistant locations. There is this
mediation that we have right now, and it doesn't depends
on our devices, the computers, the way that we are
listening to our headphones, but also about all the network
connections and the delay and how good or bad is
(09:16):
the network. So all of that is interesting to me
because I find that telematic mission and interaction, as well
as actually dream environments coming from deep listening are for
me metaphors and vehicles of our own migrations. So and
(09:41):
then I moved to what I have coin, which is
sonic migration. I when I started to work with paulin
Ulverarius with deep listening, I wanted to go deeper in
my listening. And she asked me what would you like
to listen to and I said, I want to listen
to my migration. That means my geographical migration. I am
(10:04):
from Colombia, living in the UK for twenty two years,
with two years away in Norway. By the total here
like twenty two years. So and even if all the
time in my art before I said this is about migration,
I was working with networking with mobility, with trains. I
(10:29):
was listening a lot to trains and commuting experiences. Listening, yeah,
commuting experiences. So I spent that about seven years and
exploring how this train technology, mobility technology is also that
we also embodied. And then I moved to the network
(10:52):
and I said, I want to listen to the migrations
using deep listening and using telemantic. And this is what
I've been doing with groups of people, developing narratives of
migration and at.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
The same time.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Understanding what is it that that sounds When I share
my soundings and you listen and you resonate with my soundings.
And that I have explored experience with the surrounding environment.
How strange it is when we move. When we migrate,
(11:37):
many things changed, and also voice language, which is part
of our our identity, of our many identities. So there
is something that changes, and it's so important to listen
to this just to have a balance of the big
(12:01):
loss that anyone who migrates between geographies with more or
less traumatic situations experience. So so that's what I call
soonic migration. And uh I have eventually said is what
is in between?
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Its left in.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Between is the resonance. It's not the here or there
is to be in this resonance.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
And and then intimate.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Is the technology of the platform that that I want
I'm being developing to to listen to those resonances, but
with full body movement or not necessarily full body movement,
but at least with somebody movement that is meaningful for
(12:54):
for what I'm trying to get. And and then I
have been exploring with intimal intimal is interfaces for relational listening.
And then I also said what is relational listening and
how difficult, different, well, difficult, but different is from deep listening.
(13:17):
So there are many other authors and scholars artists who
have talked about relation and listening. In my case, relation
and listening, I approached it as the negotiation between sense
of place, sensing the physical place like I'm here in
(13:39):
the UK in Bath actually, and sensing distant locations, either
the location where you are right now. I'm not sure
if it's exactly Norwidge, it's just outside knowledge and everything
that you could transmit from that location, whatever I perceive,
(14:03):
but also the locations that are in my memory, which
is usually to do with the native place.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Yeah, well fascinating, Thank you, Thank you very much. There
are so many things to explore there. Maybe we could
talk a little bit about your what it is about
the migratory experience that triggers your interest in trying to
(14:34):
build relations across distances. There's obviously there's some there's a
kind of conflict between the sense of constant movement of
migration and then also trying to remain still to sense
movement or be aware of your surroundings where you are.
Your sense of place. How you develop a sense of places,
(14:55):
generally by trying trying to be still or absorb that
sense of place to yourself. But that's a that that
clashes with the notion and migration of constant movement or
being forced to move. So what what what is it
about the experience that really? I mean, where does it
come from for you? Maybe? But maybe you could talk
(15:16):
a little bit about about that.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
M that's a very interesting question. Let's see.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yes, it's about movement and it's about a stillness.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I think is not that easy to be in a
stillness in general?
Speaker 1 (15:42):
In general there isn't an issue with with the stillness.
But in terms of migration, I think there is something
that we leave a place that we knew, the core
innates that we knew, and sensorial coordinates too. We need
(16:05):
we knew how to move in that space because it's
a space. Probably we were born or we spent many
years in a place and we learned how to move
that involves full body movement, space and how to interact with.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
The space and with people in the space. When we
when we.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Change voluntarily or forced, everything changes our our speciality, our
sense of interaction with others. It's something really sensorial of
our bodies, which I think we learn very fast as humans,
(16:54):
so we can add incorporate in a place. But then
there are other parts. That is the is the mobility,
but it's then the sonic part two. So if you
move to a place that is the same language, then
(17:15):
you deal probably with different accents.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
So and that that's that's a.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
That's already creates a kind of interference in the interaction
and when you and when you don't know the language,
so you need to go through the food process of
learning the language, which is not necessarily to learn in maths.
Is something that is a life language, is something that
(17:42):
is a life voice is something so incorporated in our
way of perceiving ourselves and how others perceive ourselves.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
And our voice, but also the way in which we
say things and how that.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Is being accept it or not within the new environment
that we are trying to build, because we are trying
to build to be understood and to build a full story. Again,
depending of course of your level of migration, there are
so so many stories of migration.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
In terms of the sonic experience.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Particularly for me, I have migrated, let's say, in three
places in the world.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
First I went to Barcelona for two years. Then I
went back to my home country.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Also within my country, I migrated between cities, say from
a capital to a small city.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
That's also an.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Internal migration, and then I moved here and within these
twenty two years, two of those years I spent in Norway,
so I have experienced that again and again, including them
(19:01):
internal migrations within within the UK.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean there's so many things to
to come come back relating to that. So one of
the things that we do on the Home Sounds Project
is try to think about those questions, but relating them
to children, and particularly trying to understand the impact of
(19:35):
place or separation from place, or sense of security and
safety and familiarity, and what impact that has when you
are when you're young and you can't really you may
physically be able to you know, interpret it, or you
(19:56):
may you know, you're going to get used to what
it feels like to be in place, but you're not
really going to able to express it or explain it
or you know, sort of understand in intellectually, and the
legacy of that, how long those legacies might last, and
how they might affect your interactions with the world around
(20:17):
you as you get older. So how essentially how how
particularly and relating to sound, how it shapes your emotions,
your behavior, your attitudes to other people, your attitudes to
the world around you, in particularly in particular. And so
I'm interested to kind of to understand a little bit
(20:39):
more about that side of that less immediately understandable side
and how you think, how you feel what you're doing,
because I felt listening to your works and the talk
that you're trying to get to areas which are not
possible really to express by language, and you're trying to
kind of understand you'll experience that connection or the relationships
(21:03):
between people and places, and maybe you could talk, you
could talk a little bit about that from your perspective.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Yeah. Wow, that that's an amazing universe to think about
that and very important.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
In my work.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Well, first of all, just the listening experiences, as thought
by Pauline Olivers, invites us to lose the rigidity that
we have built as adults in our body minds. And
(21:45):
when you lose the rigidity, we are invited a lot
to play within the deep listening work. So basically, adults
we become more like children in this in the.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Is practice and in.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
And specifically when you were talking about that. I was
thinking of my work in TIMAL not only as the
technological platform that I have been building, but in the
focus in the cases study that I work, which is
my own migration. I work with nine Colombian women who
(22:25):
have migrated to Europe in these cities in Barcelona, London
and Oslo, and I work with the deep listening process
with them and towards improvisation, And in the improvisation I
proposed kind of a migratory journey. Were involved these forest spheres,
(22:50):
of forest spaces for them to explore.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
One was body sensations and many things to do with
body and feelings or sensing.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
The other was about social body, which involves family and friends,
but all of these relations that are also built in
childhood and native place and hosts at hostland. So when
they when they work on all of these many things
(23:26):
start to come in their memories also in a somehow
in a playful way, even if they were hard things.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
And then I had.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
A final performance of that experience with lots of technology,
with bodies breeding censors. They were listening to oral archives,
they were remembering.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
It was an exercise of.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Memory and it was really incredible how I was physically
in London in that in that performance, how they went
into what is it called and children's song? Children game?
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Riddle? Yes, yeah, I kind of riddle which.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
The three of them, I mean they are different generations.
They didn't knowe. I mean they made each others through
the process. But that was absolutely spontaneous. How they start
to play. Suddenly the performance space became a playground for
these three women in their forties and and suddenly with
(24:44):
a song that we all know, so that is part
of me and and they incorporated that with with memories
of conflict and so.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
So there are two issues here. I think one is how.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
As migrants we go back to childhood as as a
need to.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Sound and move those memories to remember who we are
or who we were in that now and and who
we are now.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
So it's very important to become to go back to this.
Of course, when you go back to childhood, then you
realize how safe, how hard was childhood.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
So there are so many issues of childhood.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Actually could be the reason to migrate, could be something
very deep hard in childhood.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Yeah, so I'm not something that you were involved in
the decision of. It's just something happened very much happens
to you.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yes, yes, so that that is childhood is the place
where well you are informed with so many aspects, but
the possibilities of talking, speaking or silencing or not being understood,
all of these things are so important. I actually wrote
(26:18):
an article together with Ed mckinn that was a conversation
about our migrations about voice and politics, and we in
our conversations we talk a lot.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
About these histories of childhood and.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
About in which moment you start to speak to communicate
actually with language, and these forms of language that only
our siblings understand, like certain gibberish that adults are not.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
Understanding.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Sometimes it's because that happens. Sometimes it's because you want
to play and to have.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Your own universe.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
And I think these things actually uh now that I
say gibberish with with the intem well, the work in
Intimal is very big, but we we develop a workshop
in collaboration with two collaborators from the Intimal group, an
(27:21):
intimate collective, and we call it Gibberish heading Gonza, and
that's part of exploring also how we can communicate without words.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
And how also in my work.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
With the technology now jumping into the technology with with
breeding sensors.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
For example, people felt.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Felt each other's presence with those sounds that were coming
from breeding patterns, and and they were not necessarily understanding
they words, so they just were feeling an emotional process.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
Maybe we could just outline that for people listening. So
that's a performance that you did where you attached breathing
sensors to participants.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah, and then.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
Translated the experience into sound.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Yes, Yes, that was part of the Intimal system.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
So the Project Intimal broke lots of things, but the
original purpose is to build a system for relational listening,
meaning a technological system that is physical and virtual. And
how can we communicate using body movement? So the way
(28:57):
in which for that project body movement and is so
big and we can basically dance across distant locations. But
what I wanted is how meaningful is that for.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
The migration.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
So within all improvisations, it shows two movements that we're
walking and breathing. Walking and rotation as ways of funding
directions when you don't understand a place, and breathing as
a way of communicating presence. Even you don't need to
(29:34):
be forced to talk or even to move.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
But we are always breathing.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
It's interesting how the I suppose it's a fashion for
listening now is very very much a sort of you know,
it's of the meditative type, so it's sitting quietly. And
one of the things of trying trying to get across
(30:03):
with the work with Home Sounds project is that that
is a sort of that's a very introductory understanding of
what listening is and talking about the sort of the
relationship between movement and listening and how how those two
are actually one and the same thing. From the experiences
(30:23):
that we have on some of the walks we do
with young people, it's they would be very different if
that we were trying to do them. Well, you can't
do them if you've got young children, you know, seven, eight, nine, ten,
you know, trying to sit still for an hour, you know,
takes a lot of a lot of work, and that
(30:46):
a lot of the time when we do the work
it takes we have to be moving because the kids
need it, you know, they need to be moving around.
It's not it wouldn't be fair. Having said that, we
have found that when you give them the opportunity to
listen regularly and not done in a teachery way or
(31:06):
an adult way, but just providing them a safe space
in which to be quiet. For some children that maybe
have a lot going on in terms of I don't know,
difficulties at home, difficulties with other issues in their life,
(31:27):
that that what wants you. The kind of excess movement
that is often with those kids does start to disappear
and they and they want the time to sit, They
want the quiet time to sit and listen. So it's
this interesting backwards and forwards between whether somebody needs to
move or whether somebody needs to sit still in order
to be able to move, but then in order to
(31:47):
be able to sit still. You know, it's kind of
it's an interesting back and forth. And I was wondering
whether you could, from your perspective, talk a little bit
about that relationship between having between movement and how what
what it's telling you, your movement is telling you, and
then what the listening is it might be, what that
(32:08):
might be adding to your understanding of your body and
vice versa.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
You know, Yes, yes, I might refer to something called
well it is scientific, and then I.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Use it as a way of understanding actually what happened
in terms of body movement and sound in the performance
with with what I just said about the breeding sensors.
So there is a taxonomy of body movement developed by
Alexander Revsum Jensenius which goes from precisely stillness too, that
(32:53):
is the mic well micro movement, because we are never
fully in stillness, like never there is something that moves
in us, and all sounds and all musicals moves, which
is part of his research and the team of research
at the University of Oslo. And so it goes from
(33:16):
the micro movement which has certain millimeters of how much
do you move, then the meso movement which is the
walk for example, and then the micro movement which is
dancing and jumping for example. So what I what I
used to understand these in terms of sound? I was saying, okay,
(33:39):
what what happened?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
What did they did? What did they do?
Speaker 1 (33:43):
So basically breathing goes across.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
All these three.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Spaces of movement from micro, meso and macro, and then
there are different movements that happened there. So the the
stillness in the micro but also silence, and then the
walking also goes a lot with the base of speaking
(34:14):
mm hmm, and then the the macro it goes with
the dancing jumping.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
But also I was bringing this screaming all laughter.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Which there was lots of laughter in this so so
there was kind of explosive sounds the where the body
actually moves a lot, because when you are laughing.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Aloud, you move a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
So so I'm interested in this kind of inter relation
and also how breathing becomes a bridge between these movements
that brings all the emotions.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
And and this is for me like a little table
that I have there to bring back my artistic work.
For example, now that I have.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Developed an app to show the to show this concept,
it's called the intimal app. So people walk and according
to their pace of walk, you can hear a wave
of sound that is being sound, and then others create
(35:31):
these waves of sound and we across distant locations. We
can influence how we move at the pace, if it's
faster or slower. At the same time, I have learned
just with this app developing, that the way in which
I want that people speak is when they go into stillness.
(35:53):
So there is something else about cognition about doing things
at the same time. I mean, when you are walking
with the mobile phone where you can speak people speak,
and I think is different if you are with a
hand like that or if you have hands free. But
there are different studies about these relationships between walking and
(36:15):
talking and how the different rhythms of that, or or
jumping in silence. For example, people who train in dance
and when they work with me in terms of improvising,
they said, oh, as dancers, they told us not to.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Sound when we were dancing.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Yeah, So it's kind of what I have found is
that there is as children, we are extremely spontaneous and
we are just doing what is there.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
And I think a very good way to understand.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Is to look to look at you, to observe, to
observe what they are capable to do, how they want
to play, how they want to sound. There is a
screaming and a stillness, for example, So in terms of
my micro and micro they will be overlapped because because
(37:17):
you are in a stillness. So it's really complex. It's fascinating,
and I think breathing is a very is not necessarily
only two to be within the stillness the breeding, but
it's also how playfully that works when we move and
(37:41):
jump and play with the body and with others too,
because we are not alone.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
So and you can be more relaxed. Some people are
more relaxed when they are moving a lot.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Absolutely moving is super important.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
I think this.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
I mean there are so many meditation practices and you
can choose when to be in a stillness and when
to be in movement. My learnings from deep listening practice
is going across the whole spectrum of movement, so you
can do you can work with the stillness and of
(38:23):
course for children probably will be like one may not
listening in a stillness, but also then.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
A slow walk. That is a way of.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Meditation because it's awareness to your body, how.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
You can.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Perform each step and notice in your body, but also
then notice in your breathing, but also if you do
make that step, and then if you sound. So I
think with children there is lots of space room to
create very interesting games that involve joy, playfulness and awareness.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
When you just again for the people that are listening.
So in some of your performances, you have a group
of people in London, a group of people in you know,
South America, a group of people in Norway or something,
and they will be they will be They're able to
respond through the technology, they're able to respond to not
(39:40):
only what's going on where they are, but to the
places where other people are, so they might feel sounds
that's generated by the breathing senses on people, by their movements,
by the way they by the sounds that they make.
Or you also use oral archives of stories of experiences,
my creative experiences, and from some of those, and looking
(40:01):
at some of your talk and some of your talks
and some of your work, there seemed to be at
moments where there were kind of common experiences across these
different places where almost like they're moving together or sounding
together even though they're and that's only enabled by the technology.
Maybe you could talk a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Yes, yes, that's great. So specifically in the.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Performance of intimoltelematic performance where we were testing these technological developments.
So there were nine women participating in these three located
in Barcelona in a venue, three in Oslo in another venue,
(40:50):
and three in London in another venue. So they each
of them have a breathing censor, meaning an elastic and
place in their.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Stomachs that what is measured.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
It measures the data when when you breathe in and
you breathe out, basically and for each city. I work,
of course, not alone, but in collaboration with a big
team of PhD students and master students and post doc
colleagues at the University of Oslo, so master students from
(41:30):
the music technology and communications masters, a team of them.
They created these sounds where a composition between the three
in each city, the three breathing sensors create a sound that,
for our imagination, meant something to do with that city.
(41:55):
So each sound, let's say, each three breathing sense together,
they make a sound and that sound is being heard.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
In each of the cities.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Because in this venue, each venue has three loudest speakers,
so in each loudest speaker you you were able to
hear the sound of one of the cities, so even
your your own sounds. So the three improvisers were able
to say, oh, this is the sound that we are
(42:30):
making just by breathing. They don't have to do anything
else but just breathing. And of course the breeding changes
if you are in a stillness, or if you are talking,
if you are screaming, if you are laughing, and if
you are dancing or running, which is all.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Of that happened during the performance.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
So what was very interesting is that all of these
at the same time, because it was part of specific
work in Colombia post conflict and migrant and conflict memory.
Speaker 3 (43:05):
They were listening to.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Archives confidentially, I mean via headphones to archives collected by
the organization Diaspora Women, which I have worked with, these
archives and developer form that according to how they walk,
they trigger part of these voices in the archives, and
(43:30):
then they interrelate these voices, so those that was happening
in each.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Place at the same time.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Probably because they walk differently different rhythms, they were triggering
different things. So they were connected to this memory of
the country, but also they were connecting to their own migration.
There was a score, so first about their own stories,
then about the stories of the country, and all the
(43:58):
time they have the breeding sensors. As the performance that
lasted for thirty minutes happened. Also, there is a mix
of all what is happening, including voices that things that
they say, how they respond which are not being heard
(44:19):
by them within the distant locations. The only thing that
they hear about the distant locations is the breathing.
Speaker 4 (44:25):
Yes, this abstracts sensing and a different sensing.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
Yes, this is the only thing.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
So what is what was very incredible also for me
is that all these the only people who could hear
what was going on in the three venues at the
same time they were the online audience because everything was
mixed in obvious to go to YouTube and then when
(44:52):
you're listening YouTube, it's still there. There is There is
a moment in which the night in the I'm the
nine women, although there are so many disconnections and technology,
but they are laughing at the same time, and I
was wondering to say, what what is.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
That going on while they are laughing.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
They are in completely different stories, but they start to
laugh at the same time. And laughter then came into
the questions from the audience, and they said because laughter
is contagious.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
But they haven't realized all what happened. Only after when I.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
Interview them again about what happened in the performance, they
were able to listen to the online version. They were
also surprised about that, and that's kind of them. The
beginning of my question about how we can communicate aid
(46:01):
with nonverbal language and and it went actually going back
to childhood. But I wrote about that in a in
an article exploring Julia Christeva's notion of shorta or koda
c h O r a, which is this communication that
(46:21):
happens between parents or usually it's the mother and the baby,
but I would say parents and baby, where you identify
the sounds, pre verbal sounds, so you identify if there
is pain, if there is joy, if if if if
the baby is hungry. You can identify these different things.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
And this is something term as as korda or short
and I found that was very interesting.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
A scholar at some point pointed me into that when
I was talking about this laughter, and then I explored
a bit more and that is a very beautiful way
to go across language, understanding of language, and across cultures
(47:13):
and are ways of understanding each other that are highly
emotional and that are preverable.
Speaker 4 (47:22):
That kind of leads on to again kind of a
modern fashion for nature connection. Let's say, you know, people
feeling that some sort of sense of loss and needing
to reconnect with the world around them, and that you know,
(47:45):
how do you do that when you can't talk? And yeah,
I'm interested because again in your work there's a sense
of people responding physically and for the story, the immense
influence of the environment around them, on their on their
(48:06):
on their bodies, and the way they talk, on the
stories they tell and the games they play, on the
emotions that the experience and all that that that side
of things. But this kind of great.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (48:17):
You know that the old separate people you manage trying
to separate itself out be something different and then having
to to reconnect.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (48:26):
What's interesting is that from your work there's an element
of you can only do that by partly by reconnecting
with people in that way, in a way that is
non verbal.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
Yes, hmm, that's that's that's very interesting.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Because that happens as we were talking about in that
performance that was highly let's say, with high technology, particularly
the breathing sensors. And then now that you in this
let's say a bit more or less technology. I mean
(49:06):
only the phone. I mean everything becomes high technology eventually,
but let's say the mobile phone. That is a technology
that we all have. And the way that I develop
this intimal app, which is what I've been now testing
with different groups. It's very simple but goes with the
(49:27):
same principle. So I don't have breathing sensors, but the work,
the rhythm of the steps creates this sound wave, and
that is creating a very interesting sense of connection for people. Originally,
(49:47):
in the first moment in which I developed the app,
I use a pre recorded material from the voices from
my previous word with Intimal, so.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
It was more about stories of women.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
But then I realized, and that was during the pandemic,
precisely when the whole world goes in this sense of laws,
which I have been trying to communicate from the experience
of migration, but now the sense of laws.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
For everyone.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
Also because the pandemic situation created something very similar in
terms of mobility, about laws, not being able to see
your family. So what happened with this frequency is that
you connect also because you can do it outdoors. So
(50:42):
the connections that are established are very incredible. People connect
with themselves, these frequencies become something super mysterious. They connect
with something that is going in their body or in
their minds body mind. They connect with the surroundings because
(51:04):
they are walking, so there is an awareness of that frequency,
either with the birds if they are in the park,
or with the water, or with the buses if they
are in very urban locations.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
But also they are connecting.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
With the others who are walking at the same time.
So there is a sense of presence that is further
than that what they imagine they could happen. There is
a possibility to record also in the app, but I.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
I mean, I use it. But I have been from
lots of words.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
To start to be less and less words. And I
notice people bring automato bays or more things.
Speaker 4 (51:57):
Like yeah, simple, simple, sounds childish.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
Child exactly any And also because I have to invite
them into a sort of choreography.
Speaker 3 (52:11):
This is what I did this.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Year, where there is something specific that they will say
or talk. They need to know something specific because and
I'm trying to work with things that are very simple
like one word or repetitions which become sonic. So I say, okay,
(52:33):
repeat and repeat until it becomes something else. So I
have done different experiences for different groups of people, and
in each place is completely different. So what I know
about this is that yes, it connects. It connects in
a in a deep sense because you are listening. You
(52:56):
are not listening to something, but you are listening with it,
which is kind of the foremost of typicity. But but
this is this is mediated and and with the complexities
of body movement and also people can run or some
(53:18):
people realize with this intimal app that as you rotate
the frequencies change, so they start to like this game.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
So they have to go over and over to see
how far can go down in the frequency. I mean
this is the adults game.
Speaker 4 (53:37):
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
So, yes, that that's super interesting because these particular simple
sounds which are the frequencies, are incredibly complex because we
are surrounded all the time by frequencies all the time.
Speaker 4 (54:02):
You've been listening to Thanks go to Jimena Alah Khan
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
(54:23):
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.
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