S03E21: Listening to the In-Between Part I: Introducing Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening

In 2021 we made the podcast-series Sounding Places, Listening Places, which is still available at Radio ArtEZ. In it we explored how sound and listening can contribute to realizing more sustainable and reciprocal relations with the earth. Back then, we already dipped our toes in the world of Deep Listening®. In the three-part podcast series Listening to the In-Between we will put this rich practice into a broader context.

In Part I researcher and music journalist Joep Christenhusz explores Deep Listening, its connection to space and time, and the interrelations between the outer and the inner world the practice reveals through sonic awareness. He enters into conversations with Ed McKeon and Ximena Alarcón, who are well-experienced deep listeners. Alarcón describes the INTIMAL App© that she has developed over the last years.

The podcast forms a good introduction to the event around Pauline Oliveros’s Deep Listening practice on Wednesday October 5, hosted by ArtEZ Studium Generale in collaboration with Corpo-real, the master Interior Architecture at ArtEZ.

In our second episode, that will appear later this year, Deep Listener Sharon Stewart will guide you through practical Deep Listening exercises and open up the possibility for creating our own listening scores. In the third and last part we will dive deeper into theoretical concepts related to Deep Listening.

 

Show Notes

In the podcast you hear the following audio fragments:

 

Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Panaiotis, Album Deep Listening, track 1, ‘Lear’. Reproduced by permission of PoP and MoM Publications (Pauline Oliveros Publications & Ministry of Maåt)

All Rights Reserved. Members ASCAP.

 

Early Improvisations with Pauline Oliveros, Loren Rush, Terry Riley, and Others, 1957. Internet Archive.  

Link: https://archive.org/details/C_1957_XX_XX/4_P07256-ORR-improv4.aiff

 

Recording Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, Bjorn Eriksson.

Link: https://youtu.be/clRiT8_7zWg

 

Instructions for the Extreme Slow Walk come from Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice, Lincoln: NE (Deep Listening Publications / iUniverse, 2005), 20. Reproduced by permission of PoP and MoM Publications (Pauline Oliveros Publications & Ministry of Maåt). All Rights Reserved. Members ASCAP.

Dreaming while awake: a network of presence is a piece developed using the INTIMAL App© with the participation of eight walkers/improvisers/dreamers who joined Ximena Alarcón on April 10 and 11 2022 to listen for place and presence. This was part of the three concerts curated by Sarah Weaver at the Earth Day Art Model Telematic Festival, April 22. 

 

Reading and Listening

PhD-thesis Ed McKeon: http://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/13406/1/Ed%20McKeon%20PhD%20Thesis%20published_Final%20version_Submitted%20Jul%202021_Final%20Award%20Nov%202021.pdf

Backgrounds Avatar Orchestra Metaverse: http://avatarorchestra.org/

 

Links

Links Cage's 4'33”:

• Reinbert de Leeuw’s performance on prime time Dutch Television, including fragments of an orchestral version (3:39) and Cage against the machine (4:41). De Leeuw starts at 6:00: https://youtu.be/YMh_0KizEM8
• Cage performing it, explicitly outside the concert situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je30JCQNtIw
• John Cage, Official Website: https://johncage.org/
• 4’33” app: https://johncage.org/4_33.html

 

Ximena Alarcon, site: https://www.ximenaalarcon.net/

INTIMAL Project: https://www.ximenaalarcon.net/intimal-project