INTIMAL: Interfaces for Relational Listening

Deep Listening, INTIMAL App©, Listening Ritual

Tuning in with Silence(s) in Eindhoven, STRP 2023

Listening Ritual “Tuning in with Silence(s)” in Scenario 22. STRP Festival 2023. Eindhoven. Photos by STRP Festival.

I was invited to participate in the STRP Scenario 22 curated by Martina Raponi and Nadine Roestenburg, to perform a Deep Listening ritual in the context of a reflection on “impossible absences”, departing from experiences of deafness and neurodiversity, expanding possibilities of listening across perceived silences. I invited listeners to tune in with silence by walking in their own rhythm as if Dreaming, Soft Gazing Stars and Stepping on Ancient Roots, using the INTIMAL App©.

Listening Ritual “Tuning in with Silence(s)” in Scenario 22. STRP Festival 2023. Eindhoven. Photos by STRP Festival.

In Eindhoven, the ritual occurred in a city’s “backstage” space. Surrounded by office buildings, a car park and a glance of trains arriving or leaving the station about 40 people walked and voiced their silence: humming, ssshhing, singing, and bringing to the collective experience one or two words, to navigate across ideas of silence in-between a diversity of tunings.

The Scenario was in verbal silence, words were only staged by the presenters. Participants were in silence and listening to all sounds and voices amplified via Silent Disco, which made me speak more quietly knowing my voice was directly transmitted in people’s ears. Many thanks to the listeners in this ritual, as well as the speakers in the scenario Véronique Leduc, Sarah Heussaff, and David Toop, and the chair Josué Amador Valdez.

Scenario 22. STRP Festival 2023. Eindhoven. Photos by STRP Festival and courtesy of Pablo Sanz.

Thanks to the STRP Festival for the amazing organisation and support to make this experience smooth and deep for people. Here there is an after-movie of the STRP Festival 2023.

Academic-Dissemination, INTIMAL App©, Sonic Migrations

Sonic Migrations through the INTIMAL App: RCS Talk 24/10/22

I am very grateful for the invitation to talk at Exchange Talks, at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, on the last 24th of October. Thanks to Dr. Benjamin Redman, for the invitation, and to Dr J Simon van der Walt, for chairing the talk and the Q&A questions. Thanks to the attendees and your questions and comments regarding the use of the INTIMAL App in the Listening of Sonic Migrations, to work with family stories of migrants and the healing potential of this artistic intervention. Also the consideration to migratory animals, such as birds, which start to awake more and more in people’s aural journeys these days. The enthusiasm received in this talk, as well as the welcoming of the sonic alternatives that come with a lower budget, bringing an accessible tool, are really welcome.

A link to the recording of my talk is here.

Dissemination, INTIMAL App©, Panels

Yarmonics Sound Festival Talk 23/09/22

Talk with Martin Scaiff @ St. George Theatre. Great Yarmouth. Yarmonics Festival. Photo by Ranieri Spina

I am very grateful for the invitation to Yarmonics Festival in Great Yarmouth. The festival is a gathering creating sense of place at Great Yarmouth, through sound and listening. I offered a talk about the INTIMAL embodied system for relational listening, as a set of technologies to listen to what I have called “Sonic Migrations”.

The panel on which I talked was focused on Sound and Health and was chaired by Martin Scaiff. AM Kanngieser connected via Zoom to offer her talk. Martin’s talk focused on the experience of listening activities with children and teenagers, while AM Kanngeiser on the awareness of consent for listening/recording marine creatures’ sounds. I found both talks fascinating as they expressed an urgency of exploring these listenings for sustainable futures.

I received wonderful feedback and questions such as “what would be my ideal interface”, and “how do I negotiate place and presence” with Quantum listening. My ideal interface might be one that reinforces my individual and collective agency while I move with others co-present and across the distance. Regarding location, I still strive for sensing a balance, in which I remain grounded even across the distance. A technology that reminds me about the practice and reinforces the multiple possibilities of being that Pauline Oliveros invited us to explore. Still practising, and listening in the practice.

Thanks again for such a wonderful event!

Great Yarmouth Sea. The ‘easternmost’ that you can be in England. Photo by Ximena Alarcón.

Academic-Dissemination, INTIMAL App©, Publications

“Breathing (as Listening): an emotional bridge for telepresence”, chapter in “The Body in Sound, Music and Performance” book

I am so happy to announce that I have my chapter “Breathing (as Listening): An Emotional Bridge for Telepresence” included in this unique book “The Body in Sound, Music and Performance. Studies in Audio and Sonic Arts” edited by Linda O Keefe and Isabel Nogueira.

“Through eliciting and compiling new writings from a formidable list of women with broad and diverse sound practices and expertise, O Keeffe and Nogueira have produced an intriguing volume”. Pamela Z

It includes book chapter contributions from an amazing selection of women, including Heather Frasch, @laurenhayes, @raquelstolf, Sanne Krogh Groth, Tânia Neiva, Irene Revell, @Luciana Lyra, Ida Mara Freire, Antye Greie- Ripatti (AGF/ poemproducer), Laila Rosa and @adrianagabrielasantostexeira, Lílian Campesato and Valéria Bonafé, Cat Hope, Susie Green and Margaret Schedel, @irinerosnes, Sophie Knezic, Ximena Alarcon, Sandra Pauletto.

I was honoured to be a keynote for the launch of this tremendous book! Thanks for the wonderful launch Linda O Keefe Isabel Nogueira and speakers Valéria Bonafé Lílian Campesato Heather Frasch, Sandra Pauletto, Jennifer Lynn Stoever & Liana Silva, and the workshop by Susie Green and Margaret Schedel! Really honoured to be the keynote speaker, thanks to all. Much learning and inspiration!

Deep Listening, Dissemination, INTIMAL App©, Podcast

Listening to the In-Between with the INTIMAL App

Proud to be contributing to the first of three podcast series ‘Listening to the In-Between’ exploring the practice of Deep Listening® in ArtEZ Studium Generale in Arnhem, The Netherlands. Thanks to Joep Christenhusz, researcher and music journalist for this great work full of curiosity. I am very happy sharing this sound space with Ed McKeon bringing our knowledge and experience into Deep Listening and the legacy of Pauline Oliveros. Listen and read here: https://tinyurl.com/25udun6n

Conferences, Dissemination, INTIMAL App©

INTIMAL App© in Soundings: Assemblies of Listenings & Voices across the Souths, Berlin Aug 21-25

Attendees to SOUNDINGS. Berlin ADK. Photo by Dr. Amit D. Patel

It was a real nurturing experience to be part of this important gathering SOUNDINGS: Assemblies of Listenings and Voices Across the Souths at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. I offered a workshop with the INTIMAL App© and I am full of gratitude to the organisers for the invitation and encouragement to speak and share my work and renewed reflections.

Soundings was a seminal 5-day gathering of musicians, artists, performers, and sound scholars from outside of the European canon. Soundings addressed “the dearth of critical engagement with artists and thinkers working on the margins of the Eurocentric discourses, to counteract a scant presence of the Global South, diasporic, and indigenous music and sound works, and scholarship in the contemporary fields of music and sound arts”. In meaningful soundings and listenings with diverse formats, I was invited to listen to the plants, as well as the research and art of my artists-researchers-thinkers colleagues from the Global South, who have engaged also in migratory journeys to make their voices, thoughts and artistic and intellectual development heard and evolve in countries from the Global North. A deep and critical revision of how we voice and listen was framed with silences for reflection, on what unites us, also on our diversities, and how we find ways for being recognised on equal levels for our long-distance journey to be supported across the globe.

Academic-Dissemination, Dissemination, Publications

Sonic Proximities, published in JONMA Journal

I am very pleased to announce and share my publication “Sonic Proximities: Locating Oneself and the Others Within a “Migratory Journey”.” in the Journal of Network Music and Arts 4, 1 (2022).

This issue of the Journal addresses the theme “Network Arts:
Transformation of Distance.” Questions on different aspects of distance are addressed by the five articles involving different technologies, art practices and contexts, in contemporary times of connecting during the Covid-19 pandemic.

My contribution is a reflection on the first version of the INTIMAL App© developed with The Studio Recovery Fund, and the test with 10 women in Bath, UK. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, this article reflects on the social and environmental “sonic proximities” that emerged out of the listening experiences using the INTIMAL mobile app with ten women based in Bath, United Kingdom. I suggest that the embodied and interactive simplicity of the app stimulates connections that support the gradual transformation of environmental and social distance, thereby providing a sense of individual and collective agency.

The reflection was presented first at the NowNet Arts Conference 2021, and with the feedback received and further reflections, the results are published here.

Thanks to Sarah Weaver and Corinna Kirsch, to make possible this publication, and congratulations on the full issue.

INTIMAL Hehringhonza – Sheffield, 18/06/2022

With Violeta Ospina, Calu, and Liliana Rodríguez, from the INTIMAL Collective we are very happy to offer a one-day hybrid workshop “INTIMAL Heh-ring-ghon-zah” in Sheffield, UK, as part of Migration Matters Festival ! This is a one-day hybrid (online and in person) workshop that invites women to listen and celebrate their migratory journeys. Using Deep Listening®, sound improvisation, and the INTIMAL App© they will connect with dreams, voice and languages, expanding their sonic space. Limited places. Book your tickets on https://www.migrationmattersfestival.co.uk/2022/intimal

INTIMAL Heh-ring-gon-za. Poster by Violeta Ospina

CTM Festival Berlin 25.05.22

I am very grateful for the invitation to speak at the CTM Festival 2022, at the panel Contact with the more-than-human-world. The panel brought together reflections from Jono Gilmurray, Susan Schuppli and Faiza Ahmad Khan, AM Kanngieser and Zoe Todd. Curated by Anita Jóri, the panel explored how sound artists have engaged politically, socially and aesthetically with our environments, in the context of climate crisis. How our work might respond to the urgent questions of listening, and the negotiation of our position in relation to other more-than-human entities. I offered a talk on “Sonic Migrations: resonances that hold us as we walk through telematic rituals for agency.”

This has been a great opportunity to bring together an overview of my 19 years of work listening to migrations and nourishing the principles of the INTIMAL system and the INTIMAL App©. Thanks to Anita Jóri, the speakers and the wonderful organisation of the Festival!

April 22: Earth Day Art Model Telematic Festival 2022

Earth Day Art Model, April 22, 24 hours of music connecting to the Earth

I am really happy to be part of the three concerts curated by Sarah Weaver at the Earth Day Art Model Telematic Festival, April 22 presenting my piece “Dreaming while awake: a network of presence” developed using the INTIMAL App© with the participation of eight walkers/improvisers/dreamers who joined me on April 10 and 11 to listen for place and presence.

Telematic Sonic Performance at the Eart Day Art Model Telematic Festival 2022

They were invited to walk and listen to resonances with the places where they live, with themselves, and with others in distant locations. This is for me a collective and uplifting meditation. Thanks a lot to the improvisers! Cássia Carrascoza Bomfim (São Paulo- Brazil), Viv Corringham (New York, USA), Gloria Damijan (Vienna, Austria), Rachel Koenig Raven (Atlantic Beach, New York), Calvin Niles (London, UK), Dayana Rivera (Madrid, Spain), Biggi Vinkeloe (Sweden, California-US, India), Jane Wang (Boston, MA, USA).

You can listen to the piece here and to the amazing concerts connecting with the Earth and others on 22 of April and for 24 hours (US Central Time) at https://edam2022.deck10.media/stages/STAGE-1# Check your Time zone by Going to the Link!

The INTIMAL App© is developed by Ximena Alarcón (Artistic Concept and Sound Interactive Design); Programming by Kieran Harte.

Earth Day Art Model is developed by the artistic director Scott Deal, director of live programming Harry Chaubey, and a team from the Donald Tavel Arts and Technology Research Center, at IUPUI Department of Music and Arts Technology and Deck Media.

Many thanks to all for making it possible!