Toward a Reciprocal Listening︎︎︎
A score for field recording
Approach
After arriving near the chosen place, pause and take a moment for your body to settle.
In stillness, observe your breath cycle. Allow a pause in the spaces between inhales and exhales to come to a deeper breath rhythm.
Let your attention slowly scan your inner body landscape, from head to fingers to torso to toes.
Allow any needed shifts, sighs, relaxations.
Observe and recognize any sensations and emotions that arise, considering them textures of this inner landscape.
Is it possible to
Listen from your inside your breath rhythm
Listen through your skin
Listen through your eyes
Listen through your hands
Listen through your feet
Listen from below your feet
Listen simultaneously from above your head?
Continuing to be aware of your breath rhythm and your opened sensations,
Let your attention slowly move outward to the elements of the place where you are.
Let your senses, perceptions, and imagination explore the environment’s textures, smells, sounds, colours.
Immersion
Imagine asking permission to be present in this place. Listen for a sense of invitation, welcome, recognition.
Begin to move slowly further into the place.
Let your movements and gestures be slow and deliberate.
Let listening and sensing come in the space between footsteps and the space between the foot’s rise from the surface and fall back into ground.
Consider the movements, sounds, smells, textures beneath the surfaces of the ground and the water. Listen for the breath, voices, movements of the possible lifeforms that dwell here.
Imagine the intricacies of the living systems inside other systems, ones that cannot be seen or heard. Listen for the ancestors of these living systems, large and small, the lifeforms that came before.
Now and then return to focus on your breath rhythm. Let your movements follow your listening,
Listen for the residues of the people who may have dwelt in this location long ago. Listen for how they might have listened, and might be listening now.
Consider and sense your own ancestry.
If your ancestry is from a different place, imagine the ways your ancestors listened to their ancestral environments. Consider ways of attending and ways of listening that your ancestry brings to this place where you are now.
Consider listening from the perspective of a life-form in the environment. Consider listening from yet another life-form’s perspective.
Return to stillness and a focus on your breath rhythm. Allow any needed shifts, sighs, relaxations.
Observe and recognize any sensations and emotions. If needed, take time to write or draw impressions.
Audio Recording
Considering reciprocity, ask what needs to be heard, and from what perspective. It might be the entire soundscape.
It might be a close intimate spot.
Listen for an opening or a request.
Let your imagination discover a place where you will record.
Notice the interface of your recording equipment with the environment.
Notice any impressions of trespass or welcome.
Place your recording equipment slowly and deliberately
When ready to record, allow yourself to continue awareness of your breath.
Notice your body, and its touch on the ground, against the air, and with your equipment.
Record for any duration, staying to listen / monitor, or leaving your recorder to document on its own.
When the recording is finished, take a moment to acknowledge the place and its involvement in the session. Is there something to offer in return now?
Gather the recorder, retrace your steps.
Reflection
Before listening to your recording, pause to focus on your breath rhythm.
Allow yourself to consider a reciprocity in listening, shifting ambition to curiosity.
Allow your listening to wander through your recorded sounds, finding places that call out for more listening. Ask what needs to be shared, and what needs to be kept private to guide a mindful editing.
(The recording for sharing to the Aporee site should be between 2 minutes and 10 minutes in duration.)
Return
Return to the recording location, before or after creating a guide / score for listening. Perform any gesture of reciprocity or gratitude.
Sharing: A Guide/Score
Considering your ideas of reciprocity with, and benefit for, your chosen place, create a guide or score for listeners, using text and/or image. The intention of the guide or score is to assist listeners in witnessing your relational process with respect. The guide / score should accompany your upload to the Aporee site.
Approach
After arriving near the chosen place, pause and take a moment for your body to settle.
In stillness, observe your breath cycle. Allow a pause in the spaces between inhales and exhales to come to a deeper breath rhythm.
Let your attention slowly scan your inner body landscape, from head to fingers to torso to toes.
Allow any needed shifts, sighs, relaxations.
Observe and recognize any sensations and emotions that arise, considering them textures of this inner landscape.
Is it possible to
Listen from your inside your breath rhythm
Listen through your skin
Listen through your eyes
Listen through your hands
Listen through your feet
Listen from below your feet
Listen simultaneously from above your head?
Continuing to be aware of your breath rhythm and your opened sensations,
Let your attention slowly move outward to the elements of the place where you are.
Let your senses, perceptions, and imagination explore the environment’s textures, smells, sounds, colours.
Immersion
Imagine asking permission to be present in this place. Listen for a sense of invitation, welcome, recognition.
Begin to move slowly further into the place.
Let your movements and gestures be slow and deliberate.
Let listening and sensing come in the space between footsteps and the space between the foot’s rise from the surface and fall back into ground.
Consider the movements, sounds, smells, textures beneath the surfaces of the ground and the water. Listen for the breath, voices, movements of the possible lifeforms that dwell here.
Imagine the intricacies of the living systems inside other systems, ones that cannot be seen or heard. Listen for the ancestors of these living systems, large and small, the lifeforms that came before.
Now and then return to focus on your breath rhythm. Let your movements follow your listening,
Listen for the residues of the people who may have dwelt in this location long ago. Listen for how they might have listened, and might be listening now.
Consider and sense your own ancestry.
If your ancestry is from a different place, imagine the ways your ancestors listened to their ancestral environments. Consider ways of attending and ways of listening that your ancestry brings to this place where you are now.
Consider listening from the perspective of a life-form in the environment. Consider listening from yet another life-form’s perspective.
Return to stillness and a focus on your breath rhythm. Allow any needed shifts, sighs, relaxations.
Observe and recognize any sensations and emotions. If needed, take time to write or draw impressions.
Audio Recording
Considering reciprocity, ask what needs to be heard, and from what perspective. It might be the entire soundscape.
It might be a close intimate spot.
Listen for an opening or a request.
Let your imagination discover a place where you will record.
Notice the interface of your recording equipment with the environment.
Notice any impressions of trespass or welcome.
Place your recording equipment slowly and deliberately
When ready to record, allow yourself to continue awareness of your breath.
Notice your body, and its touch on the ground, against the air, and with your equipment.
Record for any duration, staying to listen / monitor, or leaving your recorder to document on its own.
When the recording is finished, take a moment to acknowledge the place and its involvement in the session. Is there something to offer in return now?
Gather the recorder, retrace your steps.
Reflection
Before listening to your recording, pause to focus on your breath rhythm.
Allow yourself to consider a reciprocity in listening, shifting ambition to curiosity.
Allow your listening to wander through your recorded sounds, finding places that call out for more listening. Ask what needs to be shared, and what needs to be kept private to guide a mindful editing.
(The recording for sharing to the Aporee site should be between 2 minutes and 10 minutes in duration.)
Return
Return to the recording location, before or after creating a guide / score for listening. Perform any gesture of reciprocity or gratitude.
Sharing: A Guide/Score
Considering your ideas of reciprocity with, and benefit for, your chosen place, create a guide or score for listeners, using text and/or image. The intention of the guide or score is to assist listeners in witnessing your relational process with respect. The guide / score should accompany your upload to the Aporee site.
Welcome to mapping collaboration, a toolbox for workshopping and creating across disciplines...
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
The inspiration for this project came from faculty and students at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts where BFA, MFA and PhD programs in Dance, Theatre Production and Design, Visual Art, Film, and Music and Sound all work together in studio settings and playfully experiment with processes of art-making.
We wanted to create a database of projects, assignments and theory that we collect inside the studio and from research happening in other places. We are curious about how we collaborate and how structures reoccur, translate and deviate from one discipline to another.
Composition is central to these processes and offers a base for our approaches and experiments. We are excited about what our students are doing and inspired by the new languages in contemporary art and performance we continue to see develop.
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
