Paper short abstract:

This proposal questions the diverse natures of listening through a performance walk within Barcelona. Drawing on traditions of soundscape research, soundwalking, DIY technologies and experimental musical practices, we hope to engage with listening as a disruptive, attentive act within public space.

Paper long abstract:

In traditional media studies, questions regarding the nature of listening are often characterised in how someone has received some object which they have had no extended encounter with prior to the moment of reception. Ideas of listening within more recent sound studies literature argues that listening is an active process, not just something that decodes meaning but also generates it.

Considering these diverse and contrasting ideas of what listening is and does, we then ask how is it understood, appreciated and judged aesthetically. We argue that every act of listening is different. Similarly, despite the standardization imposed by technology every act of recording sound can be seen as highly idiosyncratic and unique. Listening and recording are not only about receiving, but also resounding and responding back.

As sound artists we will attend to this area of enquiry, not to develop a common framework for the experience of sound but rather to recognize how diverse the approaches and responses to listening can be. Through an intuitive process, we will develop a performance-walk to open up questions of received listening. We will gather sounds, create urban interventions, pitch site-specific musical acknowledgments and provide devices that extend sensory perceptions.

During and after the walk we will discuss our findings through revisiting the materials and memories collected. This activity will open up an observatory of responses (responsive listening) and allow an engaging conversation regarding our presence in public space, disruption, listening as an act of attentiveness and collective urban engagement.