The Pulse of a City; Listening Notes
For this aural diptych, the artists recorded sounds from the cityscapes that surrounded them, explicitly including sounds from the physical interactions of the artists and their surroundings. Creative texts were then made in response to a blind listening to the other’s audio recordings based on impressions and reflections on the information extracted through the listening process, and through questioning how our own memories and associations impact our perception of the sensorial input from another place.
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A score to excavate the pulse of your city (or myself)
The voice of the city overwhelms your boundaries,
resonates through your walls, vibrating with its matter
The will of the city overtakes us
[yoga instructions]
overpowering my attempts at order
You surrender control.
You seek, she speaks, we follow
[“let it… impulse...”]
[Orchestra begins]
Internal impulse.
External pulse.
There are many ways to organise sound; to generate synchronicity.
External impulse.
Internal pulse.
I meld myself to its command.
The rhythm dictates the melody (Emotion harnesses place and time)
The melody channels emotion (The rhythm dictates the melody)
Emotion harnesses place (The melody channels emotion)
I try to harness the rhythm of this city.
(it drowns me out)
[Singing]
I used to tell my family members apart by the sounds of their bones cracking inside their bodies.
Sudden inhales on the other side of the door.
Your breath, for me, becomes the pulse of the city [breathing]
Your breath dictates mine
Our breaths mingle, [“Take a deep breath in”] anonymously [“and empty it out”]
Our breath becomes a roar. [Concrete roar]
I am a sonorous spectator, an auditory intruder.
I scavenge scraps of your reality for a sense of structure.
My order requires your disorder.
The world I imagine around you is familiar, yet strange.
[With sweeping]
Step, Breath, Pulse. Step, Breath, Pulse.
[Audio break]
I score my thoughts to the city.
[Sound layers build up]
The multiplicity of texture; its boundaries of meaning a convergence of multiple boundaries.
The multiplicity of truths; control and collaboration - capture to reclaim.
Somewhere in the exoticism of familiarity lies nostalgia.
WHAT IS THE OPACITY OF THE CITY?
How far can I sense beneath its skin?
Would its sinew and bone be as identifiable as those intimate, soft cracks of my childhood?
WHAT IS THE EMOTIONAL OPACITY OF SOUND? … OF LANGUAGE?
The borders between recognition and construction are mediated by white noise
WHAT IS THE OPACITY OF SPACE?
WHAT IS THE OPACITY OF TIME?
[“Take a deep breath in…. and empty it out”] [EXHALE]
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Apuntes de escucha: un acto colonizador para pensar en la descolonización
La expectativa del siguiente sonido
Por primera vez
en mucho tiempo
escucho la materia.
El metal bajo tus pies,
el metal entre tus manos.
El límite entre el adentro y el afuera.
Camino contigo desde el futuro.
Escucho una respiración sofocada
Podría ser tuya, mía o de otres
La respiración, un privilegio universal
Una condición genérica, casi inevitable
¿Cuántas barreras de intimidad se rompen
al compartir nuestros sonidos?
Para que una voz signifique
tengo que asignarle un nombre
¿Escucho lo que nombro,
o nombro lo que escucho?
Escucho el espacio
Lo leo a través del eco.
Es pequeño,
casi vacío.
En mi mente
es blanco.
¿Crees que tus pájaros y los míos
hablen el mismo idioma?
A veces el lenguaje
no nos alcanza
para abarcar la realidad
Romper el lenguaje
es lo que necesito
para hablar tu idioma
No entiendo nada
Por lo tanto es nada
No significa nada
No puedo replicarlo
No puedo poseerlo
No puedo nombrarlo
Nombrar es
poseer
controlar
acercar
adoptar
apropiar
colonizar
Escribo lo que escucho
para entenderlo
para incorporarlo
Estas palabras sostienen ahora
el mundo en el que existo a partir
de tus sonidos
que ahora son
pájaros enjaulados en
mi limitada visión audición del mundo
Apuntes de escucha
que destruyen universos
de sentido
El mundo como lo conocemos
ya no es
A partir de hoy
Hablamos pasos
Hablamos movimiento
Hablamos cuerpo.
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Listening notes: a colonizing act to think about decolonization
The expectation of the next sound
For the first time
in a while I listen to the matter.
The metal under your feet
the metal between your hands.
The boundary between the inside and the outside.
I walk with you from the future.
I hear a choked breath
It could be yours, mine or others
Breathing, a universal privilege
A generic condition, almost inevitable
How many barriers of intimacy are broken
by sharing our sounds?
For a voice to mean something
I have to give it a name
Do I hear what I name,
or do I name what I hear?
I listen to the space
I read it through its echo.
It is small,
almost empty.
In my mind
it is white.
Do you think your birds and mine
speak the same language?
Sometimes language
is not enough
to craft reality
To break the language
that’s what I need
to speak your language
I don’t understand a word
Therefore it is nothing
It means nothing
I can't replicate it
I can't own it
I can't name it
Naming is
owning
controlling
approaching
adopting
appropriating
colonizing
I write what I hear
to understand
to incorporate
These words hold now
the world in which I exist from
your sounds
which are now
birds caged
in my limited [vision] hearing of the world
Listening notes
that destroy universes
of meaning
The world as we know it
no longer exists
From now on
We speak steps
We speak movement
We speak body.
The two sound pieces created respectively by Denise Lee and Jan Castañeda are a result of a pen pal exchange aiming to question the spatial awareness and narrative environments between Germany and Mexico. The overarching project, The Decolonial Listening Series, posed open-ended questions and strategies towards decolonization through sound as an embodied art practice while mixing creative writing as an imaginative tool to think about decolonial thinking and art practice.
This project was realized in the framework of The Lab Program