Title: Becoming a Listening Body
Collaborators: Michael Gallagher (MMU), Mark P. Wright (resident artist), Z-artists (aged 5-10)
Web Link: www.localalternatives.org
In 2017, as part of the ongoing Local Alternatives project, we worked with a group of 30 children from a local community arts centre to create a series sound walks around the multi-ethnic niehboorhood of Hulme, in Manchester UK. We were interested to explore new sensory technologies and walking practices in collaboration with children, including the use of wearable GoPros, biosensing wristbands, high fidelity sound recorders, and digital SLR cameras. We also wanted to experiment with everyday objects as materials for augmenting our sonic sensations and imaginaries, and ended up using things like ear plugs, bells, cardboard tubes, balloons, and even Jello (!) as materials for altering the sonic contours of local places.
Through our collaborative work with the children, we began to think about these practices of walking, sensing, and mapping local spaces as the formation of a collective ‘listening body’. We came to think of this ‘listening body’ as a mobile assemblage of people, technologies, and materials that could both sense, and alter the sensibility of, local environments.
Propositions for Becoming a Listening Body
1. Begin with a series of exploratory listening and sounding walks around your local area. Use any mobile sensing and recording technologies you have on hand. Bring along a range of everyday objects and materials that make noise or augment your hearing. Walk silently as a ‘listening body’. Experiment with different sonic interventions using a range of materials as you walk through different spaces.
2. Print out maps of the local area and trace the movements of your ‘listening body’ on the maps. Mark and annotate the areas where the ‘listening body’ encountered interesting sonic sensations in local environments. Identify spaces, materials, objects, and technologies for further sonic experiments and interventions.
3. Continue to experiment with how your ‘listening body’ can intervene in the sonic atmospheres of local environments. Build up an archive of media, artefacts, mappings, and materials. Engage the wider community with your archive through public walking events, installations, and projects.