Tuning the Interface for Relational Listening

Abstract:

This paper re-visits my creative and research experiences with the creation of sound-driven interfaces for navigation and performance, as part of a personal quest for space and identity. Involving geographical migration, its sonic experience and the connections mediated with internet technologies, the experience of listening and performing within dislocation refers not only to the development of technological systems, but also to the exploration of new forms of interacting with the self and others through listening and sounding in distant locations, inviting participants to the discovery of ‘in-between’ sonic spaces for being.

Derived from the need for a shared conceptual and technical framework, the project ‘Sound Matters Framework’ has explored, with other sound artists and researchers, practices of interrogation and relational playback for the creative interplay of field recordings and speech. The framework has evolved into the idea of creating interfaces for relational listening. What characteristics might be involved in such imagined interfaces and what relational listening means within contemporary contexts of dislocation, are the questions that I am formulating on this paper within the broader field of live interfaces.