"deep listening"

Oliveros guides us along her path of discovering the key of collaborations. As a means of finding new outlets for creativity and utilizing reception and criticism positively to improve upon the strength and tact of our art-making.

"Whenever you look at an image, there's a ruthless logic of selection that you have to go through to simply create a sense of order. The end-product of this palimpsest of perception is a composite of all the thoughts and actions you sift through over the last several micro-seconds; a soundbite reflection"

How interesting to follow the thought process that is taken when our eyes, our ears, our brains are presented with the scenes and schemes of the imagery we are given. Whether it evokes a sensation, sells a product, or simply shows us something in a way we may not have considered looking at it before, there is always a trail of afterthought left to ponder upon if you care to indulge.

"Boundaries between categories.. are dissolving. Musicians with their phenomenal skills are listening to one another and making music together as never before by creating new sound oriented languages. In this way musicians of different cultural backgrounds can play together."

Collaboration and creative feedback create a healthy environment for an artist to build off of. It is important to hear what kind of ideas your work generates, what is the reaction from each individual- each different background guiding the interpretations, and compare that to where the work's message originally began. To watch the idea you were trying to convey begin to bend and change as you see how it affects another, gaining as much from an outside view as from your own. I am constantly trying to get a response from people of varying discipline, mostly to realize how art affects people of all types, not just my art-making peers and mentors, and how the 'art' we each make can be so telltale to how we read the art, and world, around us.

"Though our respective languages were vastly different we managed through listening to each other to collaborate by sharing our discoveries"

Presently "home" to me consists of three female artists and myself. Each holds her main artistic concentrations in different areas; photography and sculpture, music and graphic arts, fibers and painting, film production and metal-smithing. The variety leads us to very healthy feedback. Each brings an altered perspective to the table, creating new ways of looking at one's own work simply by feeding it through another set of eyes and mind and taking the reaction in turn.

understanding landscape as metaphor

lost languages and the art of rediscovering them

photograph by Curiosity Studios

Anne Whiston Spirn shouts out her appeals to anyone willing to listen and learn. She gives us insight on the world around us as the metaphors for our very existence. Reminding us of a language we once knew well, we once had a fluency for, that too many have now forgotten. The art of reading into what we can see before us written in the world as it is built and as we build it. There are signs, patterns, structures all telling stories of growth and change. How much we allow ourselves to listen, read, and in turn digest these stories, act upon them, that which is now our past, reflects our present and becomes our future.

"like verbal poets of every literature, [we] mine landscapes for structure, rhythm, and fresh metaphors of human experience, so do poets of landscape itself"

She says, "landscape is the thread that connects the whole". We have the ability to take hold of this poetry, this language, and work with what it offers to teach us. We are given the chance to create positive change as a reaction to how our environment, our landscape, our space as it tells us the ways it has grown and become what it has thus far. We have these chances, and too many are not listening, are forgetting how easy it is, how accessible it is to find these "secrets" in nature, in our own natures, and learn to understand them. It is an innate feature we carry, and too often we let our connections to this ancient knowledge fade and disappear.

Spirn talks about civilizations as more or less "civilized" in historical terms as most often due to their awareness of the environment around them. As a people becomes more 'cultured' and 'socialized' they grow less in touch with the natural world. This is advancing? Because one is polite and astute? Because one no longer asks the questions that may cause us to see our actions as wrong, as unintelligent, as backtracking ourselves by not seeing future potential beyond the profit margins.

civilize |ˈsivəˌlīz|
verb [ trans. ] [usu. as adj. ] ( civilized)
bring (a place or people) to a stage of social, cultural, and moral development considered to be more advanced : a civilized society.
• [as adj. ] ( civilized) polite and well-mannered : such an affront to civilized behavior will no longer be tolerated.
DERIVATIVES
civilizable |ˈsɪvəˈlaɪzəbəl| adjective
civilizer |ˈsɪvəˈlaɪzər| noun
ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from French civiliser, from civil ‘civil.’
civilized
adjective
his civilized behavior | a civilized society polite, courteous, well-mannered, civil, gentlemanly, ladylike, mannerly; cultured, cultivated, refined, polished, sophisticated; enlightened, educated, advanced, developed. antonym rude, unsophisticated.

More often we ought be reflecting on how the way we create our space tells the story of how we live our lives. How clean, how messy; organization; understanding of our own chaos or order, our compilation of Things in this thing-oriented culture. We create collections, a buildup of garbage and constant ignorance of its increasing weight on us is one thing too many of man's civilizations have in common. The mannerisms we take on, to litter or to recycle, to give or to take, to share or to keep to oneself, all coming together to build our space and our lifestyles and weaving into this "language" of who we are and what we do; what defines us. Each individual has an array of choices before them. How they choose to carry those out comes from somewhere within, from what is past; what has built us up this far, and from that what potential we give ourselves the ability to see ahead. Belief in change or constant reoccuring patterns of poor choices.

"We humans are part of the natural world, our bodies, minds, and habitats shaped by the physical, chemical, and biological processes that sustain the Earth. All my work follows from that core belief."

[musings]

"those rare occasions who's truth can be stated only by poetry"

the muse of the arts : maya deren

[[escuchar]] [[to listen]]

    John Cage murmurs under his breath that perhaps we are being shielded.  Even with these ground breaking new electronics to push our limits into further realms of music making, we are still lost in the past, attempting to recreate what we know and are comfortable with hearing - with listening to.  When do we begin to throw the bowlines and break into the open sea of sounds' possibilities.  Make a piece of 'music' in complete silence.  Is this the furthest we can stretch?  It is quite, as it comes as a challenge to anyone concerned, as a joke to anyone not trying too hard to decipher it all, letting it just Be, for whatever Cage had in mind for it.  What is it we hear here, listen to, find, within these new soundscapes we're constructing.  Can we push beyond, or have we waned on th crescendo and reached a crest?  Caught in constant recreation or imitation of those that've been done. (Let's have it again, shall we!) Mix it in a little, spin it around, freshen things up a bit.  Or press repeat and find you've come to be quite good at the lyrics and tapping along, even when inconstant beats interject, seems to be no problem at all. 

  Where I like to follow Mr. Cage is the path he wanders down in notice of those subtle differences between what we are willing to label as music and what must remain in the categories of sound and noise.

"..IN THE PAST, THE POINT OF DISAGREEMENT HAS BEEN BETWEEN DISSONANCE AND CONSONANCE, IT WILL BE, IN THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE, BETWEEN NOISE AND SO-CALLED MUSICAL SOUNDS.."

  To incorporate the everyday into our musical lives could lead to intriguing experimentation.  Could/will/does lead, as he implies, to challenge the labels we concede upon these compositions.  But he, among a few clever others, has already begun pushing, and continue to push he will!  

   go Johnny go. 

   

acostar [con los sonidos]]

Sound: the underappreciated sense

sept. 10; wednesday. [i'm gonna take you to the woods] he declare.

a rustling entrance pickup and fade

crunchy gravel underfoot step step step we are stepping we

follow. footsteps (its quiet here) but in that

purposeful manner. we are waiting for it

distant murmur life outside the wood

growing roar engine by altitude

(cigarette seeps in through nostrils) i did not put that

there

covered ears. there is a muffled blackout

airplane engine direct overhead (we sit in its path) still breaks through the spaces between my cupped palms but something of

loneliness arrives; i am observing shadows cast upon my page, following eyes up bark and watching the leaves and trunks move cautiously into unison

i feel i am missing out on something (this place without sound) this motion

is underdone

i feel a part of it when it connects with me through drum. (funny i set an appointment to get my ears cleared today, unclog so i can Listen). a soporific tendancy in the muted

closed eyes. leaves me guessing; connect the sound to your choice apparatus, motif, source.i am enveloped in those unknowns but describables, pieces and pieces. all bits for connecting to. for linking; what does this remind me of? where does this

take me

to

make believe you are dreaming

interesting fluctuations perception will bend to

we take to further.

oatmeal gravel undertow and heel. planks. bridgecross banter.

muffled washout traffic. softened by this birch in layer. overlaps of bark and leaf

wind pickup childish squeal overhead jetline streamby. footsteps

hunger echoing in an empty stomach, gnawing at me from inside to out

slide zip rundown open access bus picks up speed. comes to pause [takes the curb

sniffling, paces, shifty automobiles and their voiced frustrations

treetop dances mild and momentary . then a surge

birdcall? band chimes in laughter calling enjoyment clap. bare court struck

balls to find hooplacement. rubber soles soul squeak yelps, scurry hoop rhythm vibration disappointment mustered lowtone mumbling, rim tremor, quiver to a plunge:

assault of the swoosh, cheer

through a gated pass, we thin out to filter between worlds; a wooded storyland and the univers(al) setting. "outside" its brighter here) feet hit asphalt. scrape. jeans too long anticipating the thin and wreck; spoils of threaded debris

yeahhhhohhhhh stairwelldownfeetfeetfeet [a clattering collaboration] down. latches. entrances

sewer water ripples, strong cricket undercurrent await

bookslap nonsense (commands) elevators papers rustle feet click clicking ticking clicking discussion chatter echoes comparisons double clickclick exit explanations telephone smiles scroll rattle entrance affirmations beeping acceptance entrance chatter (an intersection) air filtration aeroplanes honing in for a landing strip. transformers.. humm buzzz insectlike manmade rumble kick in fanblade spin and sputterrrr

[[soundscape]]

chimewindtreefollowslightsnapbitelanochelashojastomandoelcielo.

[soundwalk responsive notations]

bailando [west coast styles]

a treat from west of this

middle-of-the-road stance

we've taken 

[portland, or. to be precise]

  ¿ care to dance ?