Networked Migrations: Listening to and performing the in-between space (Paper)

Two internet-based sonic performances, Letters and Bridges (between Leicester and Mexico City), and Migratory Dreams (between London and Bogotá), were developed by the artist with the leading question of what the 'in-between' space (Bhaba 1994; Ortega 2008) sounds like in the context of migration. Drawing on a Deep Listening (Oliveros 2005) practice, the artist undertook pre-performance workshops as a way to engage participants in the possibilities of travelling in time and space, and expressing through voice and other sounds feelings that arise when they migrate. The sharing of these sounds through the Internet in real time opened the idea of territory and allowed participants to express feelings towards place, identity and belonging, and to create mixed-reality narratives, within a supportive sound space free from geographical and cultural constraints. High quality bi-directional streaming audio software such as SoundJack and Tube Plug were used, adapted to the performance needs. This paper describes the process of the creation of each performance, considering its sonic, narrative, mediatised and performative aspects, offering a reflection on new auditoriums created for migrants' expression of their experiences in the 'in-between'. It argues that this specific approach helps migrants to expand their sense of space and develop an awareness of their multidimensional condition through sound

Listening and remembering: networked off-line improvisation for four commuters

This paper analyses the experience of the networked off-line improvisation 'Listening and Remembering', a performance for four commuters using voices and sounds from the Mexico City and Paris metros. It addresses the question: how can an act of collective remembering, inspired by listening to metro soundscapes, lead to the creation of networked voice- and sound-based narratives about the urban commuting experience? The networked experience is seen here from the structural perspective (telematic setting), the sonic underground context, the ethnographic process that led to the performance, the narratives that are created in the electro-acoustic setting, the shared acoustic environments that those creations suggest, and the technical features and participants' responses that prevent or facilitate interaction. Emphasis is placed on the participants' status as non-performers, and on their familiarity with the sonic environment, as a context that allows the participation of non-musicians in the making of music through telematically shared interfaces, using soundscape and real-time voice. Participants re-enact their routine experience through a dialogical relation- ship with the sounds, the other participants, themselves, and the experience of sharing: a collective memory

Bajo la tierra: escucha porosa de modernidad en el metro de México

This short essay describes fieldwork developed at Mexico City Metro, during the research "Linking Urban soundscapes via commuters' memories", which led to the creation of the online sonic environment Sounding Underground. Mexico metro is the first metro of the Latin American modernity, and my reflection resonates with contradictory hybrid cultures (Canclini, 1989,1985) and with Latin America multiple modernity (Marín & Morales, 2010). I suggest that listening underground offers a porous, expansive, mobile and transcendent perspective of Latin American modernities: what people live, what people are, what it is amplified, in spite of and thanks to its contradictions

A taxonomy for Listening and Performing ‘in-between’ migratory spaces using mobile apps

After four years developing telematic sonic performances via the Internet, listening to the ‘in-between’ space in the context of human migration (Alarcón, 2014; 2015; 2016), I argue that questions derived from technical challenges and accessibility suggest the exploration of mobile phones for such performances. I suggest key components to develop an app turning around the concept of ‘in-betweeness’ (Ortega, 2008), which finds resonances with the concept ‘net-locality’ (de Souza e Silva, 2013), emerging from people’s interaction in a mobile space. Focusing on a qualitative review of apps, I propose a taxonomy of listening and performing to facilitate and widen the exploration of ‘in-betweeness’

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

Sonic Proximities: Locating Oneself and the Others Within a “Migratory Journey”

The INTIMAL App© is a mobile application that synchronously senses people’s walking rhythms in distant locations and then rhythmically sonifies these with the user’s chosen audio frequencies. Taken altogether, the perception of breathing and walking rhythms across space and time creates an embodied telepresence. At the level of content, the app has provided first-hand narrative accounts about the migration experiences of Colombian women living in Europe. These stories are meant to elicit a response from the listener, allowing for a path to be built out of new relationships that emerge between voices and sound frequencies. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, this article reflects on the social and environmental “sonic proximities” that emerged out of the listening experiences using the INTIMAL mobile app with ten women based in Bath, United Kingdom. I suggest that the embodied and interactive simplicity of the app stimulates connections that support the gradual transformation of environmental and social distance, thereby providing a sense of individual and collective agency

Conceptual design for INTIMAL: a physical/virtual embodied system for Relational Listening

This paper describes the preliminary design of INTIMAL: a physical-virtual embodied interactive system for relational listening in the context of human migration, within the artistic practice of improvisatory telematic sonic performance. Informed by the Deep Listening experiences of nine Colombian migrant women in Europe, INTIMAL departs from their sensorial experience in dreams, virtual and physical spaces, for a holistic understanding of the body as interface that keeps memory of place. In counterpart with an oral archive of other women’s testimonies from the Colombian civil war, body movements, voice and spoken words act as resonances opening paths for healing experiences of loss

Sound Matters: a framework for the creative use and re-use of sound

Report of JISC funded project 'Sound Matters: a framework for the creative use and re-use of sound' - Field Recordings and Speec

Comparative Review Apps towards an ‘in-between’ performance app

This review aimed to inform the background literature and design of a prototype for a mobile app to expand the expressive and technical possibilities of improvisatory-telematic performances within the context of the project ‘Networked Migrations’, being developed since 2011. It focused on mobile apps that use sound and encourage listening, sounding (performing) and interconnecting within local and distant locations. In collaboration with the iOS developer Donal O’Brien, we reviewed forty (40) apps publicly available for iPhone and Android platforms, analysing how these invite the user to listen, to perform and to connect with others. Although a heuristic analysis was proposed — which usually relates to the visual interface, usability and some game interaction — we noticed the need of establishing some parameters to develop a qualitative analysis specifically for sound apps. This analysis involved listening experience, expression and performativity, embodiment and gesture, social engagement (collaboration - connection), and perception of sonic space. We also felt that market criteria, which was part of the initial objectives, was not that relevant for the purpose of the review, and we left it as additional information within the table of analysis. Technical considerations focused on the use and transmission of voice, and connectivity features. These were developed in a technical Appendix

Pauline Oliveros: A Shared Resonance

Here we honour Pauline Oliveros with an account of the resonances that she left with us. We reflect on how she organised sound and life, based on our shared experiences meeting her as a composer, performer, mentor, teacher and friend. The reader will meet us both as ‘I’, which we leave indistinguishable in order to follow and interweave the flow of our experience. Our resonance is also organised as if a Deep Listening score (in italics), with invitations to extend the experience through listening as meditation