keyword - listening and movement

PERFORMING LISTENING

listening workshop

Through a series of exercises based on spatial listening, psychoacoustics, and sound-guided movements, the workshop encourages the active role of the listener and their capacity to perceive and engage with sound.

Grounded on the concept of “listening as intervention”, the workshop leads participants to explore their potential to touch, modulate, and interfere with the production and propagation of sound.

A short list of possible activities includes: listening to the sound of your footsteps; walking to the wall with your eyes closed without bumping into it; touching the participants with a microphone; listening from inside a cardboard box; playing the “analog” filter with your body; listening through the wall; producing sounds by blowing air on a paper sheet; moving in space trying to avoid any sudden feedback occurring between microphone and loudspeaker; finding the spot where two different sounds are perceived at the same loudness; walking away as far as possible from the sound source without loosing it; using the bodies of other participants as absorption panels,…

COMING INTO BEING

photo by Michela Di Savino
The point of departure for this work is a series of listening exercises for exploring the relation between sound, space, and movement. After having presented the exercises as pedagogical tools for more than ten years as part of my workshop practice, I’ve decided to use them as source material for developing choreographed actions and performances.

Exploring the interdependence between touch and sound and the capacity of the body to filter and modulate the propagation of sound in space, the work reflects on the active role of the listener and on their agency to act upon and intervene within the acoustic field.

Video documentation (PSSWRD: “LAI2021″).

WE SPEAK THE AIR WE BREATHE


A choreographed sequence of white noise makes audible how sound propagates and interacts in relation to the architecture of the chosen location.

The title of the work refers to the condition of interdependence that permeates all relationships. Streams of white noise become modified in relation to the surrounding physical space which sound encounters as it propagates. As we breathe the air we speak… drawing air inwards into our body and exhaling it outwards from our lungs back into surrounding space.

The performance in the video happened in 2021 but its first versions and research date back to 2014.

A work by Davide Tidoni
Performed by Abigail Aleksander, Amber Meulenijzer, and Franziska Windisch
Video: Sander Tas with Davide Tidoni
Sound: Davide Tidoni

THE SOUND OF WHITE NOISE

tsown

The Sound of White Noise is an audio piece consisting of a series of instructions that are broadcasted on the radio and performed by the radio listeners at home. The instructions are about specific body positions and movements that the listeners have to perform in relation to the sound system they are using and the space where they are. A recorded voice gives the instructions and guides the listeners through the entire duration of the piece. Each instruction invites the listeners to interact with the white noise that is diffused through the radio. The movements and gestures that the listeners perform modify the stream of white noise that is diffused in the room and the way it is perceived.



The piece has been broadcasted on the 29th of April 2015 on Deutschland Radio Kultur. A french version of the piece has been realized in 2017 (produced by ACSR, Brussels) and received a mention at the Phonurgia Nova Prix Art Sonore, Paris 2017.

LISTENING AS INTERVENTION

feedback

The project consist of a series of listening exercises that I have developed since 2009 as part of my research on sound, space, and the body. The final version of the first 8 exercises has been completed in 2016 with a residency at Overtoon and an exhibition at iMAL. A book publication containing the first 8 exercises + other 22 new ones is currently under development and will be published in 2023/2024.

DOWNLOAD THE FIRST 8 EXERCISES

Concept & realisation: Davide Tidoni / Production: Davide Tidoni / Graphics: Davide Tidoni & Marzia Dalfini / Editor: Brian Shabaglian.