Entangled Listening: Exploring Relational and Diverse Listening Practices for DMI Design

June Kuhn; Brittney Allen; Nicole Robson; Andrew McPherson

Image credit: June Kuhn; Brittney Allen; Nicole Robson; Andrew McPherson

• Session: workshops-1
• Location: Extra Classroom

Abstract:

Listening is fundamental to music practices and provides technical and cultural context to the design of musical instruments. Through various entanglement theories of human-technology relations, we can understand listening as a Baradian apparatus that motivates, propels, and evaluates the design of new musical instruments. Further, we can use listening practices as a method to de-center the human. We propose a workshop primed by emerging theories in sound studies to critically examine how listening appears, how it functions, and how it performs. Through guided mediations, hands-on exercises, and prompted discussion, we aim to integrate a plurality of listening experiences and suggest tuning our listening toward more entangled design practices.