Academy – Delhi
Listening as writingDecember 9 - 14, 2024:
In her publication Resonant Alterities, literary and cultural theorist Sylvia Mieszkowski explores the literary articulations of aural phenomena and processes of hearing, which have been transported by (written) words. Through a study of specific fictional texts, she proposes a way of reading and writing sound as a site of meaning-making, knowledge production and subjectivation. Drawing from the histories and ideas of the acoustic turn, she unpacks certain literary moments in which new languages are conceived to carry the questions, tensions and desires laden within the field of listening and sounding for individual protagonists, societies and collective milieus. Taking off from her analysis and propositions, this edition of The Listening Academy aims to think around relations between sound, voice, writing and language, and in what ways listening contributes to meaning-making. While writing is mostly understood as an act of inscription, one that gestures toward leaving a mark to be read, in what ways can we think of listening as writing? If voice is fundamental to the crafting and archiving of stories, how does listening participate?
As Krista Ratcliffe argues, listening is essential for navigating “rhetorical situations” by enabling a deeper sensitivity for communicative acts, empathetic exchange and the holding of difference. This entails attuning to the “unstated hauntings” that always inform articulation and the exchange of words, where the unheard and inaudible participate in shaping the limits of language and meaning-making.
Following these perspectives, we’ll open a creative and critical framework for focusing on listening as a form of “writing” – where listening is positioned as a shared gesture towards authoring the world. Through critical discussions, lectures and creative explorations, the Academy will inquire into pronounced forms of listening, including reflecting upon “critical listening positionalities” and in what ways listening wields an effect on cultural identity, mediatic environments, social history, political struggle, and their significations. Additionally, we’re interested to follow the trails of listening into the grey zones of meaning, framing listening itself as what connects us to the unnamable.
Furthermore, we’ll delve into the spectral and phantasmatic qualities of sound, listening toward sonic edges as a way to tune into the limits of existing structures and atmospheres , from daily environments and homes to larger social, political arrangements. Readings, prompts and dialogues will also delve into the relational fields of mediatisation of sound and the formation, destabilisation, dissolution or restructuring of listening publics and collective movements. The attempt is to reflect on and arrive at collaborative vocabularies and articulations of listening that are unique to one’s own practices and inquiries. This will translate to fictioning individual and collective worlds, situations and paradigms envisioning or enhearing new forms of connection.
Organised and facilitated by Brandon LaBelle, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay and Suvani Suri in collaboration with Sarai-CSDS including the participation of Aliaskar Abarkas, Mayank Agarwal, Suman Bhagchandani, Deepa Bhalerao, Reibang Chakma, Nakshatra Chatterjee, Aditi Chauhan, Aravind Chedayan, Ingrid Cogne, Ketan Dua, Alessandra Eramo, Shivani Gautam, Ishan Gupta, Malik Irtiza, Shikha Jhingan, Rahul Juneja, Manika K, Piyush Kashyap, R. Navaneetha Krishnan, Pankaj Rishi Kumar, Sophea Lerner, Shriya Malhotra, Anuj Malhotra, Matteo Marangoni, Surbhi Mittal, Janneke van der Putten, Lale Rodgarkia-Dara, Ish S, Sourav Saha, Anandit Sachdev, Shveta Sarda, Johanna Schindler, Nicola Singh, Vrinda Singh, Anurag Singraur, Hemant Sreekumar, Jeremy Woodruff and special guests Moushumi Bhowmik and the Delhi Listening Group