By Lisa-May Thomas
With funding support from the Senses and Sensations research group and the Research Staff Development Fund, I curated day-long workshop called Sounding Presence which took place at the Bristol Digital Futures Institute (BDFI) on the 18th of April 2024.
I remember experiencing what, I think was, the height of the ‘Zoom Room’ during Covid19, and the limiting effects of this technology on the senses, and on the ways in which I wanted to ‘be together’ with as more embodied and spatially oriented. At the time I was part of a movement ensemble, and we continued to work together, switching off or moving away from the camera, to explore other forms of togetherness during the pandemic. Being together remotely in time, and with intentions to move as a collective, with no visual cues. I remember thinking how useful a sound version of Zoom would be in this context, and what this experience might entail. This thinking led to my own practice-based explorations, and the development of interdisciplinary project Unlocking Touch, using binaural sound technology to create a participatory experience for people which was accessed by them in their own homes, and which centred touch. The piece experiments with combining sound technology, choreography, narrative, and somatic practices to confront and dramatize the challenges which surfaced through Covid-19, to explore the lack of physical contact and felt proximity that many experienced through this period, and to expand notions of touch beyond the limited confines of physical skin-to-skin or surface-to-surface contact.
Alongside the development of Unlocking Touch, I was in dialogue with a number of artists and researchers who were also exploring the interface between bodies, touch, and sound technology. The Sounding Presence workshop was an opportunity to bring these people together, to explore the relationship between sound, and notions and experiences of immersion, presence, and embodiment, using a range of sound-based technologies. To ask questions together around how we might sense movement and presence and find ways to connect and communicate with each other through/as sound, and how different technologies inform / mediate / shape our relationships with one another and our environments, as seen through our ways of moving, sensations of ‘connectedness’ and ‘togetherness’. Specifically orienting away from the visual domain of technology, this workshop was focused toward the sonic and thinking about what might constitute a ‘sonic avatar’.
The practitioner-researchers involved in this workshop have been exploring similar ideas through their own practice-led investigations, exploring how sensing presence and movement through sound can invite different experiences of embodied and spatial awareness and shared experiences of collective bodies and the environments they inhabit.
The workshop was an opportunity for exchange between four projects which all explore the theme of ‘sounding presence’, to explore crossovers between the projects, our shared interests and questions and to explore potential future ways of coming together. As part of the day, we opened our doors for a short while to ‘show and tell’ to researchers interested to come and find out more about the projects: ‘Sonic Dancer’, ‘Soma’, ‘Half Light’, ‘INTIMAL’. Further details of each project are provided below.
What happened?
At the start of the day, we introduced our projects to each other, and each led to a rich discussion around themes which connect to how we sense presence and place, and the role and value of performance-making practices with technology to communicate these ideas and experiences in different ways.
We raised questions around accessibility, and how different technologies serve different bodies and modalities for sensing. Much of this conversation led to deeper discussions around the varying sound technologies that are used in all our projects, and the practices that we hold around them.
We then ‘plugged in’ and played with the tech together…
Ximena talked about the in-betweenness of human migration and her use of telematic performance, using sound to explore ‘relational listening’ and the embodied experience of this. We explored this by walking and breathing, sensing forms of place in the space together, and – wearing headphones to listen and our phones to record using the INTIMAL App – transmitting messages to each other with our voices. We moved in the space, walking and rotating to find each other’s words.
Lisa and Jo talked about the use of spatialised sound in a VR context in the Soma project, and the immersive properties of sound in this space for visually impaired participants. We played with the Soma speakers, a set of hand-held devices which contain raspberry pies and networking facilities. We explored moving, passing and placing them in the space and their sounded effects – and the sense of locating the sounds in your hands, in your ears, and in the space. Jo talked about his interest in the relationship between sound and touch, and the lowest sound frequencies that can only be experienced as vibration through the body.
Swen, who was joining us remotely, and Silvia who was participating in person talked about Sonic Dancer, and their approaches to exploring this “object” made out of sound – as a visible and tangible presence in the space – through touch and movement. They talked about the challenges with some of the technology such as accessibility of equipment or limitations or wireless technology such as BT as well as aspects of listening to a shared speaker when moving and the difference to headphones where people seemed more introspective. As a group we also discussed how different project could be integrated to create new exciting opportunities.
Holly and Dan talked about their piece ‘Half Light’ and the use of a set of blue-tooth speakers alongside sound design in the performance, alongside a quadrophonic PA system (4 speakers at each corner of the room). The speakers are moved by the performers in the piece to support the audience experience of the performance in ‘more than visual’ and multi-sensorial ways. As a visually impaired dancer, Holly reflected on her experiences of dance/performance and how this was often inaccessible to her, and of Half Light as a response to this. The piece will be touted in Autumn 2025.
We ended the day with a ‘jam’ in which we improvised with the ways in which the different technologies we had in the room connected to us, and to each other – daisy-chaining connections between us as a sort of ‘internet of things’[1] – a ‘more than human’[2] network in the space we held together.
I found a great deal of resonance across the projects as well as some interesting differences in our approaches to working with the technologies. It felt that more time and practice to explore these elements together would offer a way into more in-depth and increasingly rich conversations and the possibilities for a specific network of people working in this space, and new projects to emerge.
Please get in touch (lisamay.thomas@bristol.ac.uk) if you’re interested in this project and would like to hear about our next steps.
Further details about each project and the workshop contributors:
Sonic Dancer is an innovative creative technology project using movement & sound to enable connection and interaction beyond the visual sphere. The project engages music, dance and technology from a transdisciplinary angle to explore the feeling of presence in a space.
Contributors: Silvia Carderelli-Gronau and Dr Swen Gaudl
Soma is a location-based social VR experience that takes participants on a sensory journey and offers them the opportunity to explore different ways of ‘seeing’ and ‘feeling’ across physical, virtual and imagined realities.
Contributors: Dr Lisa May Thomas and Prof Jo Hyde
Half Light is a live dance work that de-centres the visual, exploring sensory perception and our relationship to the natural world blending choreography and poetic audio-descriptive narrative with a multi-textured, multi-located sound design to create an inclusive experience for blind, VI and sighted audiences.
https://hollythomasdance.co.uk/projects/half-light/
Contributors: Holly Thomas and Dan Pollard
INTIMAL is an immersive walkabout telematic listening environment to tune in with the environment and others, while sensing place and presence through deep embodied sonic rituals. The INTIMAL App© senses users’ walking rhythms to be sonified and perceived as breathing. When used collectively, people can hear each others’ walking patterns as “breathing”, feeling embodied emotional telepresence. The App is part of the INTIMAL sound art project and “embodied” system for listening to our sonic migrations.
https://intimal.net/category/deep-listening/
Contributor: Dr Ximena Alarcón-Díaz
References
[1] Internet of things (IOT) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_things
[2] David Abram explores the relationship between humans and the more-than-human world in his book ‘The Spell of the Sensuous’ (1996)