1.
sounding collectivity as a feminist practice

Wednesday, June 23, 4–5:30 pm MDT

This talk will focus on the practice of attentive listening and walking as analytical and political tools. Gutierrez's artwork highlights the aural act of place-making constructed, challenged, and imagined in urban settlements by her experience as an immigrant woman of color. Thus, recognizing the listening and storytelling experiences by the city's inhabitants from a feminist perspective can serve to emphasize personal journeys, provoke dialogues, and gain visualization of their social-spatial context. The talk will consider modes of collective walking as a strategy of critical thinking and social resistance while aurally discussing urban segregation and understanding the politics of noise in the city. Therefore, sound walking can be considered an analytical practice, which considers the social resonance of the space while the sound can embody these observations. In this regard, the artist includes media technologies, such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), to compass critically questions and collective dialogues, paying attention to its development, dissemination, interaction and ethics.

2.
WORKSHOP

This workshop will cover research-creation methodologies approaching theoretical, ethical, and technical procedures existing in the intersection of activism, listening, and tactical media. The workshop will emphasize tactics of socially engaged practices that embrace collectivity as a tool for resistance and creation. The workshop will cover attentive listening, storytelling, remote sound walks, and mapping prompts. The workshop will introduce pedagogical tools to connect participants’ listening experiences and multiple localities amid the paradigm of physical distance and the need for coalitions.

Workshop part 1

Thursday, June 24,
4–6 pm MDT

workshop part 2

Monday, June 28,
4–6 pm MDT

Amanda Gutiérrez (b. 1978, Mexico City) Trained and graduated initially as a stage designer from The National School of Theater. Gutiérrez uses sound and performance art to investigate how these aural conditions affect everyday life. Gutierrez is actively advocating listening practices while being one of the board of directors of the World Listening Project, formerly working with The Midwest Society of Acoustic Ecology, and currently as the scientific comitée of the Red Ecología Acústica México. Currently, she is a Ph.D. student at Concordia University in the HUMA department and a research assistant at lab  PULSE, the Acts of Listening Lab, and an active member at the Feminist Media Studio at Concordia University.