Report
Teaser, summary, work performed and final results
Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INTIMAL (Interfaces for Relational Listening: body, telematics, memory, migration)
Teaser
In the European context of migration and diasporas, and at the intersection of sound art, music cognition, psychology and human-computer interaction, this project developed the first phase of INTIMAL: a physical-virtual system for relational listening, exploring the role of...
Summary
In the European context of migration and diasporas, and at the intersection of sound art, music cognition, psychology and human-computer interaction, this project developed the first phase of INTIMAL: a physical-virtual system for relational listening, exploring the role of the body as interface that keeps memory of place, within the practice of telematic sonic performance (between distant locations). INTIMAL was informed by nine Colombian migrant women in Europe listening to their “migratory journeysâ€, and an oral archive, collected by the organisation Diaspora Women. The system was developed to integrate the body movements of performers (and their voices) with the oral archive. INTIMAL created two modules: MEMENTO and RESPIRO. MEMENTO is a navigator of an oral archive with Colombian women’s testimonies of conflict and migration; and RESPIRO, is a sonification patch that transmits real-time breathing data across different locations. The research participants tested the system in a telematic sonic performance between the cities of London, Oslo, and Barcelona. INTIMAL proved to be a catalyst for creating processes of collective remembering and catharsis, within the context of Colombian post-conflict and peace building.
Specifically the research project aimed to:
1. Develop the first phase of INTIMAL, a ‘physical-virtual’ embodied system, to support migrants’ interaction with body, voice, memories, dreams, and oral history archives, integrating it into a telematic sonic performance artistic practice.
2. Develop, with an interdisciplinary perspective, the concept and method of “relational listeningâ€, incorporating embodied technological innovations, involving â€memory†in the context of migration.
3. Engage a group of nine Colombian migrant women in relational and deep listening informing the development of INTIMAL for the exploration of individual and collective embodied memories of place.
4. Train the researcher in state-of-the-art technologies through the technical development of INTIMAL.
5. Evaluate how this listening method and creative practice contribute to healing processes of women migrants within the context of Colombian post-conflict and peace building.
6. Envision the next stages of the modular system INTIMAL and its wider scientific, artistic, and societal uses, as well as the concept and method of relational listening, expanding and strengthening the researcher’s profile and career horizons.
Work performed
In the RITMO Centre, Department of Musicology at the University of Oslo, the researcher trained in Embodied Music Cognition methods, and the use of cutting-edge tools such as Motion Capture, sensors, and analysis of biodata (obtained from people’s body movements).
To develop INTIMAL, she developed a rich methodology incorporating new knowledge and her previous experience in Deep Listening and telematic sonic performance, leading to the following actions and results:
a) Annotation of an oral archive containing testimonies from Colombian migrant women affected directly by the Colombian conflict, leading to the creation of an ontology of four spheres of migratory memory to navigate through: body stories, social body, native land and host land.
b) Fieldwork with the nine Colombian women, including: 1) online Deep Listening sessions with emphasis in dreams; and 2) an intensive Deep Listening workshop in Norway, which led to a structure for each participant to improvise-perform her “migratory journeyâ€.
c) Motion Capture experiments using infrared markers, breathing sensors and EMG (electromyograms), that recorded participants’ “migratory journeys†and improvisatory expression derived from listening to the oral archives.
d) Analysis of the fieldwork’s emerging narratives, and motion data, leading to the conceptual design of the INTIMAL system. This, emphasised on the exploration of body movements such as walking and displacement, to navigate through the oral archive, and to share memories as if in search for place; and breathing, which potentially brings a sense of togetherness and presence between improvisers across distant locations.
e) The artistic and technological implementation of the telematic sonic performance, involving the creation of two interfaces: MEMENTO and RESPIRO. These were developed in collaboration with researchers at RITMO, Research Assistants, and students from the Masters in Music, Communication and Technology (University of Oslo and NTNU, Trondheim).
INTIMAL was tested in three pre-performance workshops with other Colombian women, and the public performance took place on May 7, 2019, bringing online and physical audiences in each city. It involved them and improvisers in a Q&A session reflecting on the experience. The event received logistic and technical support from Melahuset and VoxLab (Oslo), Fundación PHONOS and University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), Iklectik ArtsLab and CRiSAP – University of the Arts London (London).
The researcher was invited as a keynote speaker in the Sonology conference, University of São Paulo, Brazil, and presented INTIMAL in conferences such as NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression) at Rio Grande do Sul University, Brazil; the RE:Sound, Media, Arts and Technology, in Aalborg University, Denmark; and the NowNet Arts Conference in Stony Brook University, NY. She also offered academic presentations with peers at Musikkteknologidagene (Norwegian Academy of Music), NIME Reader Launch, FourMs, Erratic Bodies workshop, and “Faglig-pedagogisk†day, at the University of Oslo, and participated online in a round table of the IV Symposium Archives and Education, at the National Archive of Brazil. Four peer-reviewed articles were published in: Somaesthetics Journal, Acervo (from National Archive of Brasil), JONMA Journal of Network Music and Art, and in the NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression) Proceedings. For the later one, the researcher was awarded with an honorary mention with the Pamela Z award. Another paper has been submitted to the eWic Journal. INTIMAL reached non-academic audiences through a workshop in ULTIMA Festival of Contemporary Music, in Oslo.
Final results
Conceptually, INTIMAL expanded the concept of relational listening, as a technologically mediated process that helps people to make relations between places and times through sound, involving two key aspects in the context of human migration: sense of place and sense of presence. Sense of place, understood as the feelings that attach us emotionally to a place, and sense of presence, understood as the feeling of others being present in the distance through technological mediations.
INTIMAL system, its creative practice, and listening method, were proved as important contributions for the healing processes of migrant women within the context of conflict and gendered migration. The research extended to Latin American women, and triggered interesting reactions from worldwide audiences regarding migration. A migrant women virtual community emerged for the process to explore, through listening and dreams, the body as a territory to gain sense of place and presence in any land. Embodied technological opportunities to tacitly explored sense of place and sense of presence, interrelating walking and breathing, have opened innovative interdisciplinary research paths in migration, tackling emotions, which can be expressed and transformed with embodied interaction and relational listening, opening paths for healing.