Emily Collins (Cinema and Media Studies, School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design, York University)

Sounding a Clearing: Intimate Encounters in Otherwise Listening

Recognizing processes of sonic marginalization, contemporary sound scholars increasingly orient their work towards historical contexts and theoretical frameworks that emphasize diversity, intercultural understandings, and the multiple intersecting relationships of power in sound studies, media studies, and related areas. This is evidenced in recent calls to remap and decolonize the field through alternative listening approaches – such as “fugitive listening” (Brooks 2020), “border listening” (Cárdenas 2020), “critical listening positionality” (Robinson 2020), and “abolitionary listening” (Arthur et. al. 2021). Using case studies, auto-ethnography, and interviews, this paper turns to an exhibition at Gallery TPW in Toronto, Canada to examine divergent, collective, and alternative listening practices that open up other worlds by attuning to forgotten histories and aural experimentations, forging “otherwise social relations” through intimate encounters with sound and its wider historical and political entanglements.

Curated by Toleen Touq, the exhibition Another World That Sounds Like You (2023) features sound-based works by Bani Abidi, Nick Dourado, JJJJJerome Ellis, Urok Shirhan, and Hong-Kai Wang which foreground different global social, political, and cultural movements. The listening practices and affective experiences that the exhibition stages are established through a confluence of mechanisms – the material affordances and implications embedded within the installation design, tied to the show's conceptualization, and the selection of artworks that cross boundaries and borders. Together, these components enlist the visitor in a web of relations that is equal parts unknown, complex, meditative, and shared. I ultimately argue that the sonic, when distributed across otherwise relational modes, enunciates alternative enactments of sociality and collectivity through methods of intimacy, opacity, and fugitivity.

Keywords: Listening, Diversity, Sonic Histories, Collectivity, Intimacy

Eliza Sweeney (University of Northumbria, Paris, France [P-017])

Multisensory Therapeutic co.Design Methodology

The psychological impact of space and place—the "built" environment—has long been a prominent topic of discussion. While much attention has been placed on the object itself—the building—and its influence on health and well-being, I believe we often overlook a crucial aspect: the process. The act of creating, shaping, and constructing these environments, spaces, and places is a deeply significant part of the equation. This process is an untapped resource with the potential to profoundly benefit the health and well-being of everyone involved. This panel will describe and develope the author's innovative methodology, the Multisensory Therapeutic Co.Design Methodology, which highlights the therapeutic, healing, and transformative power of the building process itself. This talk will push the conversation on psychology and design, demonstrating how the process —not just the product—of architecture impacts psychology and health.