conscient podcast

my response to a colleague’s concern about feeling saturated by the omni presence of eco-awareness information TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE (bell and breath) (sound of two climate shows at once then fade out) I was talking with a colleague recently about how few people listen to ‘end of the world as we know it’ podcasts, such as this one. And I think it’s because they’re so … fucking, depressing and grim. We are constantly reminded how awful things are and how much more awful they will become, with no credible way out. Saturated I used to think that art could help us with these entangled crises but I’m starting to think the role of art is more about the relationship between consolation and hope as my friend and colleague Azul Caroline Duque suggests. Consolation and hope. So it’s no wonder that we are: Saturated, saturation I also understand the impulse to become enraged as Joan Sullivan tells us in e106 fire - what can we do about our collective indifference? : We’re just carrying on with our lives as if you know, la la la and nothing, nothing bad is happening. So there was this sense of rage. I mean, like, honestly, it’s surprising how strong it’d be in a violent rage just sort of coming outta me. I wanted to scream… Saturation So how do we channel our apathy and our rage? (In between the chorus) Dr. Jennifer Atkinson’s Facing It podcast talks about the ‘emotional burden of climate change and why despair leaves so many people unable to respond to our existential threat’. Do you feel unable to respond to existential threats? Dr Atkinson reminds us that ‘our future remains unwritten, and by embracing the unknown we are better able to reframe our thinking in empowering ways’. She explains that ‘the so-called negative feelings that arise in response to ecological disruption (grief, anxiety, anger) can be seen as signs of emotional health, while ‘undesirable’ states, like uncertainty, are potential doorways to transformation. Climate anxiety might even be seen as a kind of superpower.’ Saturation In Generation Dread, Dr. Britt Wray reminds us that the age of eco-anxiety is upon us and that the afterglow of climate disasters radiate psychiatric trauma throughout the globe. She also notes that ‘on the flip side, the tumultuous feel­ings that are on the rise are completely valid, need tending to, and present a great opportunity for justice-oriented personal, environ­mental, and social transformation.‘ So where do we go from here? How do we address our feelings of… Saturation Dr Wray also suggests that ‘the positive in all this is that the torment comes bearing gifts. If you explore its depths, you’ll find a valve somewhere inside you that taps into the most existential part of yourself. Once you open it, a boundless stream of love, connection, and meaning will always be at your back, fuelling what you do.’ Once you open it a boundless stream of love, connection, and meaning will always be at your back, fuelling what you do. (sound of two climate shows at once then fade out) How can we tap into our boundless streams of love, connection and meaning ? Saturation * CREDITS With thanks to Jennifer Atkinson and Britt Wray for using their words. They are both inspiring leaders for me. This episode was created while I was in residence during the summer of 2023 at the Centre de production DAÏMÔN in Gatineau Québec as part of the fourth edition of Radio-Hull 28 days of programming from September 7 to October 4 2023 showcasing local artistic practices. With thanks to the Centre de production DAÏMÔN production team: Manon, Coco, Philippe and Simon and DAÏMÔN’s funders and partners. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is...

while introducing a 5 minute recording of a bubbly stream I realized that the stream was flowing within me TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE (bell and breath) (In a hushed voice) This episode.. (silence) is about listening… (silence) to this stream… (silence) for 5 minutes… (silence) Enjoy * CREDITS This episode was recorded by Lac St-Anne near Duhamel, Québec on August 18, 2023. I was on an e-bike ride in the backcountry when I heard this beautiful bubbly stream. When I kneeled in the mud to record the slate for the recording I realized that the introduction was all I needed. The rest of the recording is silent. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the Ki Culture.

a soundscape composition about soundscape composition at Rouge National Urban Park in Toronto TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE (Bell and breath) (various field recordings from rouge national urban park) Me (at Rouge Park) : Lake Ontario, Rouge Park, Water, Train sound coming, go. On August 21, 2023 I joined composer Wendalyn Bartley and ecologist Leo Cabrera on a visit to the Rouge National Urban Park, which is centred around the Rouge River and its tributaries in the Greater Toronto Area. We were there to listen to soundscapes, such as what you’re hearing now, a train passing by. At the end of our listening session Leo asked me to explain how I create soundscape compositions, so this episode explores that question, accompanied by… (Sound of woman talking about ‘fishies’) soundscapes. So what is soundscape composition? Soundscape composition is a form of electroacoustic music characterized by the presence of recognizable environmental sounds and contexts … Claude (during field recording) Rouge National Park, August 21, about 7pm, I'm waiting for a train. And context is important here. For example, what do you hear now? I heard a swan, birds, voices echoing under a bridge, a bike just went by, there's rumble of the city in the background, and a baby crying, there’s some young people arriving and … and I hear someone dragging their feet a bit, making a lovely little sound. (train passing) Of course, I hear trains and now we’re in another space. What about this place? What’s the story here? And what would happen if I changed the story by cutting the low frequencies from this swan and these waves? And what if I made the train a bit more distant … and put it to the left? And what if I place that mom talking to her son about fishies in reverberation a little… on the right side. And how would you feel if there is no sound at all? You see, to me, soundscape composition and art in general, for that matter, is a game of illusion. Artists are constantly playing with our senses of perception and our understanding and interpretation of reality. So what I'm doing is inviting you to listen to reality - at least what my microphones captured that day - but also to fantasy, which are my manipulations of those sounds and it’s an interesting liminal zone but it’s also a very privileged space because not everyone who can afford to create and listen to soundscape compositions this way, right? I’m thinking in particular about living beings - human and non human - who cannot lower the volume of say, a rumbling train passing by their home every few minutes like this one I recorded in the park. (Loud train passes) Also, what about sounds that have disappeared from our acoustic environment? How can we remember and mourn sounds that have become extinct? What efforts can we make to bring some of them back? How can soundscape composition help with that? Now as I told Leo, my approach to soundscape composition is to ask a lot of questions… about the ethics of field recording, about positionality, about the added value of an artistic intervention in a given acoustic space. I also ask myself to whom am I accountable when I record and how can one create sound art that does not perpetuate cycles of extraction and exploitation that are quite literally killing us. So many questions…. What do you think? I’ll end this episode with an excerpt from a conversation I had during the summer of 1990 with the late composer R. Murray Schafer, author of the Tuning of the World book and leader of the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser university in Vancouver in the 1970’s. Murray and I were talking about microphones and listening: If the microphone replaces your ear, there’s something wrong. And as you see in a lot of our listening, the microphone has replaced the ear. The mere fact that for instance, we demand presence on all recorded sounds and they’re all close mic-ed, is a recognition of the fact that the microphone, which is an...

i’ve always been comforted and relaxed by sounds that gradually slow down TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE (bell and breath) Slowing down sounds slow me down (layering of slowing down soundscape compositions from my simplesoundscapes podcast (2016-2019: e06 cycles (from first generation, not published) e42 fidget - ah, let us pay attention for a minute or two to the spinning e42fidget - red, yellow and blue e109 lake - slow slower stop e11 arrival - the modulation of propeller as metaphor) Do slowing down sounds slow you down? CREDITS This episode really does help me slow down. I hope it has a similar effect for you. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the Stop Ecocide International.

I improvised a story during a power outage at the cottage about sound without electricity TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE (bell and breath) It's Wednesday, July 12th, 2023. Yesterday, at 4.53 pm, the power went out at my cottage and I wanted to make this episode about our dependence on electricity. So here I am in an analog world, normally, with electricity, but without power, of course, there are no lights. In the cabin there's no pump to draw water, though there is a bit of water left in the tank, so I can use a little bit, but it will run out. Of course, there's a lake out front, so that's not a problem. My phone doesn't work either. It's now out of power. Importantly, food is being kept cold in the fridge, but of course it's not being refrigerated and in particular, the ice box is slowly getting warm. Without electricity, it does not work and there's no backup to refrigeration other than ice, which is the way that it used to be done. And there are other things that change, of course : lights in the cabin and the ability to charge batteries and all of that but there are other ways of living. There's lots of wood here and so I built a fire for lunch and it's still burning. Might still be good for dinner. My point is to take advantage of this opportunity of not having electricity, to think about the things that we might take for granted and that we perhaps don't need. Do I really need to charge my batteries all the time so that my phone works at my convenience? Are there other things that I could do with less of or not at all. I invite you to think about that and to listen to the sounds around you without electricity… I'm enjoying this moment of non-electricity, which changes my perception of time. I do have battery powered clocks, but I can't check my phone. I can't have the radio on to tell me about what's going on in the world so there's this sense of disconnection from that world, but it's also an opportunity to connect to this world. Of course, the electricity could go back on at any moment. It's almost been 24 hours now and it is very serious for those whose lives depend on the electricity in hospitals, but they have backups. I guess the ultimate backup is how we used to live so many years ago without electricity : living more by the sun and by our relationship to the land that's not mediated by electricity. I'll end with my bell again. Wishing you the pleasures of electricity and the pleasures of not having electricity. Are. You. Powerless? * CREDITS This episode was recorded without any preparation hence is a bit rough around the edges but I liked the flow and fragility in my voice. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology (CASE).

i played back four episodes from this season at the same time and listened to how they interact TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE (bell and breath) Episode 105 stretches time (e105 ropes) Episode 101 releases tension (e101 tension) Episode 118 follows your shit (e118 shit) e116 mourns loss (e116 loss) How do you feel now? * I love to listen to the interplay of layered soundscapes : how they come in and out of each other like cloud formations, so I mixed 4 of my favorites from this season and you can hear the ci-existence of expanding ropes, plucked strings, flushing toilets and filtered ocean waves. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to ecoartspace.

one morning I heard rhythmic water dripping from a gutter and improvised this poem (bell and breath) (Voice synchronized to sound of water drop) I am a drop of water I am a drop of rain I am your body I am your pain (Repeated) Are you a drop of water? * CREDITS Recorded at the back deck of our home in Ottawa on August 13th, 2023. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to Action Sandy Hill.

while doing my qi gong one morning I heard roofers removing tiles and recalled simplesoundscape in 2016… TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE (bell + sound of roofers taking off tiles) While doing my daily qi gong on May 25, 2023 I was listening to roofers removing tiles on a nearby house. I’ve always been troubled and fascinated by the sound of deconstruction… of things being ripped apart… of the undoing of objects held together with glue, nails or screws. I sometimes feel the pain of the wood, metals and minerals. I sometimes feel like a part of me lives within these materials. I think about where these materials came from - their extraction from the earth - and how we treat them when they are no longer useful to us. I feel gratitude towards these living beings who provide us with shelter and comfort. Now I want to take you back to another encounter with deconstruction, in August of 2016, the very first recording of my simplesoundscapes project about mindful listening. Here is the recording from the very first episode of simplesoundsccapes: (beginning of simplesoundscapes pilot episode with nails being removed in background) This pilot episode of simplesoundscapes explores the ecological and philosophical implications of deconstruction. I have a lifelong interest in environmental issues, in particular with acoustic ecology and so when I heard both the violence and the poetry of siding being removed and nails being extracted from a wall on our cottage, I was compelled to record it and to start this podcast series called simplesoundscapes. So this particular recording was captured in mono on an ipad with the ipad on a window sill. It was recorded in August 2016 in Duhamel, Quebec. I invite you to think about the following question: ‘If construction is the art and science of building and deconstruction is its opposite, selective dismantlement, how then can we constructively deconstruct?’ How can you constructively deconstruct? * CREDITS Thanks to the roofers that I recorded and all the best with the development of green practices in your industry. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

my zen practice taught me that unhurried speech invites us to slow down EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION (bell and breath) When I was a student at the White Wind Zen Community in Ottawa I had the privilege of listening to recorded teachings by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi. You can hear some his recording on wwzc.org. During these teisho, the roshi speaks very slowly, with a lot of silence between words, a bit like what I’m doing now. Silence between words. As well as words between silence. Now I love listening to spoken words at this kind of slow pace. It invites other sounds to permeate the acoustic space, such as the traffic that is in the background now, a bit of birdsong, muffled sounds. But we can also notice other things like our breath - it’s pace, depth, odor, weight - so many dimensions that we usually don't pay attention to and minute movements such as cracking of the floor from the weight of the chair, oscillations of light and so many details we normally don’t notice. I love the way spoken words linger in the air, hugging the clouds and floating down like rain or snow. I love the way unhurried speech invites us to slow down. So you might ask : how does the pace of speech relate to the sound of modernity? The sound of modernity is the opposite of slowness. It’s fast moving and generally saturated, isn’t it? Constant in overdrive, with technology accelerating our lives, faster and faster every day, We seem to have lost touch with slowness - there’s my phone reminded me to be fast. We’ve also lost touch with the notion, the feeling of distance. So I’m going to slowly walk away from this microphone, while repeating this narration again as an exercise in listening to slowness but also to distance. Thanks for listening. (Gets up and walks away) When I was a student at the White Wind Zen Community in Ottawa I had the privilege of listening to recordings of teachings, by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi. You can hear some on wwzc.org. During these teisho, the roshi speaks very slowly, with a lot of silence between words, like I am speaking now. Silence between words. Words between silence. I love listening to spoken words at a slow pace… * For more information on the White Wind Zen Community, see https://wwzc.org/ I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to White Wind Zen Community.

an exercise where I invite listeners to stop what they are doing, listen and to enjoy the experience (unedited improvised narration) Listening is at the heart of this season of the conscient podcast. Specifically, listening to the sounds of modernity, but also listening to everything, all at once and noticing what is going on, usually a mix of systems collapse and resilient beauty. So today’s episode is a listening exercise. At the end of this recording I invite you to stop what you are doing for a few minutes and listen to what is around you. Try not to think or analyse what you hear. Just note what is happening and enjoy the experience. Try to let the sounds enter your body without passing judgment. Just listen. I invite you to stay where you are or move around. I’ll give you an example from where I am right now. It’s 5.30 am on May 17, 2023. I’m in an apartment in Montreal. I’m hearing a thin tic toc sound at a distance. Behind that I hear a faint birdsong outside the apartment. I also hear my voice reverberating in this room and the sound of my breath. I also hear and feel the sound of my blood passing through my veins. The more I listen the more I hear and feel connected to this space and this moment. I’m not listening to modernity. I am modernity. * This listening exercise was recorded on my iphone (poor sound quality) at 5.30am on May 16th, 2023 (I made a mistake and said May 17 on the recording) in one take in mp 3 format. I wrote the script a few minutes before recording it. I did not edit the recording or add the ‘bell and breath’ at the top. I wanted it to be from that moment, ‘as is’, in the spirit of the exercise. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to NAISA, New Adventures in Sound Art.

a quote from robin parmar about speculative fiction that raises some questions (bell and breath) I love the sound of leaves dancing on hard surfaces. (sound of a leaf blowing) It’s poetic and kinetic and you’ll see in a minute how this sound relates to this episode about speculative fiction. With his kind permission, I will quote composer Robin Parmar, from a question he asked me at the end of my keynote presentation at the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology conference ‘Listening Pasts - Listening Futures’ on March 23rd, 2023 in Florida via Zoom. Here’s Robin question recorded from my microphone in the room: The problem with the future is that it's already happened. Hollywood, and increasingly the games industry, have already colonized popular imagination about what the future is and there have been so many post-apocalyptic scenarios played out on the screen. And in almost all of these, there's a heroic band of survivors who have to face their new world in a confrontational way, which just perpetuates the same narrative of what I prefer to call the industrial military entertainment complex. I don't, like you, I don’t give up hope, but I realize it’s a small leaf in the wind, because I'm not sure how we can compete with such a massive force of narrative that in a way has already written the story, or at least the story that people want to hear, because people have to want to hear the story for it to be a successful one. (sound of a leaf blowing) Robin mentions a small leaf in the wind as a metaphor for our feeling powerless when faced with creative forces around us shaping our collective imagination in ways we might not be aware of, or even desire… So I thought about Robin’s question and have come up with some questions of my own: (in English and in French) I want to thank Robin for his question. Merci pour ta question, Robin. What kind of stories do you want to hear? / Quel genre d'histoires aimeriez-vous entendre ? * For more information on Robert Parmar’s work see http://robinparmar.com/paper-platial-phenomenology.html. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to Howlround Theatre Commons https://howlround.com/.

Here is another bonus episode, this one is called 'Portrait of Robin Mathews'. It is 3 part unpublished radio program I created in 2005 in collaboration with Robin based on an interview I recorded with him in 2004. The program is a layered discussion about the history of political poetry in Canada, the role of the artist in society and family matters, in particular his relationship with me as my father-in-law. This program also includes Robin reading excerpts of his poetry as well as some of my soundscape compositions.

e129 world listening day - what does world listening day mean to you? (bell and breath) Every July 18th is World Listening Day. It’s also composer and acoustic ecologist R. Murray Schafer’s birthday. Rest in peace Murray. Now World Listening Day 2023 proposes three very interesting listening prompts and I'll try to answer their questions in today's episode. Question 1 What can we learn from the listening practices of all living beings? What can we learn from the listening practices of all living beings? It's a very good question and I would start by questioning who is the ‘we’ in this context. I would also question the assumption that other living beings have listening practices as we know them. ‘We’. This being said, this prompt made me think of a story told to me by composer Robert Normandeau in 1991 for my Marche sonore 1 radio program that I did for Radio-Canada. I quote it in episode 19 reality and I’ll play it back for you now. (e19 reality) · It’s a bit like taking a frog, which is a cold-blooded animal, and putting it in a jar of water and heating the water, little by little. The frog will get used to the temperature rising and rising, and it will not notice that the temperature has risen and one day the temperature will be too hot for it and it will die. Therefore, our civilization, in terms of sound, looks a bit like that, that is to say we get used to it, we get used to it, we get used to it and at some point, we are going to have punctured eardrums. Now the early 1990’s were a time of great environmental awakening and action, in particular the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. There was a sense that this was our last chance to change directions, to undo some of the wrongs of pollution. Ironically, things got much worse after 1992. Sadly, this window is now closed and we find ourselves in very hot water not feeling or responding to the heat, the smoke and other signals we are receiving and so we’re slowly boiling to death… (Bell) Question 2 How can we deterritorialize listening practices? How can we deterritorialize listening practices? Dererrirorialize. De… terror. Deterritorialize. It’s a hard word to say. The notion of territory makes me think of stolen lands by colonial settlers, like myself, living in indigenous lands, unceded lands, such as the Algonquin-Anishinaabe nation, otherwise known as Ottawa. One form of deterritorialization is the land back movement. According to journalist and Canada Council for the Arts chair Jesse Wente (also see e107 harm) land back is : about the decision-making power. It’s about self-determination for our Peoples here that should include some access to the territories and resources in a more equitable fashion, and for us to have control over how that actually looks.What does land back sound like? Just last week I published an episode about decolonized listening 128 revisited. Here’s an an excerpt from that episode : On June 23, 2023 I had the pleasure, and the privilege, of attending ‘Listening to Lhq’a:lets’ (I hope I’m pronouncing that right), otherwise known as the city of Vancouver, at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Learning at the University of British Coumbia, which is situated l on the unceded and ancestral territory of the Musqueam Nation. A group of artists, all women, spoke about their week-long residency, organized by indigenous sound scholar and UBC professor Dr. Dylan Robinson. They shared a wide range of sensory engagements through listening to Lhq’a:lets: how our bodies listen through the haptics of vibration, about hearing and feeling the voices of our non-human relations, about how we can perceive the built environment with new perspectives – the air, waterways and earth that surround us. They spoke about their encounters with the trans-mountain pipeline, their dialogues with animals and birds, their encounters with haunting vibrations and their thoughts about the past, present and future sounds of this region. What they did not talk about...

(bell and breath) (movement 1 of vancouver soundscape revisited, eagle) You’re listening to the first movement, eagle, of my 1996 soundscape composition, vancouver soundscape revisited. I describe the piece in the program note as : an impressionistic portrait of the musicality and poetry of past, present and future soundscapes of Vancouver composed using archival sounds dating from the World Soundscape Project in the early 1970’s and from recordings of Vancouver made in the early 1990’s by Bob MacNevin on behalf of the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University (SFU). My method was to select a few hundred sounds from the collection, which I edited and catalogued by spectrum, category, function, pitch, and context. I then experimented with various combinations and modifications of the material until interesting sonic alchemies were found…’For example, you can now hear the ubiquitous sound of rain in Vancouver, a distant train whistle, bird song, the rumble of the harbour and… the 9 o'clock gun. Let me tell you a short story. On June 23, 2023 I had the pleasure, and the privilege, of attending ‘Listening to Lhq’a:lets’ (I hope I’m pronouncing it right), otherwise known as the city of Vancouver, at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Learning at the University of British Coumbia, which is situated l on the unceded and ancestral territory of the Musqueam Nation. A group of artists, all women, spoke about their week-long residency, organized by indigenous sound scholar and UBC professor Dr. Dylan Robinson. They shared a wide range of sensory engagements through listening to Lhq’a:lets: how our bodies listen through the haptics of vibration, about hearing and feeling the voices of our non-human relations, about how we can perceive the built environment with new perspectives - the air, waterways and earth that surround us. They spoke about their encounters with the trans-mountain pipeline, their dialogues with animals and birds, their encounters with haunting vibrations and their thoughts about the past, present and future sounds of this region. What they did not talk about was themselves, their accomplishments or the type of technology they used to extract and manipulate the sounds. None of that. There was also no reverence for say R. Murray Schafer or the World Soundscape Project, nor any nostalgia about the good old days when, say, the term ‘soundscape’ was invented. There was no disrespect either. They were listening from a different position. So I heard stories, poems, anecdotes, images, silences and prophecies… It was uplifting. (excerpt from movement 2, fire) So when I listened back to my soundscape composition, I realized that my revisitation was mostly a, let’s call it, a reshuffling of the colonial deck chairs. Yes I cleverly combined horns, whistles, sirens, industrial and natural sounds as a commentary on the beauty and madness of contemporary urban life but my revisitation was from a very narrow point of view. I now realise that this music, my music, is inherently complicit with colonialism and that my creative gestures are actually further cycles of exploitation. In retrospect it might have been more useful for me to figure out how to repair the damage done to past, present and future soundscapes of Lhq’a:lets. What does decolonized listening sound like to you? * This event was part of the three-part Friday evening series, Artists Within the Anthropocene. Presented in partnership with the Belkin Art Gallery. Listening to Lhq’a:lets / Vancouver is also part of a week-long artist residency organized with The Score: Performing, Listening and Decolonization UBC Research Excellence Cluster, in partnership with the UBC School of Music and Evergreen. The six participating artists were Bonnie Devine, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Dolleen Manning, Lisa Myers, Astrida Neimanis, Lisa Ravensbergen and Rita Wong. With thanks to the six artists who represented their work on June 23 and to Dylan Robinson for his...

Note: the podcast recording was improvised based on this script and therefore has additional material. This 127th episode of the conscient podcast marks the halfway point of season 4, which, as you might recall, is called Sounding Modernity and explores what modernity might sound like, how it affects us and what we can do about it.. Maybe… A heads up that this episode is 57 minutes in duration because it is part of the ‘afield’ series of framework radio in Estonia. The season began on January 1 with e101 tension: (Beginning of e101) I was thinking about the tensions in our lives and the art of finding balance points… So I went for a sound walk in Vancouver and came upon a piece of fishing line. I brought it home, strung it up and recorded myself plucking it… (cross fade to the end of e101) Listeners might recall that each episode this season ends with a question: How do you feel now? ‘How do you feel now’ is actually at the heart of this project. How do one perceive the sounds of our modern world? What does it feel like to absorb these sounds into our bodies? How can we change the way we listen? How can we move away from the madness of modernity? And if, tragically, we are unable to step away, at the very least, how can we help prepare future generations for what is coming? How can art help? How can listening help? Are we helpless? (Silence then ocean sounds) I’ve received some interesting responses and reactions to the first 26 episodes and 6 blogs of the project so far, in various forms and channels, for example, this poem from artist and educator Carolina Duque (also known as Azul), submitted on January 3, 2023, about her experience with e101 tension : I walked down the sea line of San Andrés Island, in the Caribbean, as I listened. Listened Felt the ten sion tens Ion I grew up on this island. I notice the shoreline getting smaller. I notice the corals turning grey. I notice the buildings growing taller. The overlapping reggaeton and vallenato music from competing speakers. I notice everything getting louder. I notice the Tens – ion. I notice the menus saying fish is scarce. I notice In my lungs the tension. In my eyes the tension. In my waves, in my feet. The tension. (Ocean sound fade out) My response : I was reading Jenny Odell’s ‘How To Do Nothing’ book today and came upon this sentence that relates to your response. I quote: ‘I hold up bioregionalism as a model for how we might begin to think again about place’ (end of quote), which to me means that we need to be stewards of the land, wherever we are, in collaboration with all living beings. I documented almost all of the feedback I received from listeners in my monthly conscient blog on conscient.ca. I am grateful for these gifts of knowledge and insight. (e102 aesthetics) Most episodes in this podcast are about the relationship between art and the ecological crisis. For example, in e102 aesthetics: The problem with beauty is that it can distract us from reality. Sit with me, please, take a moment. Sit and listen… I’ve also integrated soundscape compositions in and around the narrative, for example, from e103 heat: (end of e103) This thing is smart. Everything talks to each other. I would just leave it on auto and let it choose what it wants to do. What does decarbonization sound like to you? How do we decarbonize our lifestyles? One way is to rethink the way we use energy in day to day life, for example, in e110 - drain, I talk about water : (beginning of e110) It goes down the drain (again) and into the sewer system to be processed and dumped into the Ottawa river, then it evaporates into the sky and it rains back into our lakes and rivers, bringing with it with many pollutants, and then is pumped into our homes, in our bodies and heated until… A friend, artist Maria Gomez, shared this response to e110 on March 6: Only the water doesn’t stay in the Ottawa region, as it travels south in the moist of the clouds all the...

(soundscapes of east vancouver at c. 5am) I can’t sleep tonight. What about you? I love nighttime soundscapes. They’re so bareboned, minimal, like the rumble that you hear now, mostly from Vancouver harbour, but also the industrial area here in east vancouver. So I'm up, recording, listening, figuring out what keeps me up at night, this night, other nights, when I listen and try to understand... Sometimes I feel like I can hear inaudible sounds, like the polar ice caps melting… (homeless person walking by with wagon) But of course what I'm hearing here is the life around me. A homeless person just walked by with their wagon of survival materials and that's what happens at night. Life unfolds and people try to survive. Some are dormant and some are very active, like the raccoons who are doing their work. But back to the ice melting, that's what I find bewildering is this state between awakeness and sleep. A kind of dream state where I'm not sure what exactly I'm hearing and my imagination kind of takes over, so, I do sometimes feel like I'm listening to things like the ice melting up north in the arctic or feeling the trees around me growing. What is the sound of a tree growing? What are those kinds of things. They don't always wake me, but they sometimes keep me up at night in wonder and I worry about this fragile world… Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023, 5.12am. What keeps you up at night? * The soundscape for this episode was recorded at 5.07 am in Vancouver on May 3, 2023. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the The Only Animal theatre company.

(bell) I take stock of climate news by reading the headlines of the excellent daily newspaper, national observer, for example, on Tuesday April 25th, 2023 these were the headlines : ‘We might have a coverup problem’: MPs grill Alberta Energy Regulator CEO over oil sands tailings leaks (sound of dripping and filtering from simplesoundscapes e34 goutte) ‘Meet the man turning mushrooms into meat’ (quiet field with crickets) ‘How the pandemic challenged libertarianism’ (crowd at protest) ‘Tide-powered clean energy could help West Coast communities ditch diesel’ (beach in Cuba and truck in Ottawa) ‘Hands off the Greenbelt rally turns up heat on Ford government’ (Anti-Ford government greenbelt policy rally in Ottawa) ‘A wake-up call to oilsands industry to ensure that all necessary measures are in place to prevent future wildlife tragedies’ (loon at lake in Papineau-Labelle reserve and coyotes in Mono, Ontario) ‘Shocking new federal research reveals Alberta oilsands may be vastly underestimating greenhouse gas emissions’ (hiss of gas meter in Ottawa, pavement machine in Ottawa, drone of ferry in Vancouver) ‘What How to Blow up a Pipeline won’t teach you’ (Lynn Canyon forest, North Vancouver) How do you respond to climate news? * This episode involves my reading the headlines of the National Observer newspaper on Tuesday April 25th, 2023 accompanied by field recording from my collection. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the National Observer news service.

I decided to go for a walk this morning here in Kitchener, Ontario. A soundwalk.. Just because it's something to do; to be connected to a place. This is a settlement of course : a city. What I try to do is listen to sounds past, present, and future at the same time. How does one do that? It’s mostly about feeling our way through what was here, and what I assume was forested lands. What is here now is mostly asphalt, brick houses and a few trees. In the future, one could hope that it would come back to a more natural state, in one way or another, but it might also just become what the planet is becoming, which is devastated by climate change and living with the consequences of tipping points that we will have passed. So listening in that sense is important to our everyday lives because it can inform us to understand the past, experience the present and anticipate the future. So what's happening here now? It's a very windy day. It's almost too much for this recorder. I’m just walking on the street, noticing as much as I can and feeling the wind on my skin, of course. You can hear that there are birds. It’s February 26th, 2023, and there are all kinds of little things going on, rattling… The trees speak to us in their language and I am walking with you, listening. That's what a soundwalk is. Of course, the sound of cars are inevitable in the city and it's nice when they're spaced out like that because they can be quite beautiful, when they're not too numerous. Though the relationship of gas powered vehicles to the environment is an ongoing concern. I'm always on that edge between appreciating the beauty of something and realizing its origins such as the impact of the manufacturing and use of these devices. I try not to pass judgment. I try simply to be in this moment and when it occurs, then I just let that information inform my being in the world. My question is : how do you soundwalk? * This episode was recorded on February 26, 2023 in Kitchener Ontario. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the Anishnabeg Outreach in Kitchener.

(Bell and breath) I sometimes try to map out, on a piece of blank paper like this, where I think humanity is at with the ecological crisis… This helps me, among other things, to come to terms with reality. I decided to share this exercise with you, listeners of the conscient podcast, in case you have similar thoughts. I’ll start on the left with mitigation, which is the act of reducing the severity, or painfulness, of an activity. In this case, we are mitigating our own self-destruction. The second part of my map is adaptation which is the modification of our behaviour that makes us more resilient. In other words, adapting to disasters and catastrophe as the new normal. Adapting to new circumstances. Now the third part of my map is called a tipping point line, which is the point when unstoppable changes take place. A kind of tipping into a point of no return. Some say we’re already there, others that we’re very close. But either way the tipping point is a critical moment and it’s one we need to be aware of. Next is survival which is about continuing to live in spite of extremely difficult circumstances. It makes me think of the film Thelma and Louise, some of you might know, the very last scene, when their car drives off a cliff. I think humanity is like that, in free fall and that some of us might survive. The last element of my map is recovery which is a bit more positive, but the recovery happens after the catastrophe and the disasters that are coming. Recovery is that return to a normal and healthy state, where we recover knowledge and skills that are required, or draw upon new knowledge in order to live in harmony with all living beings on earth. It’s ironic and tragic that we actually could do this now but we chose not to. So these are the five elements on my map: mitigation, adaptation, tipping point line, survival and recovery, but the problem is that I’m wrong. The map is wrong. The truth is that I don’t know. There are endless possibilities and dimensions that I’m not yet able to conceive or understand and yet sometimes, somehow, I can feel them. So I’m done with drawing maps and speculating with thoughts and ideas. Instead, I’m going to listen to the intelligence of my body, to the intelligence of non-human beings around me, to other forms of knowledge and beings that are emerging, and see where that takes me. Thanks for listening. Oh and my question is… What possibilities do you not yet know? * This episode is a bit raw. I wrote the text in one draft and then recorded it right away before editing it too much. I leave it up to the you to determine where their own point of recovery might be: before or after the tipping point line… I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the Deep Adaptation Forum.

(bell and breath) (Sounds of forest in winter with icicles) Sometimes we just have to stop and listen. Without passing judgement. Just listen…. Sometimes we just have to stop and listen * Recorded at our cottage in Duhamel, Québec on December 30th, 2022. Thanks to the forest and the frozen rain for this wonderful soundscape. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to equiterre