INTRODUCTION
This exposition emerged from my participation in the second interval of the Simultaneous Arrivals (Simularr) Artistic Research Project—a research project inviting international artist-researchers to explore relational, situated, and process-based inquiries in dialogue with core researchers. Core researchers: Nayari Castillo, Hanns Holger Rutz, Franziska Hederer, and Daniele Pozzi. For the second interval, the visual artist and researcher Elena Radaelli and I were invited as visiting artist-researchers. (More information on Simultaneous Arrivals: https://simularr.net/about/)
The eight-week residency (3 March–30 April 2024) took place across three sites: Graz (Austria), Lecce and San Cesario (Italy), and Klagenfurt (Austria). These locations served not only as geographic markers but also as distinct socio-sonic environments that informed and shaped the research. Engaging with the project’s conceptual anchors in simultaneity and relational ontology, my approach centers on affective nearness, embodied co-presence, and responsive relationality through a constellation of listening-thinking-making practices. This exposition traces the research journey through various media, including texts, graphics, video and audio material, material experiments, field encounters, and theoretical companions. For theoretical companions, I follow paths of Jean-Luc Nancy, Sara Ahmed, Judith Butler, and others, reflecting on processes of arriving, attuning, and making-with within its evolving context.
Throughout, my processes are informed and shaped by companion collaborators—human (research-creation companions), more-than-human, textual, and material—who co-inform and co-create the unfolding of the research.
COMPANION TEXTS I BROUGHT WITH ME
Ahmed, Sarah. (2006). Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Duke University press.
Ahmed, Sarah. (2017). Living a Feminist Life. Duke University press.
Feld, Steven. (2015). Acoustemology. In Novak, D., Sakakeeney, M. (Eds). Duke University Press.
Lorde, Audre. Gay, Roxane (Ed). (2020) The Selected Works of Audre Lorde. W.W. Norton & Company.
McMullen, Tracy. (2016). Improvisation Within a Scene of Constraint: Judith Butler interviewed by Tracy McMullen, In Negotiated Moments by Siddall, Gillian. Duke University Press. DOI: 10.1215/9780822374497.
Nancy, Jean-Luc. (2000). Being Singular Plural. Translated by Robert D. Richardson and Anne E. O’Byrne. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Van der Tuin, I., Verhoeff, N. (2022). Critical concepts for the creative humanities. London: Rowman & Littlefield.
SIGNIFICANCE OF NEARNESS
One of the most significant aspects of the residency for me was the experience and interpretation of nearness[2], which I understand not only as physical proximity but as an affective and relational modality. Nearness shaped my modes of listening, being, and making throughout the residency. Receptivity, in both everyday encounters and artistic processes, became an inseparable mode of engagement. One of my main focuses was on attending to the affective traces that emerged throughout our relations, which is a lot about being open to letting something happen to you and being moved by something in a way that you hadn’t planned. This practice required a continuous attunement to unanticipated shifts and subtle resonances that arise when one allows oneself to be moved, and affected, rather than directing the course of events.
This approach resonates with Judith Butler’s understanding of relationality, particularly the view that agency is not solely generated from within, but is formed in exchange with others. Butler emphasizes that our actions are influenced by how we are acted upon, highlighting the relational context within which agency emerges[3]. Through this lens, co-presence during the residency became a site for exploring processes of listening marked by heightened modes of attention, and for working on practices of attuning and re-attuning to “what is.” Focusing on a continual exploration of contingent relating, my aim was to sustain an ongoing inquiry into what it means to attend to and attune with others, and to act, be, and create through this listening.
ON SIMULTANEOUSLY ARRIVING
I arrived at the residency with a blank slate, without a predetermined project, in order to explore the relational and affective dynamics of our collective arrival, as outlined in the project aims. My approach was grounded in listening; listening to the processes that emerged from within the relational zones we inhabited, and to the multiplicity of spaces with which we engaged.
From the outset, simularr was conceptually framed through the notions of simultaneity where we discussed Jean-Luc Nancy’s concept of the singularly plural being (Nancy, 2000) in our initial meetings. This orientation invites a shift away from conventional understandings of individuality and collectivity towards a relational ontology, emphasizing the interdependence and coexistence of singularities (individuals) within a plural framework (a collective). Situated within this lens, I experienced a sense of companionship in my processes, even when we were not physically near each other or actively engaged in thinking and making together.
I was particularly drawn to Sara Ahmed’s concept of "companion texts,"[1] as articulated in Living a Feminist Life (Ahmed, 2017). Ahmed describes companion texts as those that accompany us in our thinking and shape how we come to be and know the world. I adopted and extended this concept as a way of understanding the various forms of relationality that unfolded during the residency: not only relations with texts, but also with each person involved in the project, with materials, daily rituals, gestures, and the embodied experience of co-presence. Throughout the residency, I consistently felt accompanied by a sense of collective momentum.
[1] Ahmed writes: "A companion text is a text whose company enables you to proceed on a path less trodden. Such texts might spark a moment of revelation in the midst of an overwhelming proximity; they might share a feeling or give you resources to make sense of something that had been beyond your grasp; companion texts can prompt you to hesitate or to question the direction in which you are going, or they might give you a sense that in going the way you are going, you are not alone". (Ahmed, 2017, p. 16)
SPACES
"Spaces are not exterior to bodies; instead, spaces are like a second skin that unfolds in the folds of the body." (Ahmed, 2006, p.9)
The conditions and affordances of the three different locations (Graz, Lecce, Klagenfurt) were intertwined with the social dynamics of our relationality, profoundly influencing my creative process. The specific affordances of each space shaped the rhythms of thinking, making, and interacting, affecting the modes, forms, frequencies, and speeds of both interaction and creation. Each environment enabled varying degrees of contingent relating and cohabitation, thereby altering how we attended to, attuned with, and engaged in creating nearby. The social space that emerged through our interactions was an entanglement of experiential, contextual, fallible, contingent, emergent, subjective, collective, dialogical, situated, and polyphonic dimensions.
"If we know where we are when we turn this way or that way, then we are oriented. We have our bearings. We know what to do to get to this place or that place. To be oriented is also to be turned towards certain objects, those that help us find our way...When we are oriented, we might not even notice we are oriented: we might not even think "to think" about this point... After all, concepts often reveal themselves as things to think "with" when they fail to be translated into being or action." (Ahmed, 2006, p. 1, 6)
THE PATH IN KLAGENFURT
Over the course of these seven weeks, I have taken with me a constellation of all companions that have shaped my thinking and doing. In the final phase of the residency, Klagenfurt emerged as a site of reflection and synthesis. This stage called for the unfolding of three simultaneous processes:
1. Integration of experiences from Graz, viewed through the lens of our time in Lecce as well as the present context in Klagenfurt;
2. Reflection on our experiences in Lecce, re-contextualized through our recent arrival in Klagenfurt; and
3. A careful and attentive engagement with Klagenfurt, in order to attune to the initial affects and traces offered by the environment.
To begin processing and assembling these layered experiences, I adopted a daily journaling practice. Over time, this reflective writing gradually evolved into a compositional process.
GRAZ: IN TRACE OF THE BLACKBIRD: Collaborative (Im)possibilities & (Mis)understandings Within an Interpretive Framework
Journal Notes: Companion Collaborators (Week 2 of Residency)
In the second week of my eight-week residency at Simularr, my research continues as a listening-thinking-making practice, shaped by what I decided to call companion collaborators (drawing on Sara Ahmed’s notion of “companion texts,” as introduced in the introduction). These companion collaborators are not limited to human research-creation companions; they also include more-than-human beings, found objects, and texts. Together, they form a constellation of situated relations through which my practice will continue to be informed.
1. Research-Creation Companions: A central pillar is the five research-creation companions with whom conversations, discussions, methods, explorations, experiments, meals are shared. These companions are Nayari Castillo, Hanns Holger Rutz, Franziska Hederer, Daniele Pozzi, and Elena Radaelli. Our exchange circulates through boundary concepts and shared practices that inform both our individual and collective processes.
2. Eurasian Blackbirds: My daily walking route between Reagenz and Schlossberg has brought me into attunement with Eurasian Blackbirds, frequent yet elusive presences in this urban-woodland edge. Their song punctuates the movement of the day and has become a recurring sonic companion. I find myself asking: Will I encounter blackbirds again in Lecce or Klagenfurt? This question is not one of taxonomy, but of resonance; of what it means to trace a relation with the more-than-human across time and geography. The blackbirds have become markers of attention, of listening-with, rather than simply listening-to.
3. Found Objects and Memory Capsules: Alongside the blackbirds, my walks have led to encounters with objects—found along my path during repetitive walks, as well as group explorations, and a one-time visit to the local flea market. These objects—leaves, wooden fragments, stones, threads, pines cones, strings, bowls—hold performative potential. The process of selecting them is intuitive and involves an orientation towards feeling without naming it; affect and action precede thought. Could these objects be understood as memory capsules, as archives? I don’t know why this leaf and not the other, this wood, these bowls etc. My engagement with them is pre-verbal, affective, grounded in a felt sense that precedes thought or conceptualization.,
4. Companion Texts and Theoretical Lenses: This work is scaffolded by a set of theoretical texts that function as conceptual companions, orienting me through feminist, queer, and new materialist approaches to listening, relation, and becoming-with. Authors such as Sara Ahmed, Audre Lorde, Tracy McMullen, Steven Feld, Karen Barad, and Donna Haraway help me trace lines of inquiry into what it means to listen not as an act of reception, but as a relational and ethical stance. These texts do not provide a fixed map but rather serve as tuning forks; helping me attune to co-presence, differences, and response-abilities.The process is less about extraction or resolution and more about co-habiting uncertainty, cultivating attentiveness, and allowing meaning to emerge through situated doing.
This text was originally written in Lecce at the request of Hanns-Holger Rutz for his project. It reflects my ongoing relational engagement with blackbirds. Portions of this text are incorporated into the composition as spoken word.
On Arrival to Graz and Orientation
Upon arriving in Graz, one of the presences that drew me in (both sonically and affectively) was the Eurasian Blackbird (Turdus merula). I first heard its melodic calls on the evening of my arrival, and the following morning, its song woke me at 5:00 AM. Although I had not initially planned to work with birds, the blackbird's fluty, generative, and motivically rich song captivated me. It quickly became a central presence during my time in Graz, a companion I felt compelled to be near as often as possible.
Tracing the Blackbird and Tuning into Space
I began a daily, repetitive walk along the same route—between Reagenz and Schlossberg—passing through Stadtpark and ascending to the top of Schlossberg hill, where I frequently encountered blackbirds. My movement along this recurring path helped orient my awareness to the first space of the residency and facilitated tuning into its specific spatial and acoustic properties.
Objects and Affective Encounters
Along this route, I began collecting objects that evoked affective responses, such as a leaf, a piece of wood, a stone covered with moss etc. These objects are further explained under the section "Companion Collaborators."
Listening Beyond the Blackbird
My attention to the blackbird’s song gradually expanded my listening to include the voices of other birds. As I learned to recognize these new voices, my listening shifted, broadening my attention to the space and its other living beings. Thus, the blackbird not only became a central figure in this process but also a generative axis through which other sonic relations emerged.
EMERGENCE OF A SONIC HOUSE OF SIMULTANEOUSLY ARRIVING
Engaging with the sound recordings I made throughout the residency, I found myself drawn towards building a meta/musical space, a sonic habitat where diverse companions come together under a shared “roof”.
The recordings I made include a range of sonic materials: the voices of blackbirds, ambient and architectural sounds from Palazzo Russo (such as wind interacting with doors and windows), sonified magnet interactions with various surfaces, sounds of graphite-magnet experiments realized in collaboration with Elena, and a text I had written for Hanns’s (and read aloud) documenting my thinking at the time. In addition, the recordings feature more abstract gesture-sound patterns, each tracing the influence of the companions with whom I had the opportunity to share and explore space.
Within this evolving sonic environment, the blackbirds have acted as a kind of magnetic force. Their presence (literal or imagined) has served as a gravitational center, drawing the various agents of this piece into a centripetal movement oriented around the idea of sounding “nearby” the blackbird. Since the beginning of the residency, the blackbirds have remained with me, even in their physical absence. They have been grounding, wonder-filled companions whose patterns and gestures form the basis of much of the compositional material. This piece, therefore, invites all agents to gather around the and travel with the blackbirds, to “go visiting,” exploring abstract musical forms of swarming.
PATTERNS IN GROWTH MOVEMENTS
As Elena’s work with lichens continued, they increasingly permeated our conversations and studio environment, becoming a meaningful part of my surroundings. The presence of lichens drew me to think in terms of clusters, masses, and relational group movements; assemblages operating like bodies in collective motion. These formations suggest singularities within commonalities, where individual entities emerge through shared structures. This imagery led me to reconsider my longstanding interest in the materiality of sound. While my compositional and improvisational work had often leaned toward gesture-based structures, I now find myself increasingly drawn to texture-based approaches shaped by density, grain, and layered accumulation.
I began learning about lichen movements and growth patterns, discovering that they follow centripetal movements, developing inward toward a center along curved trajectories. A centripetal force, guides motion toward a central axis or the center of curvature. This inward pull, combined with outward curvature, resonates with the singular-plural entanglements I’ve sought to navigate during this residency.
Post Residency Reflection on Graz
During the period in Graz, my accommodation was independent, at Reagenz, where there was an ebb and flow of solitary time and meetings with companion researchers. The level of relational contingency in this space was lower compared to the two subsequent locations. We had approximately 2-3 meetings per week, which included discussions on various processes and concepts, a question-walk, a sensorial walk, a presentation of Hanns-Holger’s work, along with some shared meals. Apart from these engagements, there was much time for solitude, which afforded me to reflect on our meetings, and develop a relationship with the surrounding environment. My routine included daily walks to Schlossberg, driven by my growing interest in the blackbirds. During these walks, I tuned into the city's soundscape, connecting with the environment and evaluating what comes up from these relations in light of our collaborative research activities with companion researchers.
Leaving Graz
Journal Note: This entanglement with the blackbird has prompted a re-visiting and re-orienting of my practice-based curiosities, the theoretical companions I read alongside, and the discussions and explorations I make with my fellow researchers at Simularr. As we prepare to depart Graz, I wonder whether I will encounter blackbirds again in Lecce or later in Klagenfurt. I hold this question lightly; without expectation. Perhaps my relation with the blackbirds was meant only for this specific time and place. Perhaps Lecce will speak of other things, offering new sensibilities, new companions, and new pathways for attention and relation. Apart from these engagements, there was much time for solitude, which afforded me to reflect on our meetings, and develop a relationship with the surrounding environment.
Thinking with the shapes of memory capsules—objects I collected since the beginning of the residency—I began to explore ways of bringing together text and potential structures and forms for a musical composition.
INVITING OTHERS TO JOIN-IN AND THINK-WITH
This compositional “house”, a sonic habitat built from and with traces, is not static place. It is an evolving space which can invite further visitors. To that end, I have decided to integrate this work into an upcoming composition project, extending its life through the inclusion of two musicians: Margarete Huber (soprano) and Merve Salgar (tanbur). They are invited to play with and within the electroacoustic environment.
A central inquiry of the work is: how might each agent—the blackbird, the soprano, the tanbur, and their respective sounding bodies—speak in their own voices while also sounding within a space that speaks with and through all voices? The social imaginary of the piece is interested in recognizing and overthrowing fantasies of single-centered, one-way control systems, and to explore spaces for heterarchical relationships.Here, power moves and shifts, sometimes singular and at other times shared or multiple, but always in flux. The goal is to create a sonic-habitat where no single-voice has constant accumulation of power over the other.
How might we become sounding habitats for one another? How do we sound nearby each other? This exploration holds both the (im)possibilities and (mis)understandings that arise in the act of sounding together. Framed within an interpretative and comprovisatory approach, the work values immediacy, responsiveness, and the emergence of sonic gestures within contingent time-space relations. Performers are invited to ask: Performers are invited to explore: What may I offer? How can I support the others in the socio-sonic habitat as I travel with them sonically?
Where is it all starting from? Where is it going?
In search of tracing moments of arrivals and orientations
Journal Note: Transitioning
Upon transitioning from Graz to Lecce, I felt uprooted from the iterative rhythm I was starting to build with all the companions and the space. This shift held together a mixture of nostalgia for the rhythms that have been cultivated in Graz and excitement and anticipation for the new environment that will be an “intensive period” the residency of engagement with research companions. This transition places me within a state that can be described as between the “No Longer” and the “Not Yet” (Verhoeff & van der Tuin, 2022). This asks for suspending expectations, embracing uncertainty and indeterminacy with a sense of playfulness (a task not without its challenges).
During this period, several questions emerged: How can I trace all the connections from the beginning to the "now," alongside the companions who accompany me as we uproot ourselves from Graz? How do we reinhabit a new landscape and social dynamic together? How do I arrive (together) to this space? And how to trace the conditions of this arrival?
In asking: How can I trace all connections from the beginning to the "now" together with all the companions that come with me, as we uproot ourselves? I ponder whether this process of uprooting can be understood in relation to migration, much like the migratory patterns of birds? Rather than moving a linear progression towards a goal, isn’t migration a mode of attunement to changing conditions, a form of embodied knowing that is always relational? It listens, it senses, it responds. Isn’t it a form of dance with the shifting air and the earth? a choreography shaped by invisible forces—wind, temperature, memory, instinct, ancestral knowledge? Ahmed's words in relation to migration could provide guidance perhaps?
“Migration involves reinhabiting the skin: the different “impressions” of a new landscape, the air, the smells, the sounds, which accumulate like points to create lines, or which accumulate like lines to create new textures on the surface of the skin” (Ahmed, 2006, p.9)
Furthermore, I question whether this transition can be thought of as an orientation practice. Ahmed (2006) suggests:
“Orientations are about how we begin; how we proceed from “here” which affects how “there” appears, how it presents itself. In other words, we encounter “things” as coming from different sides, as well as having different sides.” (Ahmed, 2006, p.8)
This orientation, in relation to both physical and metaphorical migration, speaks to the complexity of navigating new spaces, of tracing lines of connection while being open to the transformations they induce.
LISTENING IN-BETWEEN THE
"NO LONGER AND THE NOT YET"
The title of this section is derived from the chapter "Between No Longer and Not Yet" in the book Critical Concepts for the Creative Humanities. In this chapter, media scholar Nanna Verhoeff and cultural theorist and feminist epistemologist Iris van der Tuin describe this "space" as follows:
"The gap, interval, or passage between no longer and not yet is a place, moment, or movement in which imagining can take place. Undergoing the in-between experience of oscillatory motion in space and time means that it is difficult to fully grasp what is not anymore but also not yet, or in the making. Recognition of what goes on in the present situation, prediction of what may happen in the future, and prescription of what must happen then are suspended, given the uncertainty and indeterminacy of the now. Differently phrased, when experiencing this oscillation, it is not quite possible to rely on existing knowledge and insights for the cognitive acts of recognizing, predicting, and prescribing...This leads to the insight that uncertainty and indeterminacy can have transformative and emancipatory potential." (Van der Tuin & Verhoeff, 2022, p.32)
PATTERNED "LISTENING"
Can a series of movement patterns—emerging from the acts of companions, including blackbirds, magnets, lichens, our movements within Palazzo Russo alongside companion researchers, and the gestures of fellow researchers engaged in practices such as printmaking, transforming, tracing, organizing, and materializing—be identified and articulated as a shared vocabulary? Could these recurring patterns become a shared language, linked to sonic, physical, and visual elements, that helps us describe and guide how we listen and create?
This approach understands listening not merely as something we do with our ears, but as a full-body experience shaped by movement, spatial awareness, and our sensitivity to others. What if these gestures and motions, real or imagined, became tools to help us tune into one another sonically? Could this broader understanding of listening open up new ways of connecting with companions, through interdisciplinary ways of thinking and making?
Could these patterns be traced through movement and sound, potentially serving as a form of notation? A notation that invites exploration and participation, rather than prescribing fixed forms or outcomes?
INITIAL STATE OF ARRIVAL
Lecce is so beautiful, with its abandoned spaces, historical buildings, small local grocery and coffee shops and I love listening to the melodic contours of intonation and the trilling "r"s of the language. I understand almost nothing of this language, so I find that I like being in the listening mode of listening to the blackbirds when I listen to it. I carry with me the mode of listening cultivated through my attention to the blackbirds, applying it as a way of being-with and attending-to the unfamiliar sonic contours of the language.
Journal Note: Traces & Movements (March 31st)
Although I do not go for repetitive walks outside the house every day as I did in Graz, I find myself still performing repetitive movements within the structures of the house. In an attempt to capture these movements, I decided to record them. However, perhaps due to the thickness of the walls, the GPS tracker failed to provide an accurate representation of my movements. I did not visit any of the top three rooms on the right, and there were movements outside the house as well. Despite the inaccuracies, this remains the closest approximation I could achieve in comparing Franziska’s map with my movements. Who knows, perhaps some of these traces belong to Gertrude, one of the ghosts of the previous owners of the palazzo.
EXPERIMENT OF MIGUEL
I am interested in tracing movement-sound continuations. Miguel Alejandro Castillo was one of the guest visitors, who is a choreographer and dancer. As we were talking about our interests we decided to have a practice exchange. In our practice exchange, Miguel invited me to introduce him to a conducting approach for a section of Akhnaten by Philip Glass, which he was choreographing at the time. And I invited Miguel to share some of his embodied strategies for moving with objects, specifically, with the ones I had been collecting since my time in Graz—objects I consider as memory capsules, vessels of situated memory.
My intention was to later reflect on the sound-movement continuations he explored through his embodied practice. This exchange unexpectedly evolved into a gathering of all fellow companions. All fellow companions assembled on the rooftop of the Palazzo, where Miguel performed; we all watched in awe. Although we did not have the opportunity to reflect in detail on his movements with specific objects due to time constraints, the performance itself holds so much to engage with. Presented here is an excerpt from that performance, along with some initial patterns and movement-sound transitions I have begun tracing.
These traces provide a starting point for thinking through Miguel’s movement with objects, in relation to gestures and the patterned movements that the architecture of the house both affords and invites us to perform.
DOMENIG STEINHAUS
We spent three days at the Steinhaus. During this time, I listened to the space, wandering in its metal and sharp, neat architecture, remaining receptive to the impressions and effects it awakened. Ultimately, I chose to incorporate the metal plates I had brought from Graz, as they resonated with the space’s material, color, shape and form, establishing a dialog between the two.I began to connect the plates with wires to the memory capsule objects I have been collecting from various spaces. By attaching a transducer speaker to the plates, my intention was to allow the movements of sound to influence the networked web of metal wires, linked to the memory capsules. In doing so, the sound would play through and with the metal plate, the metal wires and the memory capsule objects. The video excerpt provided demonstrates a prototype of this concept.
Three days were was not enough time to complete the composition and realize the complete project that emerged in my imagination. The project involves generating sounds from distinct spaces, with each sound/space emanating from separate metal plates. These plates are connected to a network of objects through metal wires, enabling both movement and sound to travel and affect one another. This interaction leads to leakages and the formation of entangled, dynamic, networked sonic-physical presences. Within this configuration, the composition transforms into a spatially moving manifestation of accumulated affective traces of companions. I am continuing to develop this project, and it will be completed and presented at a future date.
PALAZZO RUSSO, the shared site of our residence and practice, has a very specific architecture and strong, present atmosphere which played a crucial role in shaping our interactions. Its layout invites constant movement, a continuous shifting from “here” to “there.” In this movement offered by its architecture, we encounter one another, and these encounters in turn shape our orientations and trajectories. The movement within the space is contagious; we come together and drift apart as we "commute" within the house.
DRAWN BY MOVEMENTS & PATTERNS
Although blackbirds were absent in Lecce, the affective traces from Graz remained vivid. Upon revisiting my notes and recordings, I reflected on the persistent patterns of blackbird songs and movements, which continued to influence my thinking. By following a pattern, I found myself becoming patterned. In tracing the patterns from Graz, I began to observe more closely the movement and interaction patterns created by companion researchers in Lecce as we moved within the house.
The building's architecture, offers patterned and repetitive movements, that shapes our actions and holds us in entangled zones of relation. My shared workspace with Nayarí Castillo, was in a transitory part of the house, making it a space of active movement of transition, a hub for passing-through. In this space, I sought to trace how this continuous movement affected my attention and listening while engaging in reading, writing, composing music, editing soundscape recordings from both Lecce and Graz.I also reflected on how this movement shaped my orientation within these tasks.To maintain an intimate thinking space and avoid intruding upon the shared soundscape, I primarily worked with headphones. This practice heightened my sensitivity to movement-based visual information, and I became increasingly interested in the movement of magnets as metaphors for social relationality.Working in a shared, frequently visited space drew me towards reflecting on the patterns of movements and encouraged me to imagine and listen from the perspectives of others.Here I listened into the question: How do I consider my listening as part of a network of other listeners and other presences? How does this effect my creative thinking/making? Through this experience, movement based, patterned, interrupted, contagious, inspired thought patterns emerged.
EXPERIMENTS WITH ELENA
Combining Graphite with Magnetic Relations
Elena is currently interested in explorations with graphite, and lichens. As we shared our individual processes with each other, we became curious about the possibility of combining our explorations; wondering if magnetic relationships could be explored through graphite. Our shared inquiry included different forms of movement, visual traces, and sound, drawing inspiration from organisms such as lichens and imagining movements, visuals and sounds they might produce or embody. In our experiments, we found that magnets had a slight effect on the fine specks of graphite and the powder versions, but not on the pebbled forms. This led us to incorporate pieces of wire (which I’ve been working with) into the graphite mixture.
TRANSITIONING FROM LECCE TO KLAGENFURT
As we departed from Lecce, my focus remained directed toward tracing the patterns and continuities in movement-sound relationships that linked my experiences in Graz and Lecce. Unlike the earlier transition from Graz to Lecce which was characterized by a temporal tension between the “no longer” and the “not yet”, this subsequent shift, from Lecce to Klagenfurt, was shaped by a different temporal affect. In this case, the transition involved simultaneously holding the presence of "already past affects" and the "already affective present." And the trick was to hold them together without being torn apart.
MAGNETIZED BY MAGNETIC RELATIONS
In one of our initial Zoom meetings, Hanns Holger described boundary concepts as magnetisms; forces that draw individual agents together, holding and moving both the collective and the singular in dynamic tension.
One of the objects I often work within my piano practice are magnets, so I had brought some with me. While contemplating relational patterns, I explored various object relations. I found that placing the magnet in relation with a group of iron wires opened a reflective space for thinking about relationalities within group dynamics. This led me to inquire into possibilities that could be learned through playing-with and observing magnetic interactions. How could we (me, magnet and metal objects) move together in dialogic response?
In this setup, I appreciate that the movements of the magnets are not entirely predictable or controllable. I initiate the interaction by moving the magnet and then observe and listen to how the objects respond. Their response, in turn, informs my next gesture. These interactions offer a space to practice decentering the human while exploring material-agential qualities, thereby opening up possibilities for collaborative making. This process offers a metaphorical lens for thinking about group dynamics, as one observes how objects influence and respond to each other within a shared relational field.
THE WIND
Since our arrival in Lecce, the wind has been particularly strong. It is in a dynamic relationship with the house, pushing and pulling windows, doors, and various objects. The objects "of," "in," and "around" the house amplify its already strong character, giving it a voice that draws even more attention to its presence. The wind, in this context, takes on a physical presence of its own within the house.
ON INTENSIVE PERIOD
The residency in Lecce, marked as the intensive period of the residency, had a high level of relational contingency. All participants resided within the same palazzo, engaging in a multitude of communal activities that facilitated continuous interaction. These activities included daily discussion meetings, movement exercises, "village" exercises offered by facilitator Susanne Bosch, communal cooking, social events aimed at connecting with the local community, exploratory trips, soft invitations (visiting each other’s work), shared meals, work breaks, and the use of communal working and living spaces. Such a dynamic environment created numerous intertwined points of synchronization. Such high-level contingency asks for a highly mindful artistic process, which required a heightened level of listening, reflecting, responding, affectability, fragility, and care. The complexity of the co-operating required to rely more on my listening in moving-with others. Listening-with and -through the density of movement, of thinking, of presences, asked from me to work on my speed of perception and processing. With eight people living and working in close proximity, all actions influenced each other’s creative practices. And consequently, one thing that immediately rose to the surface was the significance of nearness, the role of repeated actions in shaping listening, sounding, and moving bodies.
I ask: How do I train and re-train my body to listen in-situ? What is the state of my ear? What is its conceptually activated state? What do I hear, how do I listen?
TRACES OF MOVEMENTS
What’s left behind on the paper are literal traces of the graphite’s movement. The outcomes of these experiments are recorded as literal traces left behind on paper by the movement of graphite. These markings document both circular and linear gestures. I am particularly drawn to the way each line, although appearing similar from a distance, resists strict parallelism; each carries subtle differences in movement and trajectory. Despite their collective appearance as a unified gesture, these marks reveal a variety—a composite, a multiplicity within unity. Upon closer examination, what initially seems to be a single gesture is, in fact, composed of multiple distinct movements. There’s so much more waiting to be discovered here.
Fulya Uçanok, May, 2025
IN CLOSING
The residency was a period of heightened relational attending, encouraging a fluid form of working that integrated everyday life and creative practice. The relational dynamics—among ourselves, our practices and thought processes, various disciplines, materialities, and the spatial and logistical conditions—played a crucial role in shaping our artistic processes. These dynamics influenced how we thought, created, and connected.
For me, this interval was centered on contingent forms of relating, involving a continual questioning of what it means to attend to and attune with others. This process necessitatedthe development of multiple capacities for attending, listening, and acting within nearness for an ongoing, cumulative, interactive participation and reflection, with care and attentive capacities.
Drawing from my experience as a musical free improviser, I experience that maintaining an open and curious stance in such relational settings requires embracing fragility, breaking habitual patterns, and acting with care, humility, and courage. During this residency, I believe we collectively created a valuable environment where each of us, through different approaches and at different dynamic levels, practiced these values, exploring being, thinking, and creating nearby each other.
CONTINUING RESONANCES & QUESTIONS
Many elements remain with me after this shared interval, from methods of working with materials to discussions on relationality, as well as approaches to co-existing and creating together. One of the takeaways I carry forward is the diverse modes of listening that emerged throughout the experience. The ways in which each of us listened—shaped by our backgrounds, sensitivities, and positions—influenced how we responded to one another and, in turn, how our creative processes unfolded.
For me, environmental and logistical shifts, ranging from living and working conditions to social interactions, brought about states of orientation, disorientation, and re-orientation. The concepts of orientation, disorientation, and re-orientation have become a recurring theme for me, particularly as someone coming from a country with a fractured democracy, which necessitates a constant openness to orientation. I have become increasingly interested in how disorientation might be embraced as a generative tool for creativity. Several questions continue to accompany me as I reflect on this experience:
What could be some tools to understand and position ones own listening as part of a broader network of listeners and presences? What practices might help decenter personal listening, allowing it to be considered as just one of many sonic presences in a given moment? How might such a shift affect group dynamics?
In what ways do listening-to and listening-nearby others inform the ethics of ones listening practice as a musician? How can these modes of listening foster dialogue both in sound-based practices but also in everyday relational encounters?
How might I extend or respond to more-than-human agents, (such as, a blackbird) through the human body and the instrument body within musicking? And how might these connections be reciprocal, flowing in both directions?
What could be some tools to understand and trace ones oriention of ones listening body and communicate its orientation in relation to others? What could be some practices of clearly communicating the sensitivity, sensibility, and care experienced in remaining attentive to others in shared environments?
