Workshop by Arcadie Botnaru & Mădălina Ciocanu
September 18-22, 2024 – Timișoara
how we think of cities determines how cities perform
Traditionally, cities have been perceived as lifeless superstructures, neatly organized concrete containers where social phenomena find their distribution – a backdrop for human activity.
What stories, what urban legends would we be able to tell if we thought of the city as a body, alive and breathing, a body that thinks and feels, just like the human body?
The aim of this workshop is to excavate the city from its anthropocentric ruins, re-story the city as an animate ecology, as an assemblage of animate beings in interaction with each other, where each being “contributes to the city’s constant state of becoming, shaping and reshaping the living, breathing organism that is the urban landscape” (Bennet, 2009).
In an attempt to reveal the workings of this “urban unconscious” and its impact on the urban subjectivity, as part of this workshop, we would like to perform a kind of sonic “psychotopical analysis” (Thrift, 2008) of Timisoara’s urban landscape by tuning into “the hum of the city” (Thrift, 2005), listening closely to what the city has to say. By using Richardson’s (2015) “schizocartography” and Oliveros’ (2005) “deep listening” as its (non)methodological pillars, the workshop will attempt to draw a speculative sonic map of Timisoara revealing the city’s “unconscious” transversed by myriads of “lines of flight” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) to alternative past, present and future spacetimes in which the city is constantly “becoming otherwise”. [read the concept note here]
The outcomes of the workshop will be incarnated in a collective sonic art installation titled “Coloana Sonoră Infinită” intended to reflect the idea that the city is a living body, a constantly moving assemblage, a loud symphony of human and non-human voices.
The installation results from the workshop will be presented during the SIMULTAN festival XIX between 3-6 October 2024.
METHODOLOGY
As part of the Porocity: City as a Body without Organs 5-day workshop, participants will engage in experiential learning activities blending together various walking research methodologies and sound crafting practices. Workshop time will be divided between conceptualization sessions, where participants will (re)engage with the city through insights drawn from new materialist and post humanist thought, and de/construction sessions, where the group will experiment with object and sound design.
↳ Object and material foraging:
We will forage objects from the city, flea markets, and own homes that show the moving life of the city. These objects may include everyday items, discarded materials, or artifacts with historical or cultural significance, symbolizing the interconnectedness of human and non-human elements in the city’s ecology.
↳ Deep listening:
Inspired by Pauline Oliveros’ deep listening practice, we will engage in deep listening exercises to attune to the urban soundscape. We will listen intently, reconsidering the existence of sounds that often go unnoticed, acknowledging how these auditory elements contribute to the city’s identity.
↳ Sound harnessing and collaging:
We will collect and harness archival sounds, ambient city soundscapes, music, and recorded conversations, aiming to explore Timișoara’s ‘unconscious’ and the diverse soundwaves—both human and non-human—that shape its sonic environment. These sounds will be experientially arranged into a sound collage using Ableton sound design software (no working knowledge is required).
↳ Group reflections on the processes of Timișoara as a living organism:
We will engage in reflective sessions that inquire into what/who makes the city and how this shapes our relationship with it.
↳ Psychogeographic walks:
We will drift through the city, de-familiarizing ourselves with it, attempting to get lost in it, hoping to arrive at its unconscious lands.
TIMETABLE
↳ the workshop will take place from September 18-22
↳ working hours: Wed-Fri: 15.00-19.00 / Sat – Sun: 11.00-16.00
↳ working language: romanian and/or english.
Registration is open until September 13 and participation is free for anyone interested – 8 participants.
REGISTER HERE
[questions to simultan@simultan.org]
AUTHORS / FACILITATORS
Arcadie Botnaru is a becoming-artist, educator and independent researcher born in a small industrial town in the north of Moldova. He holds a BS in Psychology and an MA in Experiential Learning. Arcadie designs and facilitates non-formal educational programs in which he weaves together experiential and art-based learning methodologies with theoretical insights from ‘post’ philosophies, feminist writings and Indigenous cosmologies, in an attempt to craft a posthuman pedagogical praxis for a planet-yet-to-come. His ethical focus is on social justice and ecological equity.
Mădălina Ciocanu works with sound, education, ethnography, research, and and and… She re/searches transdisciplinarity at Columbia University and makes and mixes music under the secret stage name BORȘ. She plays around with sound, inquiring the collectivity and materialism of ‘producing’-composing-creating (and hosted the workshop “Ciulește Urechile” based on deep listening). Mădălina was born in Chișinău and has spent the past 15 years in the Americas, with a recent comeback in this hemisphere. Her ethical focus is on dialogical pluriversality.
Porocity: City as a Body without Organs is funded by the European Union in the framework of the EU4Culture project implemented by the Goethe-Institut.