open call: "attuning the ears"

Listening is seemingly often undervalued across society when compared to the magnitude of the ocular. However, the tides are slowly shifting. Over the past few decades, an increased focus on listening in multiple cultural fields has led to an unfurling of our understanding of the potential that this sense possesses.

When we speak of listening in a colloquial sense, it is often associated with individual perception, to take into account every word, sound, or noise from a particular object or subject which we are dedicating our full attention to. There is an active effort to neglect surrounding sounds or noises in order to focus on a singular point, which can be a deep conversation, a concert, playing music at home, or focusing on the sounds of birds singing. It is important to note the distinction between hearing and listening. Hearing is considered a more passive way of receiving sounds that travel into the ears, whereas listening is the active processing of these sound signals in the brain, that is, paying attention to the sounds entering your ears. Even though we are naturally able to filter sounds that arrive in our ears, new technologies give us new ways of harshly filtering surrounding sounds. Also, certain sounds have more impact on some people than on others, whilst some people cannot even hear sounds that others can. Listening as the act of receiving sounds is shaped by a multiplicity of cultural, biological, and individual layers and influences.

Central questions for this exhibition are: How do we listen to sounds? What do we feel and learn when we listen to the world around us? What forms of knowledge production occur through listening? What are the sounds we choose to focus on? How do we learn what certain sounds are?

Sound art is gaining prominence in the artistic world, both as an individual and multi-sensorial practice, offering immersion and often requiring the full attention of the visitor. Listening could be used as an antidote for the attention economy, as a method to move beyond the familiar. We are in an era where sound production, creation and expression has become more accessible and legitimised. Learning through our ears can feel complex and it is not as straightforward and familiar as the ocular. Yet, as our ears continue to attune to these sonic experiences, how will these new perspectives change our movements and relations?