Soeria van den Wijngaard
Internship: Sacred Paths Yoga, Guatemala
soeria.com
Listening is essential for radical self-acceptance. Intelligent use of the power of the ego and understanding our physiology in combination with emotion regulation is the starting point of revolution on a global scale. We suffer daily from perceived scarcity, competition, alienation, insustainability and inequality.
In order to replace judgement with curiousity we need to get really quiet at times and listen to ourselves (mind and body) with the attitude of pleasure and social justice activist Adrienne Maree Brown: “If I wasn’t ashamed of my pleasure, what would be possible?”, to others with the attitude of monk Thich Nhat Hanh: “Listen with only one purpose: to help them empty their heart.” And to our environment with the attitude of queer composer Pauline Oliveros: “Designers, engineers and city planners as well as sound artists, composers and musicians have the power to enhance the quality of life through deep listening.”
to love is to listen
GRADUATION PROJECT
Installation for listening
An immersive and participatory story. A tactile sound installation.
Enjoying and expanding one’s perception of the present moment can be deeply healing in itself. However, if willing, I take you deeper from there, in your sense of hearing, exploring what it means to you to be a witness of yourself. Deep listening. I attempt to remind you that you are an ecology - ever changing, ever fluctuating, ever oscillating, ever responding.
Because listening is essential for radical self-acceptance.
Because intelligent use of the power of the ego is necessary.
Because understanding your physiology in relation to your emotions enables accountability.
Because embodying who you are is your birth right and your job.
Because it is the starting point of revolution on a global scale.
We suffer daily from perceived scarcity, competition, alienation, insustainability and inequality. Replacing judgement with curiousity means to be completely honest with the present.
Details
4 speakers - field recording sound piece: ‘warm rainstorms’ 29'59" - 700 handmade ceramic bells - hemp rope
2016 - 2020
Team & support:
Arjen Bos, Maarten Keus, Cocky Keus, Cami Chebez, Leyla-Nour Benouniche, Nicolas Landriati, Ines Delgado, Evita Verbrugge, Michiel Pijpe, Ella Hebendanz, Hannah Mulqueeh, Berk Duygun, Marlot Meyer, Robert Bruggeman, Marko Dorothal, Willem van Spronsen
Special thanks:
Yulong Jin Zois Loumakis
THESIS
The Mastery of Perspectives - Listening for (in) love
To be in the opposite state of fear, means being in state of love.
One way of being and staying there is through listening. This includes a willingness to receive. Next to that one needs to make and hold space to be silent. First for yourself, then for others. In this thesis I write about what hearing and listening is and from there will take you down, deeper and deeper into what listening can do, through the work of Pauline Oliveros, Hanzi Freinacht and others. Leaving the individual perspective and zooming out to see society’s perspective on listening, I discuss modernism and its implications, and adress a new form of modernism that oscillates between modernism and post-modernism: metamodernism. The political appliance of metamodernism introduces a welfare model called ‘The Listening Society’, proposed by imaginary political metamodernist Hanzi Freinacht. I introduce you to queerness, the trait of high sensitivity, and embodiment, that come together into my concept of ‘The Mastery of Perspectives’. This is a loving, but fierce attitude that revolves around mastering and eloquently applying emotional intelligence by those in powerful positions, including you, dear reader. If we want to shift away from scarcity we need more time to listen and integrate, something which sensitive leaders will strive for.
keywords: listening, field recording, hearing, well-being, sound art, music, the listening society, metamodernism, sociology, developmental psychology, applied psychology, mental health, empathy.