conscient podcast
Claude Schryer
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Canadian composer Claude Schryer's learning journey about art and the ecological crisis : conversations, newsletters and/or sound creations. Season 1 : environmental awareness and action Season 2 : reality and ecological grief Season 3 : radical listening Season 4 : sounding modernity - weekly 5 minute sound meditations Voir 'balado conscient' pour la version en français.
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14 hours ago
e149 spinning - let the sound take you wherever it might in your imagination
i came upon a 1980’s era ‘discman’ portable CD player that still work, sort of and listened to it trying to spin up
TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE
(bell and breath)
(old cd player trying to spin up)
While going through a box of old technologies to be recycled, I came upon a 1980s era discman portable CD player that still sort of worked.
I listened to it, trying to spin up to speed to do its job, but it wasn't able to, it didn't have enough power, energy, or ability left in it. But the sound was really interesting because it kept trying to get up to speed, so to speak.
So, it feels to me like this is a symbol, as an example of modernity falling apart, not able to deliver.
So, there's something about that fascinated me in this sound, and so I made it a type of sonic meditation, and I suggest you listen to it without any particular story in mind.
Just let the sound take you wherever it might in your imagination.
*
The idea for this episode came from my wife Sabrina. Thank 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 Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts.
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5 days ago
60 Minute Cities Ottawa (revisited)
A special episode of The Place of Sound podcast featuring highlights from a project I did in 2017 for Bivouac Recordings, in Hong Kong, called 60 minutes Cities Ottawa, a series of winter time field recordings of Ottawa.
Note: This episode is also available in French.
This is a special episode of _The Place of Sound_ podcast. You’ll hear highlights from a project I did in 2017 for Bivouac Recordings, a sound label based in Hong Kong, called 60 minutes Cities Ottawa - featuring winter sounds in Ottawa - curated by Terrence Lloren, which is a series of albums focused on an individual’s genius loci or the ‘spirit of a place’.
Each 60-minute cities album is a personal document of the recordists (re)discovery of their ‘city’ through sound. The 60 minutes of recordings are taken from the recordist’s own personal surroundings and include photos and text to describe the significance of these sounds to their own lives.
The result is a document that reveals the deepest character of a place through a native resident’s own experience so that (locals) and non-locals, as well as the recordist, can (re)connect with the city and (re)discover the beauty of their place.
You’ll hear excerpts from :
* _Commemoration_, recorded on November 11, 2016 at 10.58am at the National War Memorial on Elgin Street
* _Running_, recorded on New Year Day, 2017 at 11.28 am in Sandy Hill
* _Protest_, recorded on January 21, 2017 at 11am at the corner of Elgin and Gloucester street
* _River_, recorded on January 29th, 2017, at 1.34pm, on the Ottawa River west of downtown
* _Office_, sound of office towers and entry and exits at 150 Elgin St.
* _Skateway_, the rideau canal skateway, on January 26th, 2017
* _Parliament Hill _on February 18, 2017, at 11.58am
TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE
Note: below is my original script which I improvised from during the recording
(Choir singing O Canada at Remembrance Day ceremony, November 11, 2016, Ottawa)
Please stand for O Canada…
(Fade to silence)
My name is Claude Schryer. Welcome to a special episode of The Place of Sound, a radio show/podcast produced in Carleton University’s Communication and Media Studies Program by Dr. Vincent Andrisani and airing on CKCU FM, campus radio.
_The Place of Sound _explores the idea of ‘place’ through the ears of students and sometimes, guest producers, like me. Check it out.
I’m speaking to you from Ottawa, which is on the unceded and un-surrendered territory of the Algonquin-Anishinaabe nations, who are the customary keepers and defenders of the Ottawa River Watershed and its tributaries.
What you’ll hear today are highlights from a project I did for Bivouac Recordings a sound label based in Hong Kong. In 2017 I produced 60 minutes Cities Ottawa as part of Bivouac’s 60-minute cities project, curated by Terrence Lloren, which are a series of albums focused on an individual’s genius loci or the ‘spirit of a place’, which is closely related to the objectives of this podcast.
Each 60-minute cities album is a personal document of the recordists (re)discovery of their ‘city’ through sound. The 60 minutes of recordings are taken from the recordist’s own personal surroundings and include photos and text to describe the significance of these sounds to their own lives. The result is a document that reveals the deepest character of a place through a native resident’s own experience so that (locals) and non-locals, as well as the recordist, can (re)connect with the city and (re)discover the beauty of their place.
But first, who am I? Qui. Suis-je?
Until September 2020 my day job was as a senior strategic arts advisor at the Canada Council for the Arts but then I decided to focus on the climate emergency and co-founded an art and climate organization called SCALE, the _Sectoral Climate Arts Leadership for the Emergency_, that I encourage you to check out.
In 2020 I also started up a bilingual podcast called the _conscient podcast_, balado _conscient_ en français, exploring art and the ecological crisis. I’m just completing season 4 now exploring the sounds of modernity which will take me to episode 153 on December 31, 2023. I invite you to check it out at conscient.ca. You’ll find various subscription options, including a monthly blog where I share my learnings and more importantly my unlearnings and so on.
However, today, I’m taking a break from the darker side of podcasting and invite you to listen to some soundscapes with me from Ottawa where I was born in 1959 and where my wife Sabrina and two children have lived since 1999.
(fade in Remembrance Day recording)
Let’s pause for a minute of silence.
This recording is called _Commemoration_ and was recorded on November 11, 2016 at 10.58am at the National War Memorial on Elgin Street a few steps away from Parliament Hill. This is Remembrance Day, our national day to remember those who died in military service.
(running sounds in Ottawa)
Will you join me for a run? This sequence was recorded on New year day, 2017 at 11.28 am. Back then I was a marathon runner, so this sequence is me running at a good pace through Ottawa. Can you hear the slush? I love Ottawa in the wintertime.
(Outdoor protests)
There’s always a lot going on and it being our capital city there are often protests, such as this one recorded on January 21, 2017 at 11am at the corner of Elgin and Gloucester street. On this day, all around the world, women (and some men) marched in solidarity with The_ Women’s March on Washington_: a grassroots effort to protest the Donald Trump Presidency, one day after his inauguration) and to stand together in solidarity and to recognize that vibrant and diverse communities are a strength.
The sound of a public march has always been moving to me: inspirational chants, solidarity slogans, cries of anger, echoes of hope. In this Ottawa women’s march, you hear the slogans _‘no limits for women’_, _‘the people united will never be divided’ _and _‘tiny hands, tiny feet, all Trump does is tweet-tweet-tweet’_.
Hopefully we won’t have to protest again on January 21st, 2025.
(Ottawa River)
Now let’s move now to the mighty Ottawa River or the _Kichisìpi_ as it is known in the Algonquin language: This recording was captured on January 29th, 2017, at 1.34pm. Now the Ottawa river is very large: 1,271 kilometers in length with a drain area of 146,300 square kilometers.
You’re listening to a recording I made west of downtown. The current is strong here and the sound is a deep rumble of rushing water and breaking ice. The recording also includes the high-pitched sound of cross-country skiers along a path by the river.
Shall we go inside?
(Elevators and office sounds)
Ottawa is many things, including a city of office towers and bureaucrats. I love office tower sounds: hums, clicks, echoes, voices, drones, rhythms, patterns, etc.
This recording explores the spaces where people enter and exit the building. I love transitions like this. You hear going up and down stairs and elevators, which btw ‘talk’ both French and English.
(skating on rideau canal)
How’s about a skate on the infamous rideau canal skateway? It’s January 26th, 2017, and we’re skating at a rapid pace. Can you feel the wind on your face? Can you feel the rumble of the ice under your feet?
The Rideau Canal Skateway is the largest skate way is 7.8 kilometers long).
However last year it did not open due to warming temperatures in Ottawa, which is a sign of the times and the reason why I dedicated a lot of my time to promoting the role of art in the climate emergency. And I think deepening our listening can make a difference.
Let’s conclude this portrait of winter sounds in Ottawa back on parliament hill.
(crowd on parliament hill)
It’s February 18, 2017, at 11.58am people gather here from across the country all the time to protest, mourn or celebrate. Tourists from all around the world also c…
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Nov 26, 2023
e148 ai - what is the sound of modernity for you?
i asked chatGPT what was the ‘sound of modernity’ in 4 modes : normal, critical, radical and optimistic and got some feedback
TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE
_(bell and breath)_
_On a rainy August 10th 2023, I asked Chat GPT: _
_‘What is the sound of modernity?’ _
The bot responded:
_The sound of modernity is a symphony of electronic devices humming, the rapid clicks of keyboards, the soft hum of air conditioning, intermittent smartphone notifications, the distant whirring of cars, and the bustling energy of city life woven together into a dynamic and ever-changing background._
The bit did not mention if those sounds were good or bad so I asked it to be ‘more critical’:
_The sound of modernity can often be characterized by the cacophony of relentless notifications, the endless drone of traffic, the mechanical beeps and blips of machines, and the superficial conversations drowned out by the noise of consumerism. It’s a discordant blend that sometimes drowns out genuine human connection and the natural world, leaving us more connected to our screens than to the realities around us._
I then asked it to be ‘more radical’:
_The sound of modernity reverberates with the clash of ideologies, the digital uproar of social media, the primal screams for justice, and the defiant chants of those demanding change. It’s a symphony of revolution, where traditional norms are challenged, and the status quo is shaken to its core. Amid the chaos, whispers of hope and cries for a new world order crescendo, creating a radical anthem that dares to rewrite the script of society._
Finally… pushing the limits, I asked it to be ‘more optimistic’ :
_The sound of modernity carries the vibrant beats of innovation and progress, the harmony of diverse voices coming together, and the uplifting melodies of collaboration and empathy. It’s a chorus of technological marvels, cultural exchanges, and global awareness that sings of a world connected like never before. In this symphony, the potential for positive change and a brighter future resonates, fueled by the belief that humanity’s collective efforts can create a harmonious and thriving world for all._
Here is some of the feedback I received on FaceBook about this posting :
_The sound of one hand clapping?_
_Chat GPT n’a que finalement dit ce que ton esprit lui a aiguillé comme raisonnement. En fait, la machine ramasse ce qu’elle a comme infos et la réarrange en fonction de la satisfaction client. _(Chat GPT only finally said what your mind told it to say. In fact, the machine picks up what information it has and rearranges it according to customer satisfaction.)
_Interesting experiment!_
_WOW!!!_
_Good Lord, I’m glad I’m not teaching any longer._
_Wow. I like your direction here._
_Ugh, way too verbose is the sound of that modernity. I fear I am not modern enough to handle it._
_Squeaky clean comes to mind. I hear the inordinate challenge this is for teachers on all levels. Ask students to do an essay, with a critical or sympathetic or ironic twist or whatever, and this chat GPT does it all tidy and seamless. So how can the prof know, except that it’s toooo smooth and trendy sounding?! In my day we could always tell when a less gifted student suddenly wrote like a New York Times editorialist. Then we could google, or harder yet, go to the library and check their sources!! aaargh!!!! But this raises even bigger challenges. Yikes!!!!!!!!!!_
_Or ask them to critique what AI wrote…teachers won’t be able to fight this stuff so we’ll just have to learn how to use it as a polemic._
_AI is already out of control (too few parameters on its use) but like nuclear technology we’ll have to learn to manage it or risk the consequences… slowing it all down in key…_
_I bet you are the first one, Claude, to have asked that question! I like your requests for further refinement of the answers. Great way to develop skills in questioning this ‘entity’ and to listen to/process its answers! _
_Not much ecology in this machine’s constructed notion of our world._
_What a fascinating, extraordinary exchange! Gives me some hope, but not without apprehension, about AI in our lives._
_This is totally fascinating and also gives me a weird sort of sense of apprehension. (also…I can’t write as well as Chat GPT and might be relegated to the heap.). But thanks. I’m going to share this…_
_Il faut peut-être revoir les “prompt” _(Maybe we may need to review the “prompt”.)
_Bizarre…_
What is the sound of modernity for you?
_*_
With thanks to all those who provided feedback. The artificial voices were generated by Elelvenlabs.io.
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 Green Dreamer.
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Nov 19, 2023
e147 worlding - what worlding stories do you hear ?
i learned about the concept of ‘worlding’ from Vanessa Andreotti’s Hospicing Modernity and I danced in the rain
TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE
(bell and breath)
(_raindrops from __https://simplesoundscapes.ca/e105-thunder/__)_
I learned about the concept of ‘worlding’ from page 184 of Vanessa Andreotti’s Hospicing Modernity.
Andreotti explains that :
_Worlding stories are not focused on the aesthetic perfection of form but rather on the integration of form and movement._
Now this integration of form and movement made me think of that magical period when rain begins to fall and dryness is transformed into wetness is quite magical. Listen carefully.
Andreotti goes on to say that :
_Worlding stories are not supposed to be ‘thought about’ but rather thought, felt, and danced with and through…_
Andreotti goes on further to explain that :
_They play with the ambivalence and dynamic force of meaning. In this sense, meaning will change as a worlding story lands deeper into the body, a story will have many layers of changing meaning, and some layers will only reveal themselves years after the story arrives. _
_Worlding stories invite us to experiment with a different relationship between language and reality. The stories do not require anyone to believe in anything; rather they invite you to believe with them. _
_The stories do not require anyone to believe in anything; rather they invite you to believe with them. _
What worlding stories do you hear ?
*
The rain and thunder sounds in this episode are from _https://simplesoundscapes.ca/e105-thunder/_ recorded during the summer of 2018 in Duhamel, Québec.
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 Harmony House.
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Nov 12, 2023
e146 countdown - can you turn back time?
I recorded myself counting down from 100 to 1 in the snow and played in backwards, hoping, against all odds, to turn back time
TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE
(bell and breath)
(Ambiance and footsteps in the snow played backwards)
On December 29, 2022, I recorded myself counting from 100 to 0 in crusty snow at our cottage. My goal was to explore what it felt like to cross over the tipping point into irreversible climate catastrophe.
But, you know, to be fair, I like to just count my steps when I walk in the snow, so you can interpret it either way, either as a countdown to Armageddon or playing in the snow. Maybe a bit of both.
Anything this ambiguity around the severity of the ecological crisis is in my mind these days and something I listen for, and I’ve noticed during this season about ‘sounding modernity’, which is coming to an end soon, that most people suffer from eco anxiety and don’t know what to do about it. They feel disempowered. I do too and sad and yet life goes on. That kind of dilemma.
I have a lot of empathy for all of us, for living beings as we try to work our way through this crisis.
So, I think it’s helpful, though it might seem strange, to count from 100 to 0 but I suggest we do it backwards, just for fun. Here we go.
Can you turn back time?
*
Recorded on December 29, 2022 at 1.19pm in Duhamel, Québec.
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 alter-ciné foundation.
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Nov 5, 2023
e145 bear - what do you think about grieving our dying planet and sitting with this sadness?
when I got up on September 25th 2023, while searching for my glasses in the dark, I touched a little mechanical bear
TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE
(bell and breath)
Vancouver, September 25, 2023.
You can hear the city in the background as I record this.
When I got up this morning, searching for my glasses, I touched this little mechanical bear…
(Cranking up and unwinding of windup toy)
It startled me a bit but it was also enchanting and surprising in a good way. I enjoyed listening to it come to a halt.
That morning I was thinking about something I published on my website on September 20th. I’ll read it to you.
_On September 20 2023, I decided to step back from being ‘me’, in the sense of letting go of old habits and patterns and adopting other new ways of being and living. This being said, I will continue to respond to invitations when my presence is useful. _
What do you think about that, little bear?
(Winding up and release of wind up toy)
Now this statement reminded me of traps of how I fall into tarps all the time and maybe you do too?
Episode 111 of this season presented two traps and I'll play back excerpts from that episode to you now. The first trap is essentially wanting the world to stop and get off. Stop the world I want to get off.
_Observer: I notice that you’ve fallen into a trap called ‘exit fixation’ which is where people feel a strong urge to walk out on an existing commitment. For example, when someone realises that the path they are on is full of paradoxes, contradictions, and complicities. Often their first response is to find an immediate exit in hopes of a more fulfilling and/or more innocent alternative or maybe even an ideal community with whom to continue this work. _
_Me: Like an escape?_
_Observer: Ya, something like that_
The second trap is about wanting to erase the past and to find some kind of spiritual haven, which, of course, is an illusion :
_Observer:. It’s called spiritual bypassing and it happens when spiritual ideas or practices are used to sidestep, avoid, or escape sitting with analyses of historical and systemic violence and the difficulties of one’s complicity in historic and systemic harm. Do you know what I mean? _
_Me: Yes I think I do but I don’t think I do this._
_Observer: (interrupting) maybe not consciously but spiritual bypassing often manifests itself alongside with cultural appropriation which is something you think about every time you record a soundscape with that microphone of yours, right? _
_Me: I see what you mean. You’re quite a good observer. _
_Observer: thank you but right back at you. Think of me as a guardian angel._
_Me: Or the devil… _
_Observer: Whatever (laughter) Now one of the dangers with spiritual bypassing is to project interpretations of ‘oneness’ that erase the realities of historical and systemic inequalities, and interpretations of ‘Enlightenment’ that tend to reinforce exceptionalism and you tend to do that…_
_Me: Yes, sure, I do, but it’s all part of being an artist.. _
_Observer: (interrupting) True but that does not necessarily make it right, does it? Something to think about..._
_Me: (interrupting) That’s a lot to think about, to learn and unlearn._
What do you think of that, little bear?
(Winding up and release of wind up toy)
Do you think it’s ok to lose one’s mind in a mad world?
Do you think it’s ok to embrace failure as a path towards learning and unlearning?
What do you think about grieving our dying planet and sitting with this sadness?
(Winding up and release of wind up toy)
*
Written spontaneously on September 25th 2023 in Vancouver, this episode brought me comfort. Maybe it will bring you comfort as well?
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 reseed podcast.
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Oct 29, 2023
e144 drifting - can you go with the flow?
while drifting on a river in a kayak i listened
TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE
(bell and breath)
(kayak drifting on a river)
*
CREDITS
One of my ‘happy places’ in life is drifting down a river on a kayak. It’s an opportunity to slow down and regenerate with earthly elements. To let go and be carried away. This recording was made on July 13, 2023 on the Preston River in Duhamel, Québec.
This episode was created while I was in residence during the summer of 2023 at the Centre de production DAÏMÔNin 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 to canadaland.
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Oct 22, 2023
e143 defeatism - what are you not ready to see?
I felt defeated by the ecological crisis, and by myself, so I created an episode about defeatism hoping to defeat my defeatism
TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE
(bell and voice)
Note: [ ] = filtered voice
I got up this morning feeling defeated.
[ I got up this morning feeling…]
You might know this feeling of … powerlessness.
[This feeling of…]
You know, producing more podcast episodes, like this one, exploring art and the ecological crisis. It does seem rather… pointless.
[Producing more podcasts… ]
I sometimes feel like the best thing I can do for our troubled world is to be quiet and do no harm.…
[To be quiet and do no harm]
Rebecca Solnit, We can’t afford to be climate doomers (female voice) :
_Some days I think that if we lose the climate battle, it’ll be due in no small part to this defeatism among the comfortable in the global north, while people in frontline communities continue to fight like hell for survival. Which is why fighting defeatism is also climate work._
[Which is why]
Am I one of those comfortable people in the global north struggling with defeatism?
[am I a… defeatist? ]
Yes. I am. I produce this weekly podcast in safe, luxurious conditions while the majority world fights like hell for survival. While the majority world suffers like hell the consequences of my generation’s excess.
[the majority world fights like hell …]
I’m a hypocrite. I’m complicit. My work is pretentious and …
[I’m a defeatist]
So, what does defeatism sound like anyway?
Well, it probably sounds like this. A privileged male voice talking about his feelings about defeatism.
[ what does defeatist sound like? ]
Britt Wray, Generation Dread (female voice)
_Some people believe that it is already too late to prevent societal collapse. They speak about the “earth as hospice,” and suggest we use what time we have left to summon the courage to face the music, as the ship we’re all on sinks.’ …_
[facing the music, as the ship we’re all on…]
In my August conscient blog I wrote that :
_I see no point shuffling the deck chairs. We have already hit the metaphoric iceberg and the good ship modernity is sinking. _
So, where do we go from here?
How does one defeat defeatism?
[where do we go from here? ]
In the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Moving with Storms report I was reminded of the seven steps forward and-or aside, in particular this teaching about honesty and courage to see what you don’t want to see:
_Commit to expanding your capacity to sit with what is real, difficult, and painful, within and around you. In what ways are your projections, idealizations, expectations, hopes, fears, and fragilities preventing you from approaching aspects of the Climate and Nature Emergency that are unpleasant for you and/or that challenge your sense of reality and/or self-image? What are you not willing or ready to see and how does this unwillingness impair your ability to respond to the Climate and Nature Emergency ?_
[ What are you not ready to see? ]
*
Warm thanks to Kelly Langgard for lending me her voice to read the Rebecca Solnit and Britt Wray quotes (Kelly’s voice is also featured in e142 consent). Thanks to Rebecca and Britt for use of their words and to the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective for use of an excerpt from the Moving with Storms report.
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.
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 to Post Carbon Institute.
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Oct 15, 2023
e142 consent - do keep listening
i asked a forest for permission to record it and got a response from a tree
TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE
_(bell and breath) _
_(Wind in forest soundscape)_
Today's episode is a fictional conversation between a tree and myself. It came to me while I was doing a consent and reciprocity exercise in a forest… like this one.
(Recited slowly and thoughtfully)
Me (M): Forest, are you ok if I record you today for my podcast?
Female voice (F): It’s nice of you to ask.
(silence)
F: What’s a podcast?
M: Ah, well, they're stories told through recorded sound that humans listen to.
F Hum. We communicate through our mycorrhizal networks and symbiotic relationships with other living beings. For example, we regularly exchange nutrients through fungal mycelium. What kind of story do you want to tell your community?
M: I’m preparing an episode about listening to life in a forest - in _this_ forest - and I wanted to ask for your consent before recording these sounds and sharing them.
F: ok. Everyone is welcome to visit our home, as long as they are respectful and do no harm.
M: Thank you. I would also like to make a gesture of reciprocity to the forest, like an offering of food or maybe a song.
(Silence)
F: or maybe leaving us alone? But good food and song are always welcome.
f: Where did you learn about consent and reciprocity?
M I learned it from a course I took at UBC called facing human wrongs. One of the exercises during this course was to make contact with the land before entering and asking for safe passage…
F: What do you mean by safe passage? Safe passage for whom?
M: Right. Let me explain. We learned that there are some human communities who still understand that there is no dualistic distinction between objects and subjects, or humans and nature.
The rivers, the mountains, the trees, the other animals and, you know, the forests themselves are experienced as conscious entities who were much older relatives and who, like human beings, required engagements based on trust, respect, consent, reciprocity and accountability.
F: I can relate to that: trust, respect, consent, reciprocity and accountability. These are part of some of our system of values of forests but there is so many humans don’t know about trees and forests, our culture and our relations.
M: We also learned that asking permission and making an offering of reciprocity was a way of entering _into_ a relational experience between living beings, as opposed to, say, consuming an object, owning a property or enjoying a benefit.
F: and… how can I say this… how do you think that you can enter into a relational experience with a forest simply by asking permission?
(silence)
M: Well, to be honest, I don’t _know._
F I agree, human, that you _don’t_ know, at least, you don’t know yet, but maybe you will one day?
F: Do keep listening and thanks for the visit.
*
CREDITS
This is my second attempt at a two person play (the other is e111 traps). With thanks to Kelly Langgard for playing the role of tree and helping me give it shape. Thanks also for editing advice from Sabrina Mathews, Azul Carolina Duque and Flora Aldridge.
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 to Toronto Arts Foundation.
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Oct 13, 2023
bonus episode - unlearning through sound
_This episode is a recording of a presentation I gave on October 6, 2023 about my ‘Sounding Modernity’ project to the __XI International Symposium on Soundscape__, organized by the FKL-Forum Klanglandschaft in Lugano, Switzerland. To see the 'script' for this episode (what I intended to say) see __blog – special edition : ‘unlearning through sound’, my presentation to 2023 FKL ‘sound sustainability’ conference_
TRANSCRIPT OF PRESENTATION
Introduction
It is October 6th, 2023, in the afternoon. Earlier this morning, I gave a presentation at a conference in Switzerland by the FKL group called _Soundsustainability_. My paper was about my Sounding Modernity project.
I wrote a script out and published it as a blog, but of course, life changes and I ended up not referring to my notes that much. So, what you're about to hear is a recording (via iphone) of me speaking during the presentation and at the end there are two questions. I didn't get a chance to ask permission to those who asked the question to be recorded, so I won't use it but I did summarize what they were asking me so you can hear my response. And that's it. This is an audio recording of that presentation, which is like what I wrote on the blog. Thanks for listening.
Host
I'm happy to introduce Claude Schryer. He's a Franco Ontarian Sound and Media artist and Arts administrator of European ancestry. He holds a MM in composition from McGill University and was actively involved in the acoustic ecology and acoustic music communities in the eighties and nineties in Montreal, Banff and across Europe. So welcome and you can start your presentation.
Claude
It's about eight o'clock in the morning here in Vancouver. I'm speaking you from the unceded traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations otherwise known as Vancouver, British Columbia and it's important to do this land acknowledgement to here in Canada in particular, because these are unceded indigenous lands, and we are still working through our relationship with indigenous peoples here in Canada. So, I'm very happy to be here. Unfortunately, I couldn't be there in person. I'll tell you why in a minute. Some of you might remember that a couple of years ago I spoke at an F K L event about radical listening as climate action. And I'm still very much involved in climate action. But what I want to do today is talk to you about a project that's ongoing, an entire year of podcasting around issues of sustainability and sound.
It's a real privilege to be here. And I want to thank Stefano and all the team for your support. I know it's a lot of work, and I know it's late there, so I will be as quick as I can. Also, assume this will be an ongoing conversation. I really like how this conference is about initiating interdisciplinary dialogue that examines the use of acoustic paradigm, eventual or current, with the idea of a sustainable present and future in mind.
It made me think about what do we mean by sustainability? And I'm sure you've talked about it here inevitably because it's the topic of the conference, but it can mean so many different things. Are we talking about assumptions of modernity with sustainability within that framework?
Or are we talking about something completely different? I think it's the latter, but that's something to consider and what about positionality? You know, from what perspectives are we listening? There's a lot of work being done here in British Columbia on positionality and then there's the issue of sustainability in which context? I think we're looking at a catastrophic future. And so that's the kind of listening I'm trying to do.
And it's interesting to be part of this category called Storytelling with Sound because we're talking about, among other things, the ethics of storytelling. And of course, ethics are very complex. Are we talking about the truthfulness of information? Are we talking about appropriation and social justice? Uh, we're probably talking about all those things, but for me, ethics and storytelling is about telling, um, the truth and avoiding those fictional tales about ex endless growth and exp and exploitation and, and some of the myths that we've created that are highly problematic.
So, I'm really interested in, in further exploring this idea of ethics and storytelling and storytelling in particular. So, uh, like many of us, during the beginning of the pandemic, we were stuck at home. And I'd just gotten back from a conference in, um, Arizona, the creative leadership course that Julie's Bicycle did. And I was thinking of starting a podcast and, and I just accelerated my work. And I started a podcast called _conscient_ and I did a hundred episodes in a short period of time because I had the time, and like many of us, we were at home. And so, I got to know a lot of the issues that I'm working on through conversations with individuals and experts and then I decided to do an art project. I said, well, how can art, how can sound art actually contribute to these issues?
What is the impact of art? And, and of course, I ask everybody these questions. So, I decided to, to give myself the challenge of doing a five minute episode every week for a year and so, I have been doing that. Some of them are longer than five minutes. But the idea then is to look at how sound art specifically can serve as a medium for not only environmental awareness, but for facing reality. And speaking of facing reality, I've been working here in Vancouver with a collective called Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures. Some of you might know their writings. It's led by Dr. Vanessa Andreotti, who's actually moved from U B C to University of Victoria, where she's the Dean of Education. And she wrote a book called Hospicing Modernity. Some of you might have read it, and if you haven't, I, I recommend it.
And I just want to acknowledge that that work on decolonization has been deeply influential. It changed my life in terms of how I learn and how I unlearn. And the unlearning part is really important. It's also interesting that I'm here in Vancouver. I'm here visiting and supporting family… This is the home of the World Soundscape Project from the 1970s, of course, which is very influential in the field of acoustic ecology. And what's happening now is that a lot of the assumptions of Murray Schafer in the World Soundscape Project are being questioned, in a good way, in terms of what it means today to listen to the soundscape, what is urbanism, and what is natural sounds today in the context of decolonization, which is happening here in Canada. So that's something to think about : those historical relationships with place, like a place like Vancouver.
So what I'll do today is show you a few examples. Hopefully the technology will work, and if it doesn't, you can listen to it after on, on the podcast, show you a little bit of the work I've been doing. And then I'd love to have conversation. I know time is tight, but I really appreciate feedback and honest feedbacks. That's something I've learned from my colleagues in the GTDF collective, which is that there's this thing called brutally honest feedback, which is when you don't hold back. You don't insult the person, but you don't hold back saying what you really feel. And that way we can get to the bottom of issues and how people are responding. So that's something I try to do as respectfully as possible, but also brutally.
So just a few points of clarification. When I talk about modernity, I'm not talking about modernity in art, you know, not modern art.
I'm talking about modernity in the sense of extractive capitalism over consumption, of endless growth, systemic racism, white supremacy, our separation from nature, all of those issues that we're facing right now. So, it's a question of critiquing modernity, but also owning it in the sense of letting it go and trying to retain some elements like the technology we're using today. T…
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Oct 8, 2023
e141 filature - what does gatineau sound like?
a bilingual soundwalk with city of Gatineau councillor (Hull-Wright) Steven Moran around ‘la filature’ for radio-hull 2023
TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE (this episode is a mix of English and French, below is the complete English version)
(bell and breath)
Claude (C ): Steven Morin, I invite you to take a sound walk with me.
Steve (S): Excellent. Shall we?
C: So you're a local councillor here?
S: Yes. From Hull-Wright.
C: Me, I'm an artist in residence here at DAIMON then I create works for the radio-hull 2023. Then I decided to take a walk with a friend, you, in French and English. The idea of a sound walk is to pay attention to all the details. For example, our feet are making a rather soft sound at the moment. It just rained here in Gatineau. You can feel all the details of life through sound.
Claude: And it's going to be a bilingual conversation because Gatineau is multilingual and I'm bilingual. In fact, my family, my grandfather lived in Hull at the time. So there are lots of stories that we can tell.
C: I'd start with what you're hearing right now, Steven.
S: I can hear the leaves in the poplar over there. You hear construction because you always hear construction in the city center. I hear birds. I think it was a chickadee. I hear the wind. I hear the wind by itself, I think. I hear the wind in the leaves. I hear the highway and then Montcalm. Someone with a chainsaw, it sounds like.
C: So that's the idea. But what's interesting about the sound walk is that you can also interact with the soundscape. So you listen to it, you perceive it, you're sensitive to... for example, the car that's just gone by. You can perceive all sorts of things with sound. For example, there are bustards ahead. We'll see if they make a sound. We're so used to seeing that our sense of hearing is sometimes a little less developed, so a sound walk is a way of sharpening our...
S: With geese, you can hear them in the sky, but you don't think about them as much when they're on the ground.
C: For example, the building here is interesting. The spinning mill was an old factory, the Hanson I forget the name of.
S: Hanson Mills. Socks, among other things? Yes, among other things.
C: Then it was converted into an artist center in the '80s and now it's AxeNéo7 and Daimon. I find it interesting that there's a cultural center in a former industrial site, that it's a way of giving new life to the building and the neighborhood.
(soundscape of children playing)
S: Ruisseau de la Brasserie was really the center of a whole industrial environment. It was the beating heart of Gatineau industry. The axes were made right there. The distillery was right there and a lot of things happened on the creek. So, when we think of industry and culture, when we talk about places, obviously it's often post-industrial spaces that aren't necessarily suitable for housing, so we use them to make cultural spaces. The spinning mill was a perfect example.
(urban soundscape)
S: But it's clear that in this place, if there was an era. I try to imagine it, and then I hear it in my head: the hammers, the big machines, the saws, and so on. That's not the case anymore. I mean, there's no heavy industry of that kind here. The sounds would be completely different. It's fascinating to imagine what it would have been like back then. Also, you have to remember, just before World War II, there was a big homelessness crisis of what we called the homeless at the time, who were here, who were centered on the West Side. So there would even have been camps. Are those industrial sounds? But it would have been families left in poverty, in this industrial system that left them behind. It would also have been a family place. But not in the same way as now.
(soundscape of children playing)
C: When I came here earlier, there were a lot of children playing with their bikes. I did some sound recording, and for me it's also a discovery, because I don't know Gatineau very well. I'm an artist from Ottawa who comes here to listen... and to take part in Radio-Hull. And I find it really interesting to get caught up in Gatineau's atmosphere, culture and spaces.
(sound of foot on the road)
C: But speaking of sound, that's a nice one. Yeah. Tell me what just happened here.
Steven: Cars going through puddles, everybody knows that sound. So typical of after the rain. Yeah. Yeah. But also, I mean, it's asphalt. It wouldn't be the same if this were, you know, mud. It wouldn't be the same if this were grass. A car going through puddles definitely has to do with asphalt. And we forget to think… I always think it's interesting to keep in mind what was here before we built cities and what were the sounds that were possible then it's I mean, I don't think about just sounds, I think about all the spaces, the trees. Of course the sounds come with that. How would this place have been different? It would've been totally forested. So you would've had a different perspective on everything. It would've sounded very different. The sounds of a forest, you know, it would've almost certainly been a maple forest. So what were the sounds of that, right?
C: Well, right now we're above what kind of tree this is, but it's not the poplars from earlier. It's a more gentle leaf.
S: This is a Manitoba maple. A really big one, surprisingly.
C: Now on my way here this morning, I was playing with this sound.
(sound of gate)
S: Another sound everybody knows.
C: But this, this is so rich. And it's a gate. And we're gonna go through this gate and back to la filature…
S: This makes me think it's school: The sound of school. Absolutely. I mean, 'cause I never worked in a factory, but I think people worked in factories, that's the sound of the factory closing all those probably more of a sound of beep as you slide it rather than closing like that. But that for me is the sound of school. Every school has a fence like this. Right. The click click and the,
C: Is it cool in a good way or a bad way or just whatever, right?
S: I love school, I'm a parent, but I love school. When as a kid maybe I would've had a different idea of it.
C: You see as an artist, to me, this is a very interesting sound that I would play with, right? I would say, okay, this is a barrier. So what is the notion of what is, who's being left out? What, what, what's being protected? The sort of conceptual side, but then just the sound itself and it's, it's the richness of, of the shaking and, uh, sort of, it's really interesting artistic material.
S: And funny, this is obviously metal, but I don't think you can hear the metal. Yeah, you can hear the metal in the after shake, but during the, this sound isn't necessarily clearly metallic.
C: Alright, Steven, let's continue. What I'm going to do with this sound walk, this is a special way of doing the sound walk, is I'm going to insert sounds and do a little bit of composition with it so that your, interventions will bewith closeups of the sounds, which is a, a fun way to play with the notion of a space because that's what artists do is, is interpret and be playful with aesthetic experiences so that audiences can have different sensations and different ways of, in this case, listening to…
(sound of a cart passing by)
C: What do you hear?
S: I hear a plane
C: So it's going to pass over us. stereophony to pick it up.
S: It's obviously something specific. In this part of Hall, there's a certain height that planes are at because they're landing or departing from the Ottawa airport. That's one thing we hear. The other thing we hear is 'biplanes', often small fun planes, coming out of the Gatineau airport. They're lower, but a different sound comes with them. But it's still a very specific pitch.
C: Interesting. You're good. You pay attention to the details, because it makes a difference to know where a sound comes from, at what height is it clearer if there are clouds or not? It's all really important and interesting details, I…
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Oct 1, 2023
e140 saturation - how can we tap into our boundless streams of love, connection and meaning?
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?_…
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Sep 24, 2023
e139 stream - this episode. Is about listening. to this stream. for 5 minutes. enjoy.
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.
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Sep 17, 2023
e138 rouge - fishy, where are you?
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 (du…
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Sep 10, 2023
e137 ritardando - do slowing down sounds slow you down?
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…
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Sep 3, 2023
e136 electricity - are. you. powerless?
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 cour…
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Aug 27, 2023
e135 layers - how do you feel now?
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.
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Aug 20, 2023
e134 drops - are you a drop of water?
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.
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Aug 13, 2023
e133 deconstruction - how can you constructively deconstruct?
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…
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Aug 6, 2023
e132 slow - how does the pace of speech relate to the sound of modernity?
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 lov…
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Jul 30, 2023
e131 modernity - are you modernity?
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 t…
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Jul 22, 2023
e130 fiction - what stories do you want to hear?
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 confrontatio…
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Jul 19, 2023
e117 portrait of robin mathews (bonus episode)
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.
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Jul 15, 2023
e129 world listening day - what does world listening day mean to you?
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…
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Jul 9, 2023
e128 revisited - what does decolonized listening sound like to you?
(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 rum…
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Jul 3, 2023
e127 halfway - towards what are you midway?
_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…
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Jun 25, 2023
e126 sleepless - what keeps you up at night?
(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…
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Jun 18, 2023
e125 observer - how do you respond to climate news?
(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 Al…
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Jun 11, 2023
e125 promenade - how do you soundwalk?
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 wa…
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Jun 4, 2023
e123 maps - what possibilities do you not yet know?
(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…
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May 28, 2023
e122 quiet - stop and listen
(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
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May 20, 2023
e121 rumble - what killed dr decibel?
(bell)
(humming to urban drones)
This is Dr. Decibel. Your sonic superhero on the unseated ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations otherwise known as… Well, I think you know where I am.
(plane passing by)
You have a problem here people. The low frequencies are excessive : traffic, industry, ventilation. Layers and layers of rumble and I _hate_ rumble.
Rumbleeeee is not something that I enjoy, so I’m going to use my superpowers today to reduce the amount of rumble in your city.
Ruuuuumble… (imitation of rumbling sounds)
And I'm gonna do that with my superpowers.
Now, it's hard to remove low frequencies from an environment where they're everywhere, but I can do it and I'll show you. You should be able to hear it. The tricky thing for me is that it takes a lot of energy to do that. So here we go.
Mmmmmmmm (grunting)
Can you hear a difference?
Let me try again
Mmmmmmmm (grunting)
one more time, with all my might
Rumble. remove yourselv…
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May 13, 2023
e120 metro - stop and listen
(bell and breath)
(sounds of a subway car throughout)
Sometimes we just have to stop and listen.
Without passing judgement.
Just listen….
Sometimes we just have to stop and listen.
*
Recorded on February 2, 2023 at 1.43pm between the Georges-Vanier, Lucien-L’Allier, Bonaventure and Square Victoria stops of the Montreal metro.
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 Montreal City Mission.
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May 7, 2023
e119 construction - how does the sound of construction affect you?
In this episode I invite you to listen to a construction site, unaltered and raw.
How does the sound of construction affect you?
*
This episode was recorded at the corner of Frances St and Salsbury Drive, Vancouver on March 6, 2023 at 10.10am.
Thanks to the construction workers for use of their sounds.
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 Pancreatic Cancer Canada.
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Apr 29, 2023
e118 toilet - where does your shit go?
(bell and breath)
where does your shit go?
(toilet flush 1)
where does your shit go?
(toilet flush 2)
where does your shit go?
(toilet flush 3)
where does your shit go?
(toilet flush 4)
where does your shit go?
*
These four toilet flushes were recorded in Peterborough, Toronto and Ottawa, Ontario
Thanks to the sanitary workers around the world who literally clean up our shit.
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 Ecology Ottawa.
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Apr 23, 2023
e117 - deeper into the forest
(in memoriam Robin Mathews : November 1, 1931 - April 25, 2023)
(bell)
(_Deeper Into the Forest_ (2023) poem by Robin Mathews, narrated by Robin Mathews with sound design from field recordings by me)
_Deeper Into the Forest_
_Lights flash in the skies above._
_Voices sound…._
_As if coming over a hill,_
_As if connected to bodies_
_Out of reach,_
_(perhaps, even, the products of imagination)_
_Except… you know the voices,_
_You recognize (or think you recognize)_
_The lights._
_You know the message_
_Even before it is uttered._
_The pathway you walk upon is narrow, rough._
_It leads deeper into the forest…._
_It leads down a steep hillside_
_To water … to the water's edge_
_And down into the water … down …_
_Into it and under it_
_Where another forest grows_
_Of a richness you do not expect to see._
_You do not expect to walk_
_Under the branches of that forest -_
_Branches above your head _
_Moving_
_As if guided by unseen currents _
_Of wind…
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Apr 23, 2023
e117 - deeper into the forest (bonus)
(in memoriam Robin Mathews : November 1, 1931 - April 25, 2023)
Transcription of bonus episode
Robin
That's a funny poem.
Claude
What's it about, do you think? What do you remember it being about? Do you recognize it as your own? ?
Robin
I do recognize it, but I don't know where it came from.
Claude
Well, you wrote it just a few weeks ago on January 1st. You talked something about the grimms myths, that deeper into the woods is a reference to that. Does that ring a bell?
Robin
Yeah. Grimm's fairy tales, I think has the line and they went deeper into the forest.
Claude
Right. So that might have been an inspiration.
Robin
Might have. Without even connecting to it.
Claude
Well, what I'll try to do is to illustrate it a bit with sound.
Robin
Oh, neat.
Claude
Yeah with some wind sounds and some of the, the sort of distant voices. It's a beautiful poem. Thank you.
Robin
Oh, good. I’m so pleased. Where did these things come from, eh?
Claude
Yeah, from the poet. It's…
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Apr 16, 2023
e116 loss - what does ecological loss sound like where you live?
(bell and breath)
(muffled sound of ocean waves)
This recording filters out all high and mid-range frequencies that I captured of ocean waves at Canaveral National Seashore in Florida, on March 23, 2023 around midnight while doing an impromptu soundwalk with colleagues from the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology conference Listenng Pasts - Listening Futures.
Why did I do this?
I invite you to sit with the loss of these upper and mid frequencies as a metaphor for the loss of biodiversity on earth.
I don’t mean to inflict undue pain here
In any way. Rather my point is to invite you to sit with this sound. To sit with the trouble, as Donna Haraway would say.
And I suggest you try to avoid enjoying it as an aesthetic experience or getting used to it as the new normal.
It’s not normal.
Luckily all I have to do to bring back the high frequencies is turn a button and you could experience the rich splendour of this soundscape…
but I’m not going to do that.
What does ecological…
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Apr 9, 2023
e115 ordinary - open your window and listen, what do you hear?
(bell)
I got up this morning, or I was awoken rather by the most beautiful sound. It was a snow plow, very gently pushing the snow from the sidewalk. It was a beep and I could hear it, at a distance, and now it's passed.
So I decided to take out my microphone and, and record. It made me think about my friend and colleague Eric La Casa in France, who I've known for a long time, and is a very accomplished sound artist, and who often records quite ordinary sounds spaces - but they're not ordinary at all - especially in the hands of a sound artist like Eric, who has a way of capturing subtle sounds and patterns of sounds and layers of sound that are very meaningful and artistically interesting.
So I was thinking of Eric as this sound came and left, and my microphone was off, but my ears were open, and so I wanted to record what's going on on my street this morning at about 5:00 AM and to see what's out there without passing judgment on what's good or bad but just spending, as Eric often…
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Apr 2, 2023
e114 privilege - what are the privileges in your life?
(Claude Schryer n 2023)
It's March 6, 2023 and I’m at Trout Lake Park in Vancouver. About 2 years ago, I went for a long soundwalk with climate activist, and now politician, Anjali Appadurai, which became episode 23 of season 2 of this podcast.
It was the first time that Anjali did a soundwalk and it was a very powerful moment for me because I've often thought back about what Anjali said that day. It has informed my work as a climate activist and on the role of art in the climate emergency. I encourage you to read, to listen to it. Today, we are going to hear an excerpt from that conversation, near the end, about the issue of privilege which comes back again and again in this sounding modernity season. So here’s Anjali from our soundwalk in 2021….
(Anjali Appadurai in 2021)
* _This really meshes with what I was talking about. It circles back to the beginning of the conversation when we were talking about who's the ‘we’ and that privilege is the central question to that.…
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Mar 26, 2023
e113 soundwalk (part 2) - how can we deepen our listening?
(Jacek Smolicki)
The ultimate question I'm asking is how can we move away from soundwalk as a kind of framed aesthetic experience or artistic experience and turn it into an existential practice or basically something that is just ingrained in our everyday life and we don't have to frame it anymore. It's just basically part of our way of living.
(Claude Schryer)
Can you give an example of that?
(Jacek Smolicki)
An academic example would be the concepts developed by Steven Feld, acoustemology, where basically listening, a kind of sonic way of being in the world is part of your culture, part of existence. You don't tell yourself, okay, I will listen to the world more carefully from now for another hour, and then I can just return back to my everyday life but you basically just keep listening, right? A kind of sonic sensitivity is one of the most important ways of understanding the world as opposed to being pushed to the background and only lifted up during those kinds of frame situat…
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Mar 26, 2023
e113 soundwalk (part 1) - what is my position in listening ?
(Claude Schryer)
Jacek, what is soundwalking?
(Jacek Smolicki)
That's a very broad question, but I'll try to answer from two perspectives: my own and from what is kind of more generally considered soundwalking. So, to quote Hildegard Westerkamp, one of the pioneers of that practice, basically, a soundwalk is any kind of excursion into an environment which is motivated by us listening to it. Whether we do it with or without technologies or whether we do it on our own or in a group and the point of soundwalking is to connect or reconnect us with the environment, with how it sounds at the very moment to kind of reaching this sense of immersion in the here and now.
My approach to sound is slightly different. I treat soundscapes as a kind of gateways to not only the momentary - the way that the sound expresses itself in the moment or the sound expresses events that happen at the moment - but also as gateways into the past and into the future.
I like to kind of expand the perspective of…
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Mar 19, 2023
e112 listening - how can listening help ?
(various layered excerpts from my soundscape compositions throughout this episode)
Conclusion 1 : we need to face reality and learn how to unlearn
* Mayer Hillman, e01: ‘_We’re doomed. The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so_.’
* Joan Sullivan, e01 terrified _‘even if we are doomed, and I think we are, I refuse to do nothing…’ _
* Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective : _‘we need to walk a tightrope between desperate hope and reckless hopelessness, balancing rational and relational rigour.'_
Conclusion 2: we need to develop and implement a radical theory of change through the arts
* David Haley, e19 : _‘we now need aesthetics to sensitize us to other ways of life and we need artists to sensitize us to the shape of things to come._
* _J…
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Mar 11, 2023
e111 traps - what are the traps in your life?
(bell, breath and occasional balloon sounds)
Me : have you ever had the feeling that you were being observed?
Observer : _I’m_ observing you.
Me: Who are you and what are you observing?
Observer: Ah, well, I’m a part of you and I’m observing the traps that you fall into.
Me: Traps?
Observer : Do you remember the Facing Human Wrongs course you took during the summer of 2022
Me: Ya.
Observer: The one about navigating paradoxes and complexities of social and global change and all those trappings along the way?
Me: Ya, I remember. Easier said than done, though.
Observer: Yup
Me: So. What are you observing?
Observer : Well, what can I say? I notice that you’ve fallen into a trap called ‘exit fixation’ which is where people feel a strong urge to walk out on an existing commitment. For example, when someone realises that the path they are on is full of paradoxes, contradictions, and complicities. Often their first response is to find an immediate exit in hopes of a mor…
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Mar 4, 2023
e110 drain - where does your bathwater go?
(sound of bath draining, at first with a strong oscillating rhythm followed by water flowing and silence)
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… (repeated and improvised)
Where does your bathwater go?
*
The rhythm comes from this sound of my bathtub draining, which occurs from the pressure on the tub that creates an oscillation.
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 a donation to the Ottawa Riverkeeper.
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Feb 26, 2023
e109 being - how can we listen through art?
_(bell and breath)_
On December 19th, 2022 I read David Maggs’ _Art and the Ouija Board?_ blog, as part of his Metcalf Foundation Fellow on Arts and Society.
I was struck by this section in particular:
* _Like a Ouija board or a dowsing wand, art is the capacity to pay attention to the world in unusual ways, a capacity to attend to the world in terms of the aesthetic. To make sense of life through lines, shapes, patterns, forms, colours, textures, rhythms, harmonies, imagery, and more. As Canadian poet Don McKay puts it, “Poetry returns from the business of naming with listening folded inside of it.” If we only speak with our arts, and do not listen with them first, revelation is replaced by dictation, and we can expect our audiences to engage with us as pamphlets or punditry. While not without purpose (no doubt didactic art can inform), information engages at the level of knowledge, whereas transformation requires engagement at the level of being, giving art a value proposi…
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Feb 19, 2023
e108 2048 - what speculative fiction stories inhabit you?
(Sound of fire)
This is another fireside storytelling episode, this time by a wood stove at our cottage. Thanks for joining me. Pull up a chair…
As I mentioned in episode 106, sometimes, when I get discouraged I like to build a fire, like this, to lift my spirits and to re-energize.
(Sound of fire)
Today’s story is an excerpt from _Part 1, Warm Up : Into The Future_ from Vanessa Andreotti’s _Hospicing Modernity _book, written by the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective. I first heard this story, in audio form, while driving through a severe snowstorm on January 19th 2022.
(rumble of car)
The road was very slippery. I could hardly see. I probably should have stopped but I was mesmerized by the story and kept driving through the storm, not knowing how my trip or this story might end. I recall that the story inhabited my body and my spirit that day, where it remains. I believe that stories,, including speculative fiction, have that ability to sit with us and guide u…
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Feb 12, 2023
e107 harm - what do you not know?
_(bell and breath)_
Today's episode does not have any sound other than my voice and a series of silences. And I think you’ll understand why in a minute.
_(Silence)_
Writer and broadcaster Jesse Wente, author of Unreconciled, became the first indigenous person to chair the Canada Council for the Arts during the summer of 2020, a few weeks before I retired from the Council.
_(Silence)_
In an August 6, 2020 interview with the Toronto Star, I was deeply moved by what Jesse said.
* T_he way I view work now within colonial structures and institutions is harm reduction. Ultimately, the goal for me is to reduce the harm the Canada Council causes, not just to my community but to any community that suffers under colonialism, which is really all of us on some level, and to make it somewhat easier to exist, work, live and participate._
_(Silence)_
I invite you to think about this statement. In fact, I invite you to explore your _feelings_ about this statement.
_(Silence)_
Jesse goes…
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Feb 5, 2023
e106 fire - what can we do about our collective indifference?
_(bell and breath)_
_(sound of campfire)_
I invite you to slow down, or maybe stop, what you’re doing and listen to a campfire story
We’re sitting in the snow, by the Preston River in Duhamel, Québec. The snow absorbs the sound here but it is also slightly amplified by the cottage and frozen trees. It's raining so you also hear drops of water, snow and ice falling in between the fire crackles.
Sometimes, when I get discouraged about the ecological crisis, I build a campfire like this to lift my spirits and re-energize.
Campfires are also a great place to tell and listen to stories that engage your emotions.
Today’s story is an excerpt from my conversation with climate photographer Joan Sullivan from _e96 – the liminal space between what was and what’s next._
The story begins with Joan taking photos in the winter by the St-Lawrence River near Rimouski :
* _If you've ever stood on the shores of a winter river that has no ice, it's kind of, you know, gray, right? That…
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Jan 29, 2023
e105 rope - how did this episode make you feel?
This recording is a rope holding a boat to the dock at Toronto Harbour on November 26th, 2022.
Sketches by Sabrina Mathews.
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Jan 21, 2023
e104 time - what does a very small moment in a much larger space sound like?
_(bell and breath)_
_(loud sound of train passing at close distance)_
_(once the train has passed, cross fade between quiet city and very quiet mountain forest)_
_(indigenous artist and curator France Trepanier from conscient podcast é55 trépanier - a very small moment in a much larger space, in French):_
* _I think that with this cycle of colonialism, and what it has brought, that we are coming to the end of this cycle_
* _and with hindsight, we will realize that it was a very small moment in a much larger space, and that we are returning to very deep knowledge. What does it mean to live here on this planet? _
* _What does it mean to have the possibility, but also the responsibility to maintain harmonious relationships? _
What does a very small moment in a much larger space sound like?
*
This quote is from indigenous artist and curator France Trepanier_ _from_ conscient _podcast_ __é55 trépanier - un petit instant dans un espace beaucoup plus vaste__ (a v_ery small mo…
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Jan 15, 2023
e103 heat - what does decarbonization sound like to you?
(sound of bell and breath)
On December 5th 2022 we had a heat pump installed in our house in order to reduce our carbon footprint.
What is a heat pump, you ask? Well, basically, It heats and cools a space by transferring thermal energy from the outside using a refrigeration cycle powered by electricity.
It’s a more environmentally friendly source of heating than say methane gas but it still generates carbon through manufacturing and in the production of electricity to run it. It also does not address the fact that the highest carbon polluters in the world are multinational corporations and nation-states. So what power does one individual household have? Quite a bit actually? The least we can do is change what is within our control, in our own homes and living spaces. That does get us off the hook by any means in terms of our accountabilities but it does move us in the right direction and it feels good to take action . .
Now, let’s get back to my story. Our house was heatless on…
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Jan 8, 2023
e102 aesthetics - how can we 'de-modernize' art?
_(ocean shoreline)_
The problem with beauty is that it can distract us from reality.
Sit with me, please, take a moment. Sit and listen…
Over there, about 56 kilometers to the northeast, is the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations, also known as Vancouver.
Listen to the ocean flowing, like the blood and liquids in your body. We are water.
Listen to the ravens passing by and croaking. They are poetry in motion.
Listen to the city rumbling at a distance, but it's hard to hear, isn’t it? Let me help by filtering out high frequencies…
_(cutting out of high frequencies) _
Ah, there is the drone of the city.
It’s both beautiful and bewildering, isn’t it?
A plane is coming. I’ll bring back the high frequencies.
_(bring back high frequencies) _
The sky is littered with aircraft around here - seaplanes, jets, helicopters - but they can have a strong aesthetic effect as they inch their way across the sky, merging with the rumble of th…
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Jan 1, 2023
e101 tension - how do you feel now?
(Deep breath)
Tension
I was thinking about the tensions in our lives and the art of finding a balance point…
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
_(sound of fishing line being plucked by hand) _
I held the fishing line with my left hand while I gradually reduced the tension with my right hand.
Later that day I went for another soundwalk and came upon a white metal fence. I started to gently tap one of the rods with my middle finger tip, like a heartbeat...
_(sound of metal fence rod being tapped) _
Finally, as I continued my search for sounds of tension, I came upon another metal fence, this one by the ocean and struck it with a wooden stick while slowly decreasing my walking pace.
_(sound of metal fence tapped by a piece of wood)_
I invite you to sit with me for a moment and _feel_ these sounds. Try not to think, just feel.
_(sound of decreased tension by filtering…
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Dec 6, 2022
e00 what is sounding modernity?
Welcome to episode 0 of season four of the _conscient_ podcast, _Sounding Modernity_, five-minute sound meditations, published every Sunday from January 1 through December 31, 2023.
My name is Claude Schryer and I'm happy to be back podcasting about art and the ecological crisis after a 10 month break.
I'm talking to you today from the unceded traditional territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation, also known as Ottawa, where my family and I are grateful to live.
Veuillez prendre note qu’une version en français de cet épisode et de toute la saison 4 est disponible sur le canal balado conscient et sur Youtube.
So, what is Sounding Modernity?
In a nutshell, every sunday in 2023 I’m going to publish a 5 minute sound art work comprised pof field recording, soundscapes compositions, narration and silence, lots of silence, en francais and in english, that explores how we listen modernity, topics such acceptance, aesthetics, appropriation, collapse, complicity, despair, entangle…
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Feb 8, 2022
e99 (b) winter soundscape revisited – homage to r. murray schafer (composition only)
* _'What would the Prairies be without wind? It’s the keynote sound here, the one against which everything else is registered. But to record it? Impossible.'_
R. Murray Schafer, winter diary, 1997
See episode 99 for details on _winter diary revisited - homage to r. murray schafer _and to listen to the version with a 25' introduction and 3' of credits.
Note: an article for the Institute for Music in Canada about this composition is available here : Winter Diary Revisited
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Feb 8, 2022
e99 winter diary revisited – homage to r. murray schafer (25′ introduction + 40′ composition + 3′ credits)
Episode Notes
Barn on the farm of R. Murray Schafer and Eleanor James, Indian River, Ontario, January 19, 2022 (photo by me)
Note: the text below is a transcription of the narration in the episode (sounds are described, with their source where possible)
Welcome to episode 99 of the _conscient_ podcast, the last episode of season 3, which you might recall was on the theme of radical listening.
_(fade in of sound of barn)_
I invite you to guess what is this space. There are some sonic clues. It’s clearly an indoor space and yet there is a hollowing wind with a deep, rich texture... You can hear the gentle crackling of wood… the occasional slap of a rope… a squirrel.
_(fade out sound of barn)_
This soundscape was recorded on January 19th, 2022, in a barn, on a farm that belonged to composer R. Murray Schafer and is now the home of his wife, the singer Eleanor James. The farm is located near Indian River, Ontario, about 20k east of Peterborough which is the traditional territo…
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Jan 17, 2022
e98 epilogue – perspectives on season 3
* 'I came to realize that in season three that I continue to be very deeply moved by the layering of words and soundscapes. There's something about it, when new contexts for listening are created, that I find it very stimulating. It's like the spirits of the sounds are actually speaking directly to me and that I can hear and feel their presence. Now I've always felt this, but I rarely talk about it, because it sounds so, you know, strange or is hard to explain, but there it is. It's something that I just love doing and I'm interested to know if you have any similar experiences, so please write or reach out to me and let me know.'
This episode is a reading of my January 2022 conscient podcast blog about some of the high and lows of season 3 of this podcast and my interest in layering words and soundscapes that create new contexts for listening, with excerpts from episodes 65, 69, 81, 86, 96 and a preview of e99 Winter Diary Revisited.
script
_conscient_ podcast, episode 98.
This epi…
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Jan 10, 2022
e97 chantal chagnon, kevin jesuino, melanie kloetzel – climate art web
'We are missing so many voices that could be the change. Art gives us that opportunity to amplify those voices and I think it's important that now, more than ever, that we amplify those marginalized voices, those racialized voices, those voices that are being directly affected with what's happening around mother earth (CHANTAL CHAGNON). An online map that showcases all the ideas, artists, institutions, projects and programs that are around this idea of climate and art intersecting with each other, and we would launch this resource at the online sharing that would happen in spring of 2022 (KEVIN JESUINO) I think part of the question what it is that art can do in this moment of time in terms of the climate emergency. (MELANIE KLOETZEL). I always say traditional indigenous knowledge, we were the prime example of what sustainability should be. (CHANTAL CHAGNON)'
*
My #conscientpodcast conversation with indigenous artist Chantal Chagnon, multidisciplinary artist Kevin Jesuino and perfor…
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Jan 8, 2022
e96 joan sullivan – the liminal space between what was and what’s next
* _'We find ourselves in a liminal space right now and liminal space means it's that time between what was and what's next. That's where we are. It's a place of not knowing and unless all of us humans, and not just artists, recognize that we are already in a transition - not just an energy transition - but a cultural, a democratic, a social transition. There is an end. We will come out of this. No one knows how, but we will pass through. It's inevitable and what waits on the other side is up to us to design.'_
I’ve been wanting to have Joan on the _conscient_ podcast since season 1 but she is a very busy artist and writer, plus we wanted to record our conversation in situ on her farm near Rimouski, Québec however COVID-19 did not allow that, so we settled for a warm remote recording on December 20, 2021, which was a lot of fun. I consider Joan a kindred spirit in our respective journey into the climate emergency through art. We both believe in the power of art and are both equally…
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Jan 7, 2022
e95 charles c. smith & kevin a. ormsby – IBPOC arts in planetary renewal
* _'Yes, we agree that anti-racism is important. Yes we agree that anti oppression is important. Yes, we agree that equity is important. Yes, we agree that sovereignty is important for indigenous peoples in particular and that decolonization is really important but to us, these are tools to get toward a new society, to transform the world in which we live. If I can refer to the panel that we had the other day that led off this conference, to get out of the social historical economic trap that we're currently in, that forces us to compete with each other, that forces us, as Peru ?? was saying, to ignore the land and what the land is trying to say to us, that forces us to treat certain arts as better than others, without truly understanding the artistic standards that some arts products are created to turn. To turn over the Massey Commission and say, you know what, that is the trap that we're also in. These historical institutions that have come out since the 1950s that basically are str…
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Jan 6, 2022
e94 devon hardy – data is a powerful thing
* _'We have a national data set that's about to emerge and that's a really powerful thing. If we can gather data from across the country from arts and culture organizations across the country and build a data set over time, then we'll actually be able to understand what kind of programming we need for environmental sustainability in the arts and culture sector. We can actually do that based on the demonstrated needs of the community.'_
I first met Devon when she was working freelance doing environmental assessment for theatre companies in Montreal. I was impressed by her commitment to both the arts and the sciences. Since then, we have had many conversations with Devon about her work with Creative Green tools adaptation project and the importance of measurement tools for the arts sector in the climate emergency. I wanted to share this knowledge with listeners, so I went for a walk with Devon in December 16th 2021 and combined this conversation with her presentation at the CPAMO _Natio…
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Jan 5, 2022
e93 anthony garoufalis-auger – national cultural climate policy
* _'The economic models and the way that policy is guided in Canada and around the world at the moment assumes that culture will not change. It assumes that we're self interested individuals, which science is now showing us that that is not the case. We're actually very collaborative and that are ancient cultures and traditional cultures around the world already knew this but we're assuming we're continuing to plan the economy under these old assumptions, that are just no longer useful and no longer actually accurate. What needs to happen now is a massive culture change and what's interesting in from the lessons world war II is that we know that this has been done in the past and very rapidly. While we sometimes fall into cynicism and think that things can't change, in the face of this particular issue, these lessons, I think are very important to learn from and I think can be applied to national cultural policy.'_
I first met Anthony in my work with the _Sectoral Climate Arts Leaders…
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Jan 4, 2022
e92 santee smith – about SKéN:NEN and interconnectedness
* _'The environment and sustainability is an integral, if not the founding process, of how we view the world: interconnectedness, responsibility as human beings, to be caretakers of the earth, to be forward thinkers about what we do now will affect seven generations later and that has always been our understanding since we can remember. It's written into our wampum belt designs and our pottery shards and all of those things that are encoded knowledge, is what I am using today and what my family has used to understand our responsibility.'_
Santee Smith (Tekaronhiáhkhwa/Picking Up The Sky) is a multidisciplinary artist from the Kahnyen’kehàka Nation, Turtle Clan, Six Nations of the Grand River. Transformation, energetic exchange and creating mind-heart connections through performance is her lifelong work. Santee trained at Canada’s National Ballet School; holds Physical Education and Psychology degrees from McMaster University and a M.A. in Dance from York University. Premiering h…
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Dec 29, 2021
e91 keith barker – telling a really good story
* _'I look for stories that are not there just to educate people. If I tell a really good story and it happens to be about the global crisis, about global warming and about the effects on community, if I get your heart, then you're gonna go forward and look at other things, you're gonna start doing some research. It's like, I wanna look at and so to me, I always tell people, tell a really good story and get them on your side, and then they'll go and do their own work. As opposed to like, these are the seven things that are happening in the world right now, due to global warming. When people feel that they, they immediately start going to their shopping list or the things that they're gonna do, or if they feel they're being lectured but if you tell them a really good story, they're gonna be engaged in the story they're gonna, their heart's gonna be in, they'll have a nice little cry or they'll get angry and they'll, they'll walk outta that theatre and they will feel empowered to do some…
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Dec 15, 2021
e90 shannon litzenberger – state of emergence : why we need artists right now
* _'I would first and foremost love to see artists really lean into experimentation with their creative practices and to share what comes out of those practices - the learning and experimentation - with each other. I think that's something that even as a community of art makers we can get better at, but what that then also does is it starts to socialize learning about what art as a system of knowledge production is and this is how we start to disentangle ourselves from the ways that we're trying to solve this challenge, or the ways that we're even thinking about what is happening right now as a problem to fix, is maybe part of the dilemma to begin with and that art, as a way of knowing, is so critical.'_
In her _State of Emergence: Why We Need Artists Right Now_ essay Shannon Litzenberger shares her thoughts about the state of the arts and the state of artists where she hopes her perspective as an artist on the current crisis might resonate for other artists who still need to give voi…
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Dec 9, 2021
e89 excerpts from ben okri’s ‘artists must confront the climate crisis’
* ‘_Here we are on the edges of the biggest crisis that has ever faced us. We need a new philosophy for these times, for this near-terminal moment in the history of the human. It is out of this I want to propose an existential creativity.’ _
Ben Okri, The Guardian newspaper, November 12, 2021
I’m back in Ottawa and I’m going to record this monologue in one take, as I have been doing since the beginning of season 3 of this podcast. So here we go.
Today’s episode features quotes from _Artists must confront the climate crisis – we must write as if these are the last days_by Nigerian novelist and poet Ben Okri from the November 12, 2021 edition of The Guardian newspaper.
Here is the first quote from Ben Okri’s article:
_Here we are on the edges of the __biggest crisis that has ever faced us__. We need a new philosophy for these times, for this near-terminal moment in the history of the human. It is out of this I want to propose an existential creativity. How do I define…
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Dec 8, 2021
e88 robin mathews – on radical listening & political poetry
* _'I don't know how many people in Canada who would immediately understand what radical listening is, because it would occur to me that the listener would have to be sensitized beforehand in order to listen radically, so that the radical listening is a secondary function of becoming radicalized in a political matter or political level. Radical listening is at one level, isn't it, one listens in repose. One listens in usually undefended state of mind and so radical listening would be post action listening or preparatory to action.'_
Robin Mathews, Vancouver, 2021
This is a special edition of the _conscient_ podcast. You’ll hear two recordings that I did with my father in the law, the poet and educator Robin Mathews. I did not narrate his extensive biography however there are some links in the episode notes below for you to learn more about his distinguished career as a writer and activist.
The first recording is from just a few days in Vancouver, where I ask him to help me underst…
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Nov 28, 2021
e87 kendra fanconi – on the artist brigade, ben okri, eco-restoration, eco-grief & reauthoring the world
* _'We are all artists of the Anthropocene. We inherently are because this is the world that we're living in right now. There's no other world. We were down earlier at Robert's Creek (BC) and it's a salmon bearing stream. I think of it like we're artists in the Anthropocene, like fish would be in the ocean: the water is all around us and the Anthropocene is all around us. I think it may be what Ben Okri is tasking us with is: can you describe the water? It's all we know, but we need to be able to look from this moment now into the future and maybe that's the job of artists. We're the visionaries, we can see the future and we can envision it in different ways. I think he speaks to that too at the end of the article about saying part of why we need to talk about the times we're in now is in relationship to a future, whatever that future looks like. And I do spend a lot of time trying to negotiate my belief in the future.'_
Kendra Fanconi, Robert's Creek, BC 2021
My 2nd conversation wit…
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Nov 25, 2021
e86 arts policy, equity and activism class at centennial college
* _'I'm interested in what we can do to both mitigate the climate emergency and adapt to it but there's another level which is revisioning the world and maybe that's the one that's most interesting, because unfortunately it's going to be rough for the foreseeable future on earth, but life will go on, with or without humans. I think humans have a place in it, but then we have to figure out how we're going to live with much, much less resources and all the damage that's been done and have a positive view of that. So rethinking and reauthoring the world. David Maggs wrote a really interesting paper about that. There was a paper recently by a Nigerian writer, Ben Okri. I'll put the link in the chat. He talked about how artists must confront the climate crisis and that we must write as if these are our last days. That's where I'm at.'_
Claude Schryer, November 2021
Robin Sokoloski and Janis Monture teach a class in Art Policy, Equity and Activism at Centennial College in Toronto and asked…
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Nov 19, 2021
e85 tracey friesen – narratives of resilience for a post carbon world
* _'What's starting to interest me is stories of resilience for a post carbon world. What are we going to need for our emotional well-being? It's going to be a different world not long from now. If we do this, and we must do this, this transition has to happen and there's going to be a sense of loss and sacrifice and challenge, not just with what's happening externally from a climate point of view, but in how we're going to have to make changes to our lives and reorient our energies in terms of our advocacy. I feel like there's an opportunity for artists - I'm more connected to the film and television sector and the documentary community - throughout the system, to be able to provide realistic and yet reassuring narratives about what the upside of all this might be.'_
Tracey Friesen, Vancouver, November 2021
I first met Tracey on September 21, 2021 at a _Processing the federal election during a climate emergency_ Zoom event organized by the Climate Emergency Unit. Since then, we have…
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Nov 17, 2021
e84 viviane gosselin + mauro vescera of the museum of vancouver
* _Museums have been very good at normalizing social values and so when you have this shift and the government is seeing it, we have to change behavior, the museum can create that space where people can rethink some of their conventional thinking about consuming, for example and there's all kinds of ways, like we were saying earlier, of integrating this kind of knowledge, not in a lecturing way. I think that's the key word, is we can be cheeky. This is a social activity. Nobody is forcing anyone to come to the museum and so when people come, they want to be intrigued, surprised and they love it. If you look at exit surveys, they love to come out thinking it's like: I had no idea that I can make this kind of change and have this kind of impact._
Viviane Gosselin, Director of Collections & Exhibitions, Museum of Vancouver, November 2021
I worked with Mauro in 2006 on the Art in Ecology – A Think Tank on Arts and Sustainability and was happy to reconnect and learn about his leadership…
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Nov 15, 2021
e83 the greatest mass movement in history
‘This episode lasts 59 seconds. I want to share a November 13th, 2021, tweet by British writer and climate activist George Monbiot: 'Now we have no choice but to raise the scale of civil disobedience until we have built the greatest mass movement in history. We do not consent to the destruction of our life support systems’.’
George Monbiot, November 13th, 2021, tweet
This episode lasts 59 seconds. I want to share a November 13th, 2021, tweet by British writer and climate activist George Monbiot:
_‘Now we have no choice but to raise the scale of civil disobedience until we have built the greatest mass movement in history. We do not consent to the destruction of our life support systems’._
I agree with George and thank him. I find that his statement is both devastating and heartening. Here it is again:
_‘Now we have no choice but to raise the scale of civil disobedience until we have built the greatest mass movement in history. We do not consent to the destruction of our…
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Nov 13, 2021
e82 washable paint
My goal with this episode was to record the soundscape of a public protest : the singing, chanting, speeches, random chatter and marching as well as the ambiance of the city, however what I witnessed and heard at this event was the response of the protesters to Vancouver Police around the arrest of group of young people who were doing a ceremony with washable red paint onto the windows of the federal Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change building on Burrard street (see photos), at which point the protest leaders requested the release the arrested persons and decided to remain in solidarity with them instead of continuing with the march towards the banking sector of downtown Vancouver and CBC Vancouver.
The recording starts with a song and an indigenous person explaining what the intention was were with the ceremony. You then hear a ‘let them go’ chant followed by the police taking the arrested persons away in a van and the protesters’ reaction (‘they only used washabl…
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Nov 10, 2021
e81 – inspiration
* 'Art is a practice of expanding consciousness, which gives us a tremendous opportunity to explore and to embody possibility and to engage with the earth as it continues to change and with each other.
Rebecca Mwase, excerpt from e10 mwase – expanding consciousness (from an interview at Creative Climate Leadership USA, March, 2020)
*
e81 inspiration are excerpts from all my conversations up to today, November 10th, 2021. I chose short excerpts where the _tone_ and _emotion_ in the voice of each person inspires and uplifts me every time I listen to it and I hope they will inspire and uplift you too (because we need it). Thanks to all those recorded for this fragmented reading of our conversations.
In order of appearance (bolded episodes are in French and have an ‘é’)
Note: I am aware that the time indication numbers below do not align up well but chose not to correct it as I enjoy the uneven flow...
* e10 mwase, Rebecca Mwase 00:00
* e29 loy, David Loy 00:21
* e03 tic…
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Nov 8, 2021
e79 manifesto – accelerating climate action through the power of arts, culture and heritage
* _'We, the undersigned, declare that people, their cultures, and the natural and cultural heritage of the earth are profoundly at risk from human-caused climate change and the climate inaction that is deepening the unfolding climate crisis even while we reaffirm the immense power of arts, culture, and heritage to inspire climate action and enable a just transition to low carbon, climate resilient futures.'_
Accelerating Climate Action through the Power of Arts, Culture and Heritage manifesto, 2021
My reading of the ‘Accelerating Climate Action through the Power of Arts, Culture and Heritage’ manifesto developed by the Climate Heritage Network to summarize key cultural messages for COP26 and activate the arts, culture and heritage sector. You can find more information on the origins and the co-authors of the manifesto at cultureatcop.com.
It’s Monday, November 8, 2021. I’m on a beach in Stanley Park, in Vancouver and this is an episode where I will read to you a manifesto. A…
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Nov 4, 2021
e78 milena droumeva – art needs to get on the street
* _'I think art needs to get on the street, because raising awareness in a gallery is really speaking to the choir. I'll leave raising awareness, because we both agree that the time for that has passed, but I think art needs to revert back to artisan and crafts, in the sense that imagination can lead to crafting things that we will actually need for survival. I think that - and again, this is my radical rant - I think that one of the reasons why we're seeing these unprecedented amounts of anxiety and even this new term 'climate anxiety' that we have, which is almost probably about to be defined as a kind of mental health condition, is because we are so profoundly disconnected from our own means of existence.'_
Dr. Milena Droumeva, November 3, 2021, Vancouver
My conversation with acoustic ecology colleague Dr. Milena Droumeva on November 3, 2021 in Vancouver about multiple points of ‘listening’, thoughts about radicality, that imagination can lead to crafting things that we will a…
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Nov 3, 2021
e77 seth klein – identifying a shared vision and a set of actions
* _'I think the same model (climate emergency coalitions) could and should be used by SCALE to have these arts and culture groups come together, identify a shared vision and a shared set of actions that together constitute a true climate emergency agenda for the arts and culture sector. That's step one and then agreement to jointly campaign all with your individual constituencies on that declaration on that list of actions so that if you are the federal minister of culture or provincial minister of culture, you keep hearing over and over again from all of these different groups that are part of your portfolio. This is what we want.'_
Seth Klein, October 2021, Vancouver
My first conversation with seth klein was on april 16, 2021 (see e26 klein – rallying through art). This follow-up conversation on November 2, 2021 (again once again at Trout Lake Park, Vancouver) looks at what has happened with the Climate Emergency Unit since then and includes a suggestion on how the arts and cultu…
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Nov 2, 2021
e76 kim richards – seeding a green new theatre in canada
* _'I wrote an article called Seeding a Green New Theatre in Canada that is drawing on a lot of principles of conversations happening around a green new deal in the United States and elsewhere, as well as other kinds of social justice movements happening on both sides of the border and thinking through what's the kind of theatre and what are the plays that already existed in Canadian theatre history and what are more of the kinds of stories that we need to be telling and sharing and how to think about the transition that we're facing socially from a justice perspective that really advances and brings forward the impact of the existing system by racialized communities, low income communities, the people who work within the energy or extractive development sector. There are a number of really quite remarkable pieces of work, many of which hadn't been produced a whole lot of times that addressed those issues.'_
Dr. Kim Richards, Vancouver, November 1, 2021
_e76 kim richards – seeding…
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Oct 30, 2021
e75 radical listening as climate action
* _'To me, radical listening is about stepping out of our comfort zone when we listen. Radical listening about thinking beyond what we think we know when we listen. Radical listening is about recognizing our biases, both conscious and unconscious. It’s about listening actively and sincerely. Ultimately, it’s about getting to the truth and facing reality.'_
Claude Schryer, FKL’s Unheard Landscapes Symposium, October 29, 2021
e75 _radical listening as climate action _is my presentation and Q&A period at the FKL’s _Unheard Landscapes Symposium_on October 29, 2021 about ‘music as acoustic ecology’ and ‘radicality’ in the context of listening and the climate emergency, with excerpts from e54 mahtani, é55 trépanier and e22 westerkamp
Script
Note: audio on podcast is slightly different due to improvised elements during the presentation. The question-and-answer period below was transcribed using TEMI and slightly edited for concision.
Good morning, Bonjour
Welcome to _r…
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Oct 26, 2021
e74 letting go
* _'I’ve come to realize that the main barrier to my re-education, and I might not be the only one in this situation, is… ‘me’. My personality, my baggage and that the solution, simply, is to let it go. To release it.'_
Claude Schryer, October 26, 2021, Vancouver
_e74 letting go – laisser aller_ was recorded on Tuesday, October 26, 2021, at 6.40am. It’s a bilingual monologue about how I’ve come to realize that the main barrier to my re-education is… ‘me’, and that the solution, simply, is to let it go. To release it. A soundwalk around the neighbourhood follows.
Transcription of monologue (in English below but bilingual in the podcast)
_conscient_ podcast (note: recorded robot voice says ‘you are trespassing’). I’m actually not trespassing. I’m just leaving the house here in East Vancouver. Good morning. It’s episode 74 of the _conscient_ podcast on Tuesday, October 26, 2021. It’s 6.40am. This episode is called _letting go_.
You might recall that I…
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Oct 25, 2021
e73 judith marcuse – finding the energy to keep moving
* _'I feel really at the base of myself that creating anything, art, sofas, whatever it is, allows us to give of ourselves to something that may not be lasting but in the moment, that act of creation can engender hope, can engender a sense of autonomy, a sense of possibility and we can't despair right now, we're at a tipping point, as everyone is saying and the question for me is how do we find the energy alone and collectively to keep moving in this urgency that we're all feeling without drowning in despair. I think art has an essential role to play in that agenda.'_
Judith Marcuse, October 24, 2021, BC
Notes
Transcript of excerpt from 22 westerkamp at 19m22s of e73:
_That awareness of how we form relationships through sound or how we can block them, I think, is just as important and it extends right into the ecological issues and into climate change. What are we putting out there when we listen to our cities humming away: that's energy, that's the voice of energy being overused,…
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Oct 22, 2021
e72 richard wagamese’s what comes from spirit
* _'It’s 2.29am on Sunday October 17th, 2021. I can hear the rumble of the city in the background, but the rain has stopped for a few minutes. Yesterday, I walked by the People’s Coop Bookstore on Commercial Avenue in Vancouver and thought I saw a new book by Richard Wagamese in the corner of my eye. How could this be? The title was What Comes From Spirit. My heart was pounding. Could this be a new book from my favorite author, who tragically passed away in 2017?'_
Claude Schryer, October 17th, 2021. Vancouver
It’s 2.29am on Sunday October 17th, 2021. I can hear the rumble of the city in the background, but the rain has stopped for a few minutes.
Yesterday, I walked by the People’s Coop Bookstore on Commercial Avenue in Vancouver and thought I saw a new book by Richard Wagamese in the corner of my eye. How could this be? The title was What Comes From Spirit. My heart was pounding. Could this be a new book from my favorite author, who tragically passed away in 2017?
Yes, it…
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Oct 21, 2021
e71 green sessions debrief
* _'The Green Sessions was invented because this small group of people got together and decided we wanted to do something that created impact. I'm really interested in new and more opportunities for us to collaborate as a sector and putting people into focus and a place of knowledge on this agenda'_
Emma Stenning, former Executive Director, SoulPepper theatre company
Complete excerpt
The Green Sessions was invented because this small group of people got together and decided we wanted to do something that created impact and we put really a fairly modest amount of money behind it, and a huge amount of hours of time and passion. I'm so, so proud of the impact. For me, there's a big lesson, which is, you know, small group of committed people can really make a difference. I think on this agenda that is really, really encouraging for all of us and that has been very, very inspiring for me. On the, on the flip side, I think what I sent at the green sessions is actually the power that we ho…
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Oct 20, 2021
e70 one step at a time
* _'We make choices by not making choices And we live with unbearable consequences We hear alarm bells, but do not respond We cling to uncertainty like a sad song We act as if unaware and innocent We are cognitively dissonant' _
Claude Schryer, September 28, 2021, Duhamel, QC
one step at a time
(September 28, 2021)
We make choices by not making choices
And we live with unbearable consequences
We hear alarm bells, but do not respond
We cling to uncertainty like a sad song
We act as if unaware and innocent
We are cognitively dissonant
We write feeble poems, like this one, to lessen our pain
We accept our fate and wait for the last day
We know that exploitation is the cause
And we know that we are it’s children
We try to change our ways but the draw is too strong
We are so comfortable, so selfish and so tragically wrong
We know that one day soon we will have to tell our kids
That we knew far too much and did far too little
We think that art can change the world if only…
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Oct 19, 2021
e69 soundwalk in the dark
* _'It's 4 56 am on Tuesday, rather than Wednesday, September 29th. I'm about to do something I've never done before, a soundwalk in the dark. I wanted to share with you this experience of walking in the dark and see what happens.'_
Claude Schryer, September 29, 2021, Duhamel QC
You’ll hear two excerpts from season 2 of the _conscient_ podcast in this episode:
e22 westerkamp
(Claude Schryer)
_I'm interested to know, for instance, around sound walking, you've recorded them, and you use them as stimulants or as proposals to people. What, what does that bring the person experiencing it? What is your intention when you create a soundwalk piece, or an electroacoustic composition with soundscapes? What are you hoping will happen in the experience of the listener?_
(Hildegard Westerkamp)
_I think I would like them to experience what I did. The microphone, when you first experienced listening to what the microphone hears, it's very different to what the ear hears and when you hear tha…
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Oct 18, 2021
e68 andrew davies and no. 9 gardens
* _'I think the transformation of knowledge is really important. What we can do from our generation to the next is try and help prepare them for the impacts of climate change, but it doesn't have to be all doom and gloom…'_
Andrew Davies, September 26, 2021
e68 andrews davies and no. 9 gardens is a conversation that I recorded on September 26th 2021, in one take, while in a yurt with Andrew Davies, Director of No 9 Gardens, near Kingston, Ontario. We talked about the art and environment, reconciliation, yurts, education, passing on knowledge and the joys of farming and art making.
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Oct 16, 2021
e67 wanna be an ally
* _'I've been thinking about decolonization and reconciliation and other issues in our relations with indigenous communities. I was reading the 'wanna be an ally' poem the other day that really affected me positively but also emotionally and I wanted to read it to you.'_
Claude Schryer, Duhamel QC
_Transcription_ of monologue
_conscient_ podcast, episode 67, ‘wanna be an ally’ I've been thinking about decolonization and reconciliation and other issues in our relations with indigenous communities. I was reading a text the other day that really affected me positively but also emotionally and I wanted to read it to you. If you remember last episode, I talked about the idea of radical listening. Well, this is a type of radical listening in the sense that each of these words are, I think very meaningful and important for us all to consider. It's from a document called Towards Braiding by Elwood Jimmy and Vanessa. Andreotti written in collaboration with Sharon Stein and it's published…
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Oct 12, 2021
e66 stillness
* _'I’m interested in doing episodes that are in the moment, unedited moments of thinking out loud and not thinking too much because the rest of my body is working at soaking in this space.'_
Claude Schryer, Duhamel QC
e66 stillness is a monologue that I recorded on September 14th, 2021, in one take, while sitting still in a kayak in a shallow bay on the Preston River, in Duhamel Québec where I talk about stillness, not-thinking and what I am hearing and feeling at that moment. This recording includes quotes from an unpublished episode of simplesoundscapes from 2016 and #conscientpodcast e19 reality.
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Oct 11, 2021
e65 drifting into season 3
* _'What I'm looking for, ultimately, is an anchoring point: where are we at and what can we do to ensure the continuation of life?'_
Claude Schryer, Duhamel QC
(transcript)
This is Claude Schryer, _conscient_ podcast, the first episode of season 3. I took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do in season 3, because there are so many things that podcasts can do : interviews, or you can do, monologues, but after season 2, which was pretty darn intense – BTW I'm on a kayak right now, so you can hear that - pretty darn intense : 41 interviews in French, in English, almost 30 hours of content, so I thought I'd take a break from that and just think out loud, but also do it in the moment, like I'm doing now. I think there's a lot of fleshing out of the issues that I discovered in season 2 that can be set out over time, with a bit of time with each issue, so I'll do that and maybe quote a little bit some of the people in season 2. I might also interview people once in a while if I'm…
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Oct 7, 2021
e64 a case study (part 2)
* 'Welcome back to the History of 2021 in Canada seminar. We’re going to conclude our case study today of the 2nd season of the conscient podcast.'
Claude Schryer
ou can listen to part one here. This is the conclusion!
The setting is an undergraduate university history seminar course called ‘_History of 2021 in Canada_’. I want to thank my son Riel for the idea. It is set in the distant future, where a professor is presenting a ‘case study’ based on the second season of the _conscient_ podcast as part of a class on art in 2021.
There are four people in the class: the teacher played by myself, a young male student is played by my son Riel Schryer, a young female student, who is online, is played by my daughter Clara Schryer and a female adult student is played by my wife Sabrina Mathews. I want to thank the cast.
A reminder that most of the narration is in English, but there are elements and excerpts of the interviews that are in French and some of the narrations as well.…
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Oct 4, 2021
e63 a case study (part 1)
* 'Welcome to the History of 2021 in Canada seminar. We’re going to do a case study today of the second season of the conscient podcast.'
Claude Schryer
The setting is an undergraduate university history seminar course called ‘_History of 2021 in Canada_’. I want to thank my son Riel, student of history, for the idea. It is set in the distant future, where a professor is presenting a ‘case study’ based on the second season of the _conscient_ podcast as part of a class on art in 2021. The episode is in two parts, episode 63 is part 1 and episode 64 is part 2. You’ll see that they are separated by an event, that you’ll hear.
There are four people in the classroom: the teacher played by myself, Claude Schryer, a young male student is played by my son Riel Schryer, a young female student, who is online, is played by my daughter Clara Schryer and a female adult student is played by my wife Sabrina Mathews. I want to thank the cast.
A reminder that most of the narration is…
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Aug 14, 2021
e62 compilation – season / saison 2
* _'I think capitalism is over, but the problem is we have nothing to replace it with. Here's when we need artists, and others, to tell us what kind of vision they have for a future that is different than that: a future of play and meaningful work would be one future that I think is not just utopic, but very possible. '_
dr. todd dufresne, e21 conscient podcast
Video version:
Transcription
e21 dufresne : capitalism is over, my conversation with philosopher Dr. Todd Dufresne about reality, grief, art and the climate crisis.
Democracy of Suffering
* _I think capitalism is over, but the problem is we have nothing to replace it with. Here's when we need artists, and others, to tell us what kind of vision they have for a future that is different than that: a future of play and meaningful work would be one future that I think is not just utopic, but very possible. So there's a possible future moving forward that could be much better than it is right now, but we're not going to get th…
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Aug 10, 2021
e61 sokoloski – from research to action
* _I think that there needs to be greater capacity within the art sector for research to action. When I say that the art sector itself needs to be driving policy. We need to have the tools, the understanding, the training, the connections to truly impact policy and one thing that _Mass Culture _is really focused on at the moment is how do we first engage the sector in what are the research priorities and what needs to be investigated together and what that process looks like, but then how do you then take that research create it so that it drives change._
_robin sokoloski, _conscient_ podcast, june 29, 2021, toronto_
Robin Sokoloski (she/her) is very active in the Canadian arts and culture sector. Currently, she is the Director of Organizational Development of Mass Culture – Mobilisation culturelle, Robin is working with academics, funders and arts practitioners to support a thriving arts community by mobilizing the creation, amplification and community informed analysis of researc…
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Aug 8, 2021
e59 pearl – positive tipping points
* _'SCALE (Sectoral Climate Arts Leadership for the Emergency) is a national round table for the arts and culture sector to mobilize around the climate emergency. A few months ago, you and I, and a few others were all having the same realization that while there was a lot of important work and projects happening at the intersection of arts and sustainability in Canada, there lacked some kind of structure to bring this work together, to align activities, to develop a national strategy, and to deeply, deeply question the role of arts and culture in the climate emergency and activate the leadership of the sector in terms of the mobilization that needs to happen in wider society. SCALE is really trying to become that gathering place that will engender that high level collaboration, which hopefully will create those positive tipping points.'_
Judi Pearl, e59 conscient podcast, Ottawa
Judi Pearl is currently Associate Producer, Artistic Projects for English Theatre at the National Arts Cen…
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Aug 5, 2021
e58 huddart – the arts show us what is possible
* This is now an existential crisis, and we have in a way, a conceptual crisis, but just understanding we are and what this is, this moment, all of history is behind us: every book you've ever read, every battle, every empire, all of that is just there, right, just right behind us. And now we, we are in this position of emerging awareness that in order to have this civilization, in some form, continue we have to move quickly, and the arts can help us do that by giving us a shared sense of this moment and its gravity, but also what's possible and how quickly that tipping point could be reached.
stephen huddart, conscient podcast, june 17, 2021, montreal
Stephen Huddart’s career spans several fields and includes leadership positions in the private, public and non-profit sectors. He recently retired as president and CEO of the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, a national private foundation whose head office is in Montreal. Prior to that he worked as an educator and program developer s…
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Jul 29, 2021
e54 garrett – empowering artists
* _I don't want to confuse the end of an ecologically unsustainable, untenable way of civilization working in this moment with a complete guarantee of extinction. There _is_ a future. It may look very different and sometimes I think the inability to see exactly what that future is – and our plan for it - can be confused for there not being one. I'm sort of okay with that uncertainty, and in the meantime, all one can really do is the work to try and make whatever it ends up being more positive. There's a sense of biophilia about it._
_Ian Garrett, _conscient_ podcast, may 25, 2021, toronto_
Ian Garrett is an artist, designer, producer, educator, and researcher in the field of sustainability in arts and culture. Ian is Associate Professor of Ecological Design for Performance at York University in Toronto, is the co-founder and director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CSPA), and Producer at ToasterLab. Ian maintains a practice focused on the integration of sustaina…
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Jul 28, 2021
e53 kalmanovitch – nurturing imagination
* One of the larger crises we face right now is actually a crisis of failure of imagination and one of the biggest things we can do in artistic practice is to nurture imagination. It is what we do. It’s our job. We know how to do that. We know how to trade in uncertainty and complexity. We understand the content inside a silence, it's unlocking and speaking to ways of knowing and being and doing that when you start to try to talk about them in words, it is really challenging because it ends up sounding like bumper stickers, like ‘Music Builds Bridges’. I have a big problem with universalizing discourses in the arts, as concealing structures of imperialism and colonialism.
dr. tanya kalmanovitch, _conscient_ podcast, june 3, 2021, new york city
Dr. Tanya Kalmanovitch is a Canadian violist, ethnomusicologist, and author known for her breadth of inquiry and restless sense of adventure (our conversation confirms this!) who lives in Brooklyn, NY. Tanya’s uncommonly diverse interes…
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Jul 26, 2021
e52 mahtani – listening and connecting
* _If we can find ways to encourage people to listen, that can help them to build a connection, even if it's to a small plot of land near them. By helping them to have a new relationship with that, which will then expand and help hopefully savour a deeper and more meaningful relationship with our natural world, and small steps like that, even if it's only a couple of people at a time, that could spread. I think that nobody, no one person, is going to be able to change the world, but that doesn't mean we should give up. _
_dr. annie mahtani, _conscient_ podcast, june 11, 2021, united kingdom_
Note: This episode is dedicated to World Listening Day on July 18 2021 on the theme of The Unquiet Earth. It was published on that day, which is also the birthday of Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer. For more information see https://www.worldlisteningproject.org/
Dr. Annie Mahtani is an electroacoustic composer, sound artist and performer working and living in Birmingham (UK). She studied wit…
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Jul 20, 2021
e51 hiser – the emotional wheel of climate
* _What motivates me is talking to students in a way that they're not going to come back to me in 10 years with this look on their face, you know, Dr. Hiser, why didn't you tell me this? Why didn't you tell me? I want to be sure that they're going to leave the interaction that we get to have that they're going to leave with at least an idea that someone tried to help them see that reality._
_dr krista hiser, _conscient_ podcast, may 19, 2021, _hawai‘i
Krista is a longtime Professor at Kapiʻolani Community College in Hawai‘i where she teaches composition, climate communication, and climate fiction. Her PhD in Educational Administration focused on students as stakeholders in sustainability curriculum. She has published on service-learning, community engagement, organizational change, and post-apocalyptic and cli-fi literature. She is currently serving as director of the University of Hawai‘i System Center for Sustainability Across Curriculum where Krista's work is to facilitate…
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Jul 15, 2021
e50 newton – imagining the future we want
* _There are so many amazing people across this country who are helping to make change and are holding such a powerful vision for what the future can be. We get trapped in thinking about the paradigm limit in which we currently live, we put bounds on what feels like reality and what feels possible. There are no limits, and the arts helps us to push against that limited set of beliefs and helps us to remember that the way that we know things to be right now is not fixed. We can imagine anything. We can imagine the future we want._
_teika newton, _conscient_ podcast, may 19, 2021, kenora, Ontario_
A lifelong, insatiable curiosity for understanding people and places, and the interrelationships of all things, and a passion for humanitarianism and justice has directed Teika to a career in environmental and climate justice advocacy. Teika’s academic training was in evolutionary biology, but she also has a strong interest in the arts, notably in hearing people’s stories of how we relate…
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Jul 12, 2021
e49 windatt – hoslitic messages
* _What if you tasked the arts sector with how to make messages, not about the crisis, but on the shifts in behavior that are necessary on a more meaningful basis. When the pandemic began and certain products weren't on the shelves at grocery stores, but there was still lots of stuff. There were shortages, but there wasn't that much shortage. How much would my life really change if half the products in the store were just not here, right and half of them didn't come from all over in the world? Like they were just: whatever made sense to have it available here and just having less choice. How terrible would that be: kind of not. How can we change behavior on a more holistic level, and have it stick, because that's what we need to do right now, and I think the arts would be a great vehicle to see those messages hit everybody and make a change._
cla_yton windatt, _conscient_ podcast, may 13, 2021, sturgeon falls, ontario_
Clayton Windatt is a curator, multi-arts performer and filmmaker…
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Jul 8, 2021
e47 keeptwo – reconciliation to heal the earth
* _In the work that I do and the book that I've just had published called, __We All Go Back to the Land__, it's really an exploration of that Original Agreement and what it means today. So I want to remind Indigenous readers of our Original Agreement to nurture and protect and honor and respect the Earth Mother and all of the gifts that she has for us and then to introduce that Original Agreement to non-indigenous Canadians or others of the world that so that we can together, as a human species, work toward what I call the ultimate act of reconciliation to help heal the earth._
_suzanne keeptwo, _conscient_ podcast, may 14, 2021, gatineau, québec_
Suzanne Keeptwo, Métis from Québec, is a multi-faceted creative artist of Algonkin (Kitchesipirini)/French & Irish descent. She is a writer, editor, teacher, and experienced journalist who is a passionate advocate for Indigenous rights and cultural awareness. Her area of expertise is in bridging gaps of understanding between Indigenous a…
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Jul 6, 2021
e46 badham – creating artistic space to think
* _I think going forward, there's a lot that the arts can do. Philosophically art is one of the only places that we can still ask these questions, play out politics and negotiate ideas. Further, art isn't about communicating climate disaster, art is about creating space for people to think through some of these issues._
dr. _marnie badham, _conscient_ podcast, may 13, 2021, australia_
With a twenty-five-year history of art and social justice in Australia and Canada, Dr. Marnie Badham's research sits at the intersection of socially-engaged art practice, participatory methodologies and the politics of cultural measurement. Through aesthetic forms of encounter and exchange, her work brings together disparate groups of people in dialogue to examine and affect local issues. Her current focus includes a series of creative cartographies registering emotions in public space; expanded curation projects on the aesthetics and politics of food; and a book project The Social Life of Artist Reside…
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Jul 6, 2021
e45 abbott – a compassionate, just and sustainable world
* _The notion of reality and the way we grasp reality as humans is so deeply subjective, but it's also socially constructed, and so, as a filmmaker - and this is relevant because I'm also a Zen Buddhist - from both those perspectives, I try to explore what we perceive as reality to untangle and figure out in what ways are we being deluded? And in what ways do we have clear vision? And obviously the more clear vision we can have, the better actions we take to ensure a more compassionate, just and sustainable livable world. I'm all for untangling the delusion while admitting wholeheartedly that to untangle it fully is impossible._
_jennifer abbott, _conscient_ podcast, may 6, 2021, british columbia_
Jennifer Abbott is a Sundance and Genie award-winning film director, writer, editor, producer and sound designer who specializes in social justice and environmental documentaries. Born in Montreal, Abbott studied political science with a particular interest in radical political thought, wom…
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Jun 28, 2021
e44 bilodeau – the arts are good at changing culture
* _I think of the arts as planting a seed and activism as being the quickest way you can get from A to B. So activism is like, this is what we're going to do. We have to do it now. This is a solution. This is what we're working towards and there's all kinds of different solutions, but it's about action. The arts are not about pushing any one solution or telling people, this is what you need to do. It is about saying here's a problem. Let's think about it together. Let’s explore avenues we could take. Let’s think about what it means and what it means, not just, should I drive a car or not, but what it means, as in, who are we on this earth and what is our role? How do we fit in the bigger ecosystem of the entire planet? I think the arts are something very good to do that and they are good at changing a culture._
_chantal bilodeau, _conscient_ podcast, may 11, 2021, new york_
Chantal Bilodeau is a playwright and translator originally from Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal, but now based in New…
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Jun 23, 2021
e43 haley – climate as a cultural issue
* _Climate change is actually a cultural issue, not a scientific issue. Science has been extremely good at identifying the symptoms and looking at the way in which it has manifest itself, but it hasn't really addressed any of the issues in terms of the causes. It has tried to use what you might call techno fix solution focused problem-based approaches to the situation, rather than actually asking deep questions and listening._
_david haley, _conscient_ podcast, may 6, 2021, united kingdom_
I first came across David Haley’s work as an eco artist and eco educator through the Eco Art Network, notably his Going beyond Earthly essay, from which I drew this quote in e19 reality:
_We now need aesthetics to sensitize us to other ways of life and we need artists to sensitize us to the shape of things to come._
I was hooked on his thinking and was enchanted when we had a conversation on May 6, 2021. For example:
_Going back to reality, one of the issues that we are not tackling is that we…
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Jun 22, 2021
e42 rosen – when the climate threat becomes real
* _The idea of enough is very interesting to me. The idea that the planet doesn't have enough for us on our current trajectory is at the heart of that. The question of whether the planet has enough for everyone on the planet, if we change the way we do things is an interesting way. Can we sustain seven, eight, nine billion people on the planet if everyone's idea of enough was balanced with that equation? I don't know, but I think it's possible. I think that if we've shown nothing else as a species, as humans, it's adaptability and resiliency and when forced to, we can do surprisingly monumental things and changes when the threat becomes real to us._
_mark rosen, _conscient_ podcast, may 2, 2021, ottawa_
I’ve known Mark Rosen, as well as his brother Brian and sister Melanie all my life. I saw them being dutifully raised by their parents, Robert and Debbie, while I lived and worked in Banff, Alberta in the 1980s. I’ve seen Mark become an outstanding architect and national a leader…
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Jun 21, 2021
e41 rae – a preparedness mindset
* _The thing about a preparedness mindset is that you are thinking into the future and so if one of those scenarios happens, you've already mentally prepared in some sort of way for it, so you're not dealing with the shock. That's a place as an artist that I feel has a lot of potential for engagement and for communication and bringing audiences along. When you're talking about realities, accepting that reality, has the potential to push us to do other things. It's great to hear about Canada Council changing different ways around enabling the arts and building capacity in the arts in the context of the climate emergency. It'll be interesting to see how artists step up._
_jen rae, _conscient_ podcast, may 10, 2021, australia_
Dr Jen Rae is a Narrm (Melbourne)-based artist-researcher, facilitator and educator of Canadian Red River Métis-Scottish descent from Treaty 6 Territory. Her practice-led research expertise is in the discursive field of contemporary environmental art and environm…
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Jun 18, 2021
e40 frasz – integrating awakeness in daily life
* _There is a lot of awareness and interest in making change and yet change still isn't really happening, at least not at the pace or scale that we need. It feels to me increasingly like there's not a lack of awareness, nor a lack of concern, or even a lack of willingness, but actually a lack of agency. I've been thinking a lot about the role of arts, and culture and creative practice in helping people not just wake up to the need for change, but actually undergo the entire transformational process from that moment of waking up (which you and I share a language around Buddhist practice). There's that idea that you can wake up in an instant but integrating the awakeness into your daily life is actually a process. It's an ongoing thing._
_alexis frasz, _conscient_ podcast, May 6, 2021, Oakland_
Alexis Frasz is a researcher, writer, strategic thinker, program designer, and advisor to partners in culture, philanthropy, and the environmental sector working for transformative change and a…
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Jun 10, 2021
e39 engle – the integral role of the arts in societal change
* _The role of artists and culture is fundamental and so necessary, and we need so much more of it and not only on the side. The role of arts and culture in societal and civilizational change right now needs to be much more integral into, yes, artworks and imagination - helping us to culturally co-produce how we live and work together into the future and that means art works - but it also means artists' perspectives into much more mainstream institutions, ideas, and thoughts about how change occurs._
_jayne engle, _conscient_ podcast, april 17, 2021, montréal_
Dr. Jayne Engle is Director of Cities & Places at the McConnell Foundation and Adjunct Professor at McGill University. She’s worked in participatory city planning, urban revitalization, and economic and real estate development in North America and Europe. She is passionate about bridging innovative local action on the ground with policy and systems change. Among her many activities include : Civic-Indigenous 7.0, RegX and _L…
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Jun 10, 2021
e38 zenith – art as medicine to metabolize charge
* _Art is the medicine that actually allows us to metabolize charge. It allows us to metabolize trauma. It takes the intensity that's left in the system, and this goes all the way back to ritual. Art, for me, is a sort of a tributary coming off from ritual that is still sort of consensually allowed in this reality when the direct communication with nature through ritual was silenced._
_shante sojourn zenith, _conscient_ podcast, May 4, 2021, Minnesota_
Shante’ Sojourn Zenith is an animist somatic practitioner creating Edge Rituals to tend the wounds of her kin’s unmetabolized ancestral trauma and developmental dissociation from embodiment by re-enlivening relationship to elemental earth consciousness and initiatory process. She works both one-on-one and in group spaces to create emergent explorations informed by nervous system state shifting, metaphor-based symbolic modeling, constellations, intuitive voice and movement, grief tending, and earth-rooted ritual. Shante’ is curren…
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Jun 1, 2021
e36 fanconi – towards carbon positive work
* _Ben Twist at __Creative Carbon Scotland__ talks about the transformation from a Culture of Consumerism to a Culture of Stewardship, and we are the culture makers, so isn’t that our job right now to make a new culture? And it will take all of us as artists together to do that… It’s not enough to do carbon neutral work. We want to do carbon positive work. We want our artwork to be involved with ecological restoration. What does that mean? I’ve been thinking a lot about that. What is theatre practice that actually gives back, that makes something more sustainable? That is carbon positive? I guess that’s a conversation that I’m hoping to have in the future with other theatre makers who have that vision._
kendra_ fanconi, _conscient_ podcast, April 19, 2021, British Columbia_
I’ve known Kendra for many years, first through her work with Radix Theatre then as an arts and environment advocate in the community, notably through The Only Animal, which she co-founded in 2005 an…
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May 31, 2021
e35 salas – adapting to reality
* _I find that more and more artists are interested in understanding how to change their practice and how to adapt it to current circumstances. I really believe artists need help in this process. Like we all do. I'm not an environmental expert nor a climate expert, I'm just a very sensitive human being who is worried about what we are leaving behind for future generations. I'm doing what I can to really be more ethical with my work, but I'm finding more and more artists who are also struggling to understand what they can do. I think when in a conversation between curators or producers like myself and people like you - thinkers and funders - that we need to come together and to understand the current situation, to accept reality, then we can strategize about how we can put things into place and how we can provide more funding for different types of projects._
carmen salas, conscient podcast, april 30, 2021, Spain
I first learned about Carmen Salas’ work through her article What shou…
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May 21, 2021
e33 toscano – what we’re fighting for
* _It's artists who not only can craft a good story, but also we can tell the story that's the hardest to tell and that is the story about the impacts of climate solutions. So it's really not too hard to talk about the impacts of climate change, and I see people when they speak. They go through the laundry list of all the horrors that are upon us and they don't realize it, but they're actually closing people's minds, closing people down because they're getting overwhelmed. It's not that we shouldn't talk about the impacts, but it's so helpful to talk about a single impact, maybe how it affects people locally, but then talk about how the world will be different when we enact these changes. And how do you tell a story that gets to that? Because that gets people engaged and excited because you're then telling this story about what we're fighting for, not what we're fighting against. And that is where the energy is in a story._
peterson toscano, _conscient_ podcast, april 13, 2021, south…
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May 13, 2021
e31 morrow – artists as reporters
* _I think that artists are for the most part in tune with what's going on in the world. We're all reporters, somehow journalists, who translate our message into our art, as art is in my mind, a readout, a digested or raw readout of what it is that we're experiencing. Our wish to be an artist is in fact, in order to be able to spend our lives doing that process._
charlie morrow, _conscient_ podcast, April 16, 2021
Charlie Morrow is a composer, sound artist, performer, and innovator whose goal over the past four decades has been to bring experimental sound and music to a wider audience. Morrow calls himself a ‘_framemaker’_, a creator and producer of context. His life’s work – 50 years as a hybrid, with one foot each in the classical and commercial music worlds. Born to a family of doctors and inventors, Morrow uses his creativity to make tools to share with others—not only musicians and sound artists, but teachers, architects, and engineers – _‘so that they might create…
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May 12, 2021
e30 maggs – art and the world after this
* _Complexity is the world built of relationships and it's a very different thing to engage what is true or real in a complexity framework than it is to engage in it, in what is a modernist Western enlightenment ambition, to identify the absolute objective properties that are intrinsic in any given thing. Everyone is grappling with the fact that the world is exhibiting itself so much in these entanglements of relationships. The arts are completely at home in that world. And so, we've been sort of under the thumb of the old world. We've always been a kind of second-class citizen in an enlightenment rationalist society. But once we move out of that world and we move into a complexity framework, suddenly the arts are entirely at home and we have capacity in that world that a lot of other sectors don't have. What I've been trying to do with this report (_Art and the World After This_) is articulate the way in which these different disruptions are putting us in a very different reality and…
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May 8, 2021
e29 loy – the bodhisattva path
* _Some people would say, OK, we have a climate crisis, so we’ve got to shift as quickly as possible as we can from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy, which is right. But somehow the idea that by doing that we can just sort of carry on in the way that we have been otherwise is a misunderstanding. We have a much greater crisis here and what it fundamentally goes back to is this sense of separation from the earth, that we feel our wellbeing, therefore, is separate from the wellbeing of the earth and that therefore we can kind of exploit it and use it in any way we want. I think we can understand the ecological crisis as a kind of the karma built into that way of relating and exploiting the earth. The other really important thing, which I end up talking about more often, is I think Buddhism has this idea of the bodhisattva path, the idea that it’s not simply that we want to become awakened simply for our own benefit, but much more so that we want to awaken in order to be a s…
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May 1, 2021
don’t listen to this episode – something Cage said
* _The idea came to me while biking. I thought... what if I stated, over and over, that people need to wake up to the reality of the climate emergency. you know, with my slow conscient podcast voice: ‘people. need. to wake up. to the reality. of the climate emergency.’ But it would be pointless because people already know that they need to wake up to the reality of the climate emergency. Repeating it, over and over, is actually counterproductive, and boring. People would probably tune out and all that would be left are these words that have no value whatever. But then I thought, on the other hand, what was it that John Cage once said : 'If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.'_
Claude Schryer, April 30, 2021, around 9pm
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Apr 23, 2021
e26 klein – rallying through art
* _Here would be my challenge to artists today. We're beginning to see artists across many artistic domains producing climate and climate emergency art, which is important and good to see. What's striking to me is that most of it, in the main, is dystopian, about how horrific the world will be if we fail to rise to this moment. To a certain extent, that makes sense because it is scary and horrific, but here's what intrigued me about what artists were producing in the war is that in the main, it was not dystopian, even though the war was horrific. It was rallying us: the _tone_ was rallying us. I found myself listening to this music as I was doing the research and thinking, world war II had a popular soundtrack, the anti-Vietnam war had a popular soundtrack. When I was a kid in the peace and disarmament movement, there was a popular soundtrack. This doesn't have a popular soundtrack, yet._
_s_eth klein, _conscient_ podcast, april 16, 2021, vancouver
Seth Klein is a public policy resea…
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Apr 21, 2021
e25 shaw – a sense of purpose
* _It's a real blessing to feel a sense of purpose that in these times. It's a real blessing to be able to take the feelings of fear and grief and actually channel them somewhere into running a group or to making a film or doing your podcasts. I think it's important that people really tune in to find out what they're given to do at this time, to really listen to what the call is in you and follow it. I think there's something that's very generative and supportive about feeling a sense of purpose in a time of collapse._
_michael shaw, _conscient_ podcast, april 12, 2021, australia_
Michael Shaw is a teacher and therapist by training. I learned about Michael’s work by viewing his first film, produced in collaboration with Michelle Walter, called Living in the Time of Dying, which he describes as:
_The recognition of the stark reality of the climate crisis we are facing, and what it would mean to me in my lifetime, or what’s left of it. When I first began to see it clearly, I felt…
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Apr 16, 2021
e24 weaving – the good, possible and beautiful
* _The recognition, and finding ways to assist people, in an awareness of all the good, the possible and the beautiful and where those things can lead, is one of the roles that artists can specifically play. _
_jil p. weaving, _conscient_ podcast, March 31, 2021, Vancouver_
jil p. weaving is a site-specific artist who has created works for presentation in both galleries and unconventional spaces. She was Coordinator of Arts and Culture for the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation where she developed and managed a number of projects, such as the _Arts, Health and Seniors Project_. I had the pleasure of working with jil while I was at the Canada Council for the Arts on various initiatives to support artists working with communities. She is as a passionate advocate for the arts and well grounded.
I appreciated that jil began our conversation with a land acknowledgment from her base in Vancouver on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm), the Squamis…
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Apr 14, 2021
e23 appadurai – what does a just transition look like?
* _The climate crisis and the broader ecological crisis is a symptom of the deeper disease, which is that rift from nature, that seed of domination, of accumulation, of greed and of the urge to dominate others through colonialism, through slavery, through othering – the root is actually othering – and that is something that artists can touch. That is what has to be healed, and when we heal that, what does the world on the other side of a just transition look like? I really don’t want to believe that it it looks like exactly this, but with solar. The first language that colonisation sought to suppress, which was that of indigenous people, is where a lot of answers are held._
a_njali appadurai, _conscient_ podcast, April 2, 2021, Vancouver_
Anjali Appadurai is a climate justice advocate, communicator and consultant who works to strengthen climate change messaging and discourse in Canada by centering the stories of those on the frontlines of the climate crisis. She currently works…
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Apr 8, 2021
e22 westerkamp – slowing down through listening
* _We need toallow for time to pass without any action, without any solutions and to just experience it. I think that a slowdown is an absolute - if there is any chance to survive - that kind of slowing down through listening and meditation and through not doing so much. I think there's some hope in that._
_Hildegard Westerkamp, _conscient_ podcast conversation with Claude Schryer, March 31, 2021, Vancouver_
Hildegard Westerkamp emigrated to Canada in 1968 from Germany and lives in Vancouver on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples - the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), Tsleil-Waututh (Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh), and Musqueam (xʷməθkʷəy̓əm) Nations.
Like myself, after completing formal music studies, Hildi was drawn beyond music to the acoustic environment as a broader cultural context and a space for deep listening. Hildi and I have collaborated on many projects over the years, most notably, we were founding members of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecolo…
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Apr 2, 2021
e21 dufresne – capitalism is over
* _I think capitalism is over, but the problem is we have nothing to replace it with. Here's when we need artists, and others, to tell us what kind of vision they have for a future that is different than that: a future of play and meaningful work would be one future that I think is not just utopic, but very possible. So there's a possible future moving forward that could be much better than it is right now, but we're not going to get there without democracy of suffering as we're experiencing it now and will at least over the next 20, 30, 40 years until we figure this out, but we need to figure it out quickly._
Dr. Todd Dufresne, _conscient_ podcast, April 1, 2021,
Dr. Todd Dufresne is Professor of Philosophy at Lakehead University who specializes in Critical Freud Studies and is author or editor of 12 books.
I first heard about Dr Dufresne’s most recent book, The Democracy of Suffering, on CBC Radio Ideas during the fall of 2020. I was impressed, upset and energized by the book. I…
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Mar 18, 2021
e19 reality – quotes and composition
(episode script)
_[frogs 2017 05 22, Preston River, QC]_
Welcome to the _conscient podcast_. My name is Claude Schryer.
Season 1 was about exploring how the arts contribute to environmental awareness and action.
I produced 3 episodes in French, 15 in English as well as a series of bilingual blogs and videos. You can see and hear them at https://www.conscient.ca/.
Season 2 is about accepting reality, working _through_ ecological grief and charting a path forward.
Today you’ll hear episode 1, called _reality_. It touches upon our perception of reality, the possibility of human extinction, eco anxiety and eco grief, hope, arts, storytelling and the wisdom of indigenous cultures.
The episode mixes quotations from 28 authors with field recordings from my _simplesoundscapes_collection and from my soundscape composition, _Au dernier vivant les biens_.
This poetic layering of ideas and sound is how I make sense of life and the world around me.
A complete transcript of this episode,…
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Oct 13, 2020
e18 ccl usa – a compilation of 10 episodes
* _I think the arts and culture more widely has a huge role to play in shaping our belief systems and values that determine the way that we relate to the environment._
Sholeh Johnston, e08, conscient podcast
Creative Climate Leadership USA (ccl usa) was developed by Julie’s Bicycle, an international leader in arts, culture and climate change based in London (led by Alison Tickell) and brought together 25 arts and culture leaders from the US and Canada to Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona from March 8-14, 2020 thanks to a collaboration of EcoArts Connections, the University of Arizona and the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence (CEUCE) based at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
e18 excerpts from e08-17 brings together 10 excerpts from _conscient _podcast episodes 8 to 17 drawn from the Creative Climate Leadership USA series. To hear the complete interviews, go to :
e08 johnston
e09 mcmahon
e10 mwase
e11 dunlap
e12 liverman
e13 freiband
e14 kirn
e15 chasansky
e16 de…
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Oct 5, 2020
e17 piro – creative facilitators in the age of climate change
* _What does it mean to be creative facilitators in the age of climate change in the midst of a disaster? Some learnings: self-care is community care, good solutions scale up and the need to work with those who have been disproportionately targeted._
Em Piro, Creative Climate Leadership USA, March, 2020
(episode 10 of 10 in Creative Climate Leadership USA Series)
Creative Climate Leadership USA was developed by Julie’s Bicycle, an international leader in arts, culture and climate change based in London (led by Alison Tickell) and brought together 25 arts and culture leaders from the US and Canada to Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona from March 8-14, 2020 thanks to a collaboration of EcoArts Connections, the University of Arizona and the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence (CEUCE) based at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Em Piro has been called a change agent, disruptor, artist, counselor, sparkplug, + community architect.
Her practice is in performance, urbanism, futur…
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Oct 5, 2020
e16 delaparra – start somewhere and be curious
* _It’s about asking where do I start? Maybe you don't know exactly where you want to end up yet, but if you start somewhere and are curious, try things and get feedback, and you keep iterating, ultimately, meaningful things will emerge._
Lauren de la Parra, Creative Climate Leadership USA, March, 2020
(episode 9 of 10 in Creative Climate Leadership USA Series)
Creative Climate Leadership USA was developed by Julie’s Bicycle, an international leader in arts, culture and climate change based in London (led by Alison Tickell) and brought together 25 arts and culture leaders from the US and Canada to Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona from March 8-14, 2020 thanks to a collaboration of EcoArts Connections, the University of Arizona and the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence (CEUCE) based at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Lauren de la Parra is a creative climate action planning consultant working with non-profits, educational institutions, municipalities and individual ar…
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Oct 5, 2020
e15 chasansky – make climate a part of strategic planning
* _The way to make artists and arts organizations thrive is to make sure that climate change is a part of their thoughts, business plans and strategic plans because the timeline is short and severe climate change effects are within a strategic planning time horizon. _
Matthew Chasansky, Creative Climate Leadership USA, March, 2020
(episode 8 of 10 in Creative Climate Leadership USA Series)
Creative Climate Leadership USA was developed by Julie’s Bicycle, an international leader in arts, culture and climate change based in London (led by Alison Tickell) and brought together 25 arts and culture leaders from the US and Canada to Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona from March 8-14, 2020 thanks to a collaboration of EcoArts Connections, the University of Arizona and the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence (CEUCE) based at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
For 7 years Matthew Chasansky has been with the city of Boulder, Colorado.
He has worked on important projects such as publi…
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Oct 5, 2020
e14 kirn – scientists, artists and sustainablists
* _Scientists tell us the what (observable evidence of what's happening or what's coming). Artists can provide the so what (why is it important? what does it mean? why should we care?). Sustainablists provide the now what (what do we do and how do we move forward?)_
Marda Kirn, Creative Climate Leadership USA, March, 2020
(episode 7 of 10 in Creative Climate Leadership USA Series)
Creative Climate Leadership USA was developed by Julie’s Bicycle, an international leader in arts, culture and climate change based in London (led by Alison Tickell) and brought together 25 arts and culture leaders from the US and Canada to Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona from March 8-14, 2020 thanks to a collaboration of EcoArts Connections, the University of Arizona and the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence (CEUCE) based at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Marda Kirnis the founding director of EcoArts Connections (EAC), which works transdisciplinarily to inspire people of all ages to live…
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Oct 5, 2020
e13 freiband – weaving art into action
* _There's a textile metaphor of culture where our actions just weave into the weft that's already there and change the pattern and shift and alter things… _
Andrew Freiband, Creative Climate Leadership USA, March, 2020
(episode 6 of 10 in CCL USA Series)
Creative Climate Leadership USA was developed by Julie’s Bicycle, an international leader in arts, culture and climate change based in London (led by Alison Tickell) and brought together 25 arts and culture leaders from the US and Canada to Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona from March 8-14, 2020 thanks to a collaboration of EcoArts Connections, the University of Arizona and the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence (CEUCE) based at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Andrew Freiband is an artist, filmmaker, and teacher.
He is the founder and director of the Artists’ Literacies Institute, an experiment in arts education that helps artists reframe their artistic practice as research, and then connects them to new possibil…
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Oct 5, 2020
e12 liverman – looking for some hope
* _I look for artists and the cultural sector to help us envisage a future that's positive. We've tended to spend our whole time talking to each other about how bad it is and I'm looking for some hope._
Diana Liverman, Creative Climate Leadership USA, March, 2020
(episode 5 of 10 in CCL USA Series)
Creative Climate Leadership USA was developed by Julie’s Bicycle, an international leader in arts, culture and climate change based in London (led by Alison Tickell) and brought together 25 arts and culture leaders from the US and Canada to Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona from March 8-14, 2020 thanks to a collaboration of EcoArts Connections, the University of Arizona and the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence (CEUCE) based at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Diana Liverman is Regents Professor and Director of the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona.
Her work addresses the causes, consequences, and responses to climate change, especially climat…
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Oct 5, 2020
e11 dunlap – perpetuating the values that you want to see
* _Ask yourself: what are you? What do you, as an artist, want to perpetuate in the world? Is what you're doing perpetuating the values and the culture that you want to see? _
Eliana Dunlap, Creative Climate Leadership USA, March, 2020
(episode 4 of 10 in Creative Climate Leadership USA Series)
Creative Climate Leadership USA was developed by Julie’s Bicycle, an international leader in arts, culture and climate change based in London (led by Alison Tickell) and brought together 25 arts and culture leaders from the US and Canada to Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona from March 8-14, 2020 thanks to a collaboration of EcoArts Connections, the University of Arizona and the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence (CEUCE) based at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Eliana Dunlap has been an artist all her life.
She studied at the New England Center for Circus Arts and l’École de Cirque de Québec.
She's worked professionally as a circus artist since 2016.
She is currently worki…
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Oct 5, 2020
e10 mwase – expanding consciousness
* _Art is a practice of expanding consciousness, which gives us a tremendous opportunity to explore and to embody possibility and to engage with the earth as it continues to change and with each other._
Rebecca Mwase, excerpt from an interview at Creative Climate Leadership USA, March, 2020
(episode 3 of 10 in Creative Climate Leadership USA Series)
Creative Climate Leadership USA was developed by Julie’s Bicycle, an international leader in arts, culture and climate change based in London (led by Alison Tickell) and brought together 25 arts and culture leaders from the US and Canada to Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona from March 8-14, 2020 thanks to a collaboration of EcoArts Connections, the University of Arizona and the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence (CEUCE) based at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Rebecca Mwase (they/she) is a Zimbabwean-American theater and performance artist, consultant, and cultural organizer working at the intersection of art and social jus…
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Oct 5, 2020
e09 mcmahon – watching things drop away
* _It’s like this critter, this virus, this nature, has moved in to this realm of culture and we're watching things drop away that we created and use to define ourselves as human, versus animal: this little virus is just going Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing these aren't real._
Ellen McMahon, CCL USA, March, 2020
(episode 2 of 10 in Creative Climate Leadership USA Series)
Creative Climate Leadership USA was developed by Julie’s Bicycle, an international leader in arts, culture and climate change based in London (led by Alison Tickell) and brought together 25 arts and culture leaders from the US and Canada to Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona from March 8-14, 2020 thanks to a collaboration of EcoArts Connections, the University of Arizona and the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence (CEUCE) based at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Ellen McMahon is a Professor in the School of Art and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Fine Arts at the University of Arizona in Tucson.…
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Oct 5, 2020
e08 johnston – the arts shape our belief systems
* _I think the arts, and culture more widely, has a huge role to play in shaping our belief systems and values that determine the way that we relate to the environment._
Sholeh Johnston, CCL USA, March, 2020
(episode 1 of 10 in Creative Climate Leadership USA Series)
Creative Climate Leadership USA was developed by Julie’s Bicycle, an international leader in arts, culture and climate change based in London (led by Alison Tickell) and brought together 25 arts and culture leaders from the US and Canada to Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona from March 8-14, 2020 thanks to a collaboration of EcoArts Connections, the University of Arizona and the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence (CEUCE) based at the University of Colorado-Boulder
Sholeh Johnston is an Associate of Julie’s Bicycle, where she was previously Head of Creative Programmes.
She has worked with hundreds of organizations across the creative and cultural community to encourage climate action, develop sustainable ways…
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Sep 24, 2020
e06 lim – making necessary concessions
* Are we willing to divest from our arts practices, or to change radically our performance practices, in order to make necessary changes and concessions?
milton lim, _conscient_ podcast, january 2020, ottawa
Milton Lim is a media artist and performance creator based in Vancouver.
Lim holds a BFA (Hons.) in theatre performance and psychology from Simon Fraser University.
His current work utilizes publicly available data and game structures to articulate new expressions of value and labour within our systems of power and politics.
He is a Co-Artistic Director of Hong Kong Exile, an Artistic Associate with Theatre Conspiracy, a key archivist with videocan, a Digital Interaction Designer with The Cultch, and one of the co-creators behind _culturecapital_: the performing arts economy trading card game.
This conversation took place in January of 2020.
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Jun 30, 2020
e05 carruthers – art that informs, forms and transforms
* _I really believe that what we call arts in this culture now, its role is to inform, form and transform the nature of cultures in relation with the world. I think that's what we're talking about when we're talking about work that addresses the climate crisis._
beth carruthers, _conscient_ podcast, October 2019, ottawa
Beth Carruthers is an artist and researcher whose work focuses on studying the impact of the arts across sectors to see how they can become more engaged with sustainable futures.
Beth Carruthers’ work is immersed in questions of how cultural practices and sensuous, embodied human-environment and interspecies interactions might lead to more ethically sensitive and ecologically just human-world and interspecies relations.
Beth is known for her work investigating the role and impact of the arts in transforming "cultures of unsustainability" to cultures of sustainability.
Beth wishes to acknowledge her good colleague Sacha Kagan for the term, “culture(s) of unsusta…
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Jun 23, 2020
e03 tickell – creative cultural allegiances
* _Art can speak to people in meaningful ways that really does call on us to respond to this differently. So wherever you are, anywhere in the world, you will almost certainly have some kind of creative cultural allegiance and how do we use that in a purposeful way is a critical question for us all…_
alison tickell, conscient podcast, october 2019, ottawa
Meet UK musician and climate change activist and CEO of Julie’s Bicycle Alison Tickell.
Alison is a colleague and friend who I first met at the National Arts Centre’s Summit on Theatre and Climate Change in April 2019.
She is CEO of Julie’s Bicycle, a UK based charity that supports the creative community to act on climate change and environmental sustainability. Julie’s Bicycle believes that the creative community is uniquely placed to transform the conversation around climate change and translate it into action.
I had the pleasure of going for a walking interview with Alison on parliament hill in Ottawa on October 26,…
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Apr 30, 2020
e01 terrified – triggering my climate denial bubble to burst
* _What triggered my climate denial bubble to burst? I feel compelled to share this personal experience, in the hope that it might help others who are also struggling with the current sustainability crisis and searching for a path forward…_
Claude Schryer
This episode is an audio version of my May 2019 blog, _terrified_ (see original blog below).
_terrified _is the touchstone of _conscient,_where I share my anxiety about the climate crisis and my belief that arts and culture can play a critical role in raising public awareness about environmental issues and to move from awareness to action.
_terrified_ centers around our 17-year-old daughter’s choice of university and her generation’s struggle with the consequences of the climate emergency.
I quote 7 writers in this blog and I want to acknowledge them: Mayer Hillman, Paola Antonelli, Greta Thunberg, Emily Johnston, George Marshall, Joan Sullivan and Richard Wagamese.
Future episodes of _conscient_ will feature audio essays,…
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