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- [00:00]
A
Orpheus sounds.
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B
Orpheus clicks.
- [00:13]
A
You are listening to Orpheus Sounds, a podcast from Orpheus Institute in Ghent. I am Magno.
- [00:21]
C
And I'm Arabella. And today we're having a conversation with Alicia Reis, who's a doctoral researcher here. And in the broader sense, her work reflects on what it means to be human in the world that we share. Very often, I think that making music can be quite an isolating thing. I mean, maybe it's because I'm a pianist, but I think a lot of us spend an awful lot of time alone in front of a screen. And so what Alicia is saying about collectiveness and being together in order to affect a change, you know, inhabiting multiple ecosystems, is really interesting.
- [01:01]
A
Yeah. I particularly tend to look at music as a collective thing in a ironic way, because I play most of my own music by myself. But it is a communal thing in the sense that you always have, ideally, other people watching, other people involved, even if the. If they're not playing, they're involved in the experience. So it is a communal thing.
- [01:24]
C
I mean, maybe it thinks. Maybe it depends on how we think about musical practice and what makes a musical experience. I mean, the weight of time invested, I think, on my side is by myself. But I think you're totally right about the impact and the point to which we're working being one of sharing.
- [01:40]
A
Yeah. And maybe that's one of the interesting things on Alicia's topic, let's say, which is this bridge between what we could call, like, political activism, where this balance between individual action and collective engagement. You know, we're not going to solve climate change by ourselves. If we're going to do anything that has any meaningful impact in the world, it has to be a collective. We have to do it together.
- [02:13]
C
One person is small, etc.
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A
And at the same time, that's part of that speaks of a musical practice that is balancing between those two.
- [02:22]
C
Those two elements, but I think also a musical positionality. I mean, a lot of the things that we're speaking to Alicia about are not. I mean, I see what you mean about the activism, and there's definitely a strand of needing to change the world, but I almost feel that activism is too small a word for what Alicia is trying to reach for. You know, she's expanding our attention, she's expanding our sensorium and helping us appreciate the world from a totally new perspective. And if that has consequences for the way that we think about other beings, of course, that's wonderful. But it's really the kind of treasure of discovery you Know, engaging with plants or with plastic glomerates, which you're going to find out about later, which is
- [03:05]
A
a way of talking about agency. Right. What you're describing as well, I'm not giving you a direct way of acting into the world. And as a political activist, I'm not giving you a sign to, you know, go and write down, this is not my manifesto.
- [03:21]
C
Come with me or leave.
- [03:23]
A
No, but it is.
- [03:24]
C
It's an invitation.
- [03:25]
A
Yeah. And it is capitalizing on whatever form of extra sensorial capacities that art might have and maybe to create sensibilities.
- [03:36]
C
Yeah. That art reaches people in a different way. That you don't have to take the kind of argumentative or I mean, maybe verbally confrontational. I mean, I do think that art has a confrontational function to play in society. And some of the most moving experiences I've had have been. Have been very confrontational in a. I wasn't expecting that or I. I feel just completely reached by this, by this experience I've had. So I think that that's a good thing. But I. I think that it offers more subtle and exciting and engaging invitational accesses than maybe, Yeah, a statement or an Instagram post or a boycott might do.
- [04:23]
B
I'm Alithia Reyes and I'm new here in the Orpheus Institute. This is my first year and I just started a PhD.
- [04:31]
C
Tell us something about your PhD.
- [04:33]
B
I start with the title. The title is Non Anthropocentric Composition. And I may mean to decentralize the role of the human in contemporary practices. This is something which has been done for quite long time, but I think it has been done especially in other practices, not necessarily music. So much so I'm willing to let neo ecological thinking permeate this music realm, especially the academic one, to foster like, new kinds of creation.
- [05:05]
C
That sounds fantastic. So when I hear non anthropocentric, I start thinking of people listening to CDs of whale song in the 1970s. But why is it that this kind of decentralization of the human in music is interesting?
- [05:21]
B
I think because I'm going to speak in very broad terms because I think this research really is tangential to a hope for a huge change in how things work nowadays. And I think still society in general has not managed to integrate other species in the way we live. And I feel these bubbles are still very separated, like the cultural bubble of like human culture as such. And then what we consider as natural, especially in the Western world, because this whale, for example, recording albums or the mere fact of Calling the way whales communicate a song, it has been also to emphasize their importance or like, yeah, open space to consider them as something more alike us and therefore give them different relevance, not just like sources of extraction.
- [06:27]
A
And why do you think we call them whale songs but not dog songs? We don't refer to other forms of communications from other animals. We don't call those songs. We think that birds sing, whales sing, but not dogs.
- [06:42]
B
I think. Well, I don't know and this is my hypothesis, just thinking out loud, but dogs belong to a more domestic realm and they participate in our daily life more often than whales, I think. So I don't think we need to project this kind of importance into dogs because they already have it in our society. I think especially in the north of Europe, because then in other countries in the south or in South America, this is completely different. Like dogs are still very wild or like every time wilder. And it's also becoming a problem.
- [07:22]
A
I can attest, I'm sure.
- [07:25]
C
Do you have a wild dog story?
- [07:27]
A
I don't have a wild dog story. We have wild cats more than wild dogs. I would say, you know, like a house cat that you would think and say, well, I wouldn't leave that alone with the baby.
- [07:37]
B
Okay.
- [07:45]
A
You mentioned that your approach to this post anthropocenic view on things, it hasn't happened that much in music, in your opinion. So I'm curious about your experience and your way of looking at things coming from other fields, from fields other than music and your experience with theater and how those things create, cross pollinate.
- [08:12]
B
I think it also happened in music, but more in sound art contexts or in field recording, but not so much in like classical music contexts or in concert halls as such, in the concert format. So I guess the practice, the artistic practice that I'm interested now that draws on different practices like visual art or a lot of immersive theater. I've come to that trying to also open up this like concert format to let other narratives permeate. Because I've also been in these kind of concerts that have like very moving and touching ecological program notes. But then it's just like a string quartet plane. And for me that contributes. But it's not enough. I think it's better to let other formats really immerse the audience and even like provoke participation to embody some sort of knowledge other than just like reading. And yeah, I think this passivity may reinforce this paralysis attitude that the ecological crisis have. So there's a lot of people that have the opinion and a lot of thinkers at the moment that everything is done, there's nothing we can do. And I'm not completely hopeless, even if I'm also pessimist. But I think there's a possibility to let things become something fruitful or generate more sustainable contexts in maybe like local scales, not necessarily like global change. And I think immersive formats that involve the activation of all senses, not only like hearing and maybe looking from afar, but touching or smelling or walking around or even putting the audience in the position to discuss. I think that might be more effective.
- [10:18]
A
Some people say that if you're not a pessimist, you're just not paying attention.
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B
Whoa.
- [10:24]
C
Absolutely. You had mentioned immersive theater and then I think, given us a really good idea of what that might. Might look like. But from outside, if I've never been to a production which could be seen as immersive theater, what should I expect?
- [10:39]
B
First, I would invite you not to expect that you can sit somewhere specifically. So maybe a roaming quality of the audience is something I would expect. Also, maybe not linear narrative, where there's only one thing you pay attention to, but there's a lot of elements that are interacting or that are operating at the same time. And then the audience is free to connect and yeah, make meaning or generate understanding. But not necessarily like a theater play where you sit and there's like story that happens in a linear way and you understand perfectly who's the main character. I would say in an immersive theater, or in the one I imagine, let's talk like, more subjectively, I aim for a decentralized situation, so no main character. There's just lots of voices. They are interacting and they maybe are overlapping or responding or who knows what. A bit in the lines of what we talked. This landscape theater of Gertrude Stein, even if she didn't mean it in ecological terms whatsoever. Yeah.
- [11:59]
C
And if I link the beginning of our conversation about sort of the human perception of animals and this immersive theater, it sounds as if what's really vital to your work is to kind of break down what you see maybe as a bottom barrier between human beings and almost everything else. Yeah, right. And if so, why?
- [12:22]
B
Why is. Because without this very clear barrier, I think more sustainable behaviors would be triggered, or less human centric behaviors. Maybe you become more aware of what surrounds you and you become. You get knowledge of how to interact with it. I believe in this political power of art. I don't say that every single piece has to have a political connotation or it has to aim to change behaviors or change the world. I think there's lots of art that fulfill lots of necessities and contribute to many functions in society. But I think it's. In this case, I'm leaning towards that kind of narratives. I think so far, because I've been doing these kind of pieces for two years, and so far I tried to acquire very neutral scientific tone because I didn't want to be condescending nor pedagogical, nor any of these things. But I also feel that that's kind of not enough because you go, you learn something and then, sure, maybe you know the name of your home plant, or you know that your home plant come from Mozambique and then has been mutated in a greenhouse in the Netherlands. Yeah, that's super interesting information. But then what can you do about it? So now in this next phase of my work, I want to also give possibilities, not tell people what to do, but maybe hint, okay, these things are possible things that you can actually do. So maybe I start connecting with associations that relate to the topics that I will deal with.
- [14:26]
A
Do you consider that your art is a political art? That's like activism in that sense?
- [14:31]
B
I think every art is in a way political. Even like your 19th century piano playing.
- [14:37]
C
I agree. I think it's impossible to exist in the network that we have without consciously or unconsciously taking some kind of political position.
- [14:45]
B
Yes, because what you accept also makes you part of a system.
- [14:49]
C
Exactly.
- [14:49]
B
So assuming that all art is political, then yes, I'm aiming to maybe lean towards a more political tone. Not necessarily positioning myself with any political party, but just like maybe taking actions of what things can we do to really break these boundaries or make everything more fluid or entangled.
- [15:13]
C
Maybe the question is, what do we mean by political in this sense? Because I think there's a difference between sort of concrete, maybe not activism, but impulses. The way that you were talking about showing people possibilities of changing their lives in some way. Right. Changing their effects on their environments. But there's also the deeper sense of political, which is taking a position or being aware of the position one exists, making a statement and. And feeling a responsibility for action in. In the world. And I think on. On this level, maybe there's also something that you can say about the direction you'd like to go.
- [15:47]
B
I agree with taking responsibility. I mean, one of my main sources in my research is Donna Haraway. And for me, the staying with this trouble is really like the book that I'm coming back to. And there's a huge emphasis of really taking responsibility. Maybe not necessarily for what we have done, like the three of us, but what we can do or what we can stay with to change.
- [16:11]
C
I have so many questions now. The first one that occurs to me immediately is do you see this kind of responsibility from the non human centric part of your work as more of a collective or more of an individual or both in different ways. Because this way of thinking of individuals, right, as of me and my responsibility, this is a very human thing, you know, whereas in, in a sort of non human way of being in the world, you see many more kind of automatic collectives like a herd of gazelles or the, like the cooperative structures that elephants or ants develop. And I'm sorry, this is maybe just too far away from it. Really, really interesting to hear about the ways that this sort of maybe valuing or appreciating the, the world that of, of non human entities or beings could, could impact on ideas of responsibility and politics.
- [17:10]
B
No, yeah, definitely. And I think, well, again now when we talk in these very high layers of social qualities is hard to make statements, so I'm in muddy grounds. But I think for example, these artistic ecosystems as force fields can maybe generate ephemeral collectives that have like maybe common purposes and not necessarily or not exclusively talking about the audience that come and then participate for a while, but also the whole production team that is participating in something. So I think it's like individual action, it would be never enough. So like if we aim for some sort of change, we need to think collectively and in all the different ecologies. I think it's definitely interesting to learn from how other species operate because I think we have forgotten how we are supposed to operate by default because of course we have built a very complex society that interacts in a way which is far from the survival instincts. Now we are operating within other values, within other frameworks. So yeah, of course we can't compare our automatic behaviors to the ones because we've been completely raised on a system that has pushed all these instinctive behaviors to a little corner and we can listen to them or not.
- [18:52]
A
I think I want to come back to what you said about that we cannot solve things individually, it needs to be done collectively, which is totally true. I mean, we're not going to solve climate change by using metal straws instead of plastic. I mean that's, you know, Big Oil did its thing in the 80s. It's not our fault, it's theirs. I totally agree with you. How do you balance that with some of the readings for things like you mentioned, Donna? Haraway and some readings of that type of literature or even like object oriented ontology versus like completely flat ontology of all entities. Some people have readings of those of those theories saying that they are actually detrimental to the responsibility, which is another word that we use to the responsibility of us humans. The minute that you say that, you know, actually everyone from the rock to a galaxy to the ants to the humans were all the same. So this again, flattening of entities and that is actually detrimental to the responsibility, to the recognition of responsibility of humans as the ones that actually cause climate change. And actually what we need is precisely what you said, you know, to create collective, to create direct action through collective engagement. How do you, how do you balance those things and how that comes to play into your artwork in your music?
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B
Is it responsibility or agency?
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A
Because, well, those would be two different things, right?
- [20:28]
B
Yes, because when talking about like all these elements have influence on everything. Of course we agree. But certainly is the human species that is causing the acceleration. The climate change would happen anyways, like in its own pace and rhythm. We are just causing an acceleration that goes against our survival and at the same time against the survival of many other species. So I don't know. I think first I wouldn't put in the same bucket object oriented ontology and Haraway's philosophy.
- [21:07]
A
No, no, definitely not.
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B
Because I think they have different senses of this responsibility and commitment and also these hopes. I think Timo Di Morton and these thinkers are much darker than Haraway or all these other people. And they, by the way, also operate completely in collective realms of writing. Like in Haraway's book, she quotes everybody. It's a collective speech that has been generated and it's been also accelerating and producing lots of literature recently, like in the last 25 years, because also lots of new discoveries are bringing more solutions or bringing new ideas of how to engage with things. One of my wishes is also keep my practice collective. Even if in this PhD context, I might have to do things by my own because of resources, but doing things collectively, it's easier to share responsibility. And I feel that my role in these creative processes that I've done for the last two years have been as an initiator and then as an enabler. So I'm not aiming to really define every stage of the process and really control every element. I'm bringing things together, finding a way of how can they operate and then building some sort of ecosystem that would run for a while while the piece is being performed and then maybe would stop. So I think this Kind of practice could trigger this kind of logics of how things operate.
- [22:59]
C
So what did that look like, concretely? Creating a space for that kind of collective responsibility.
- [23:05]
B
I developed a piece around the plastiglomerates, which are conglomerates of plastic wastes and ocean debris that appeared first in the Pacific shores, but now they are appearing in other places. And I say plastiglomerate to summarize, because there's a really wide cataloging of these kind of new conglomerates of things depending on their formation process, like pyroplastics or plastic crusts or many others. And so the. The work, everything revolves around this object. And I read a lot of what.
- [23:48]
C
What does this object look like? If I had one in front of me, what would I think?
- [23:52]
B
I think it would. It looks scary, but it also looks attractive. It's. It looks like a pile of things. It's. Yeah, it's strange. It doesn't have a specific shape. I think you could think of it as when you go to a construction site and you see a piece of different materials that has been assembled accidentally. Okay, then add to that trash that has been traveling in the Pacific for years and years and years, and then everything has been, well, combined with organic waste, like pieces of wood or coral or whatever, and then everything has been burnt and deformed. Can you imagine?
- [24:43]
C
Now I can see something slightly terrifying.
- [24:45]
B
Yeah, it's terrifying, but at the same time, it's very attractive. And it feels like a sculpture completely because they are very complex. And some of the techno fossils that you can see on this rocks are recognizable. Like there's some examples that. Where you can see a lighter or like a bottle cap. So you can identify where these things came from or who.
- [25:10]
A
What's a technofossil?
- [25:12]
B
It's an object that has been produced by the humans that has become a fossil. So, for example, wasted lighter that has been completely oxidated and broken. But you can still recognize that it's an assemblage of things, things that the humans have put together.
- [25:29]
C
So with these plasticlomerates, you made a piece.
- [25:33]
B
They were the center of the process. And the first part was try to recreate some of the original ones with a constructor, a theater constructor, Antonia Janos. She did a great job. We took some of the original examples, a lot of pictures, and then she found a way of recreating them with plastic waste, but also with bioplastics that she did. And then I created a musical experience around them. So with an ensemble of my colleagues from the Master that I studied. We co created a sound narrative that it was focused on sonic material produced by the plastic part of their instruments or the appendixes of their instruments. So we also try to find materials out of like the. The waste of their instruments. So I don't know them. Just like playing with the exclusively with the guitar pegs or with the cello spike. And after gathering a sound palette and also combining with conventional playing techniques or just extended techniques, we did a soundtrack that would carry the piece forward and the musical experience started by them playing. And then all these samples were recorded and then combined and assembled in different ways. And then so the soundtrack goes from acoustic to electronic. And well, this is the musical part. But then there was a big theatrical part. So all the musicians were also scientists. They also studied a lot, Some of them even more than me. By the end of the rehearsals they were like, hey, wait. Not the first classic glomerate was in this year, not in this other. So they turned into several scientists and they presented these stones to the audience in the beginning of the piece. So the piece started with a tour on the stage where the audience could see, everybody had little flashlights so they could explore very close these entities. And afterwards they would take a more passive role. They would sit down and then the musicians would take over. Start with a musical work, but then transition slowly to scientific experiments that would explain the composition of these objects and would display on screens their entail elementally elementary composition. So which kind of plastics or other materials were involved? And yeah, it was a 40 minute piece with different scenes. It's hard to describe this kind of immersive or this kind of multimedia things.
- [28:43]
A
Do you have any examples of other artworks that have been done with this type of material, with this type of sensibility? Like specifically using that as material, not physical material, but you know, as conceptual material. Is that something that has been explored before?
- [28:58]
B
For instance, through. I don't remember the last one I saw. I don't remember the person who did it. But it was through a researcher in the Institute of Postnatural Studies. But I think he developed a speculative poster with lots of different plastics from the Mediterranean that are not existent. But he took pictures of a lot of floating trash and then imagine how that would conglomerate in the future. So he digitally recreated things that we might come across in the future. Because I think this plastic glomerate phenomena is going to spread naturally. But yeah, there's other artists. There's somebody called Ali E Wist that she did some sculptures, but more. Way more still eyes still is sized. I Don't know how to say it anyway, with more style than ours, so more polished and more beautiful. And you can also recognize the chunks of things. So I think she's not the only one who has done it. I think a lot of people have explored in this sculpture. I guess that's the first inputs of an artist when seeing these things very
- [30:10]
C
polemically, is this interest in sort of the entropy of the things that we produce unnecessarily, not perhaps a little bit narcissistic. And then we want to make it beautiful. Even, you know, these are our waste products. These are things that we're putting out into the world which are incredibly damaging for all kinds of other things. And not only are we. I mean, in some sense, it's just making people aware of this. But if we start making them beautiful, where do we cross a line?
- [30:37]
B
Well, yeah, I personally might agree with the fact of making them beautiful. I think that that's just like an aesthetic exercise and might not be so ecological, so to say. But there's this concept of weird ecology that when we see something that we don't understand how it has been produced, but that we can also relate, and we develop a lot of curiosity to it, and we are drawn to these sculpture elements. This will hopefully, like, trigger a chain of thought or of curiosity that would lead us to find out more about this. So I feel that doing disgusting things a little bit attractive might be positive in a way. But I think also there's a thin line in between romanticizing these things and also focusing on. Yeah, oh, yes, we did that lighter, and that lighter traveled so much, and then the ocean assembled it for us to use it in our pieces. Yes, but it's not only the lighter. It's also wood. It's also skeletons of animals from the ocean. It's. I don't know. It's way more than that. And I think that's why this very example, it's such a marker. It's something that it almost speaks on its own because of its composition.
- [32:02]
C
But in that sense, I think it's really interesting because with the kind of political or activist nature of this work, if it were to be successful, one day, it would destroy the objects that originated it.
- [32:15]
B
Right.
- [32:16]
C
Because the idea would be that we stop producing plastic and putting it out into the ocean to become plastiglomerates. And that would perhaps be an effect of the work with these things either aestheticized or, in your sense, as a collective, immersive experience. But if you. Everybody is successful, these objects will cease to exist because we will stop destroying the environment by throwing tons of plastic and metal into it.
- [32:41]
A
So ideally, the most well, successful art activists dealing with ecology, the ultimate goal is to become jobless.
- [32:50]
B
Yeah, I think intruding is a good word. Or not completely colonizing, because I think scale matters if it. It's a lot of plastic that is all over us. But I also wonder if we would stop producing plastic right now, how much plastic would be still there? It's just a lot. So even in the best possible scenario, I think this plastic glomerate is going to be there anyway. So that's the thing that I don't think things will change that fast or that, I mean, to be jobless would be great. I would take care of other things. I would make my research of whatever else that I find engaging.
- [33:40]
A
But you're right, we have enough plastic for the. Enough material for the next millennia.
- [33:44]
B
I think we have a lot of
- [33:45]
A
art to do that.
- [33:46]
C
I mean, but what I was thinking is that it's such an interesting tension to have a kind of a work of art that is actively engaged in trying to undermine the thing from which it originated. Yeah, I just, I really like that kind of dissonance within the work. Right. This is a thing and it's a fascinating, disgusting, terrifying, interesting thing. But actually what I'm doing is drawing attention to the fact that the world would be better if it weren't there.
- [34:12]
B
Maybe we can go to another example that would trigger a different kind of reasoning. Because another little experiment I did was around a succulent plant, Crassula ovata, that has been mutated. You know, this variety that has this kind of Shrek that people put headphones on or earplugs.
- [34:32]
C
Many people will know it as the jade or the money plant. In English. It's usually. It's the kind of thing that you see in a doctor's office, looking very sad, dropping all of its leaves. But it's got like ovoid, glossy, dark green leaves.
- [34:44]
B
I did a piece studying the history of this plant, then sharing also in speculative pseudo scientific context, what happened to this plant? Who's this plant? Oh, it has a passport. Where does it come from? There's not even like a single story or a unique version of the story of how this plant turned to be as it is right now. But it has definitely turned to be what it is because of its travel to Europe and its breathing in greenhouses and all that. So my purpose is not to destroy all these things that have changed. For example, in this context, like in relationship to the. We just have to live with it as it is, as it has been transformed, especially with dealing with like living beings.
- [35:31]
C
I'm seeing a sequel to the Matrix now. I don't know if I'm too old, but you know that scene where you see all of these humans contained in pods and connected to variants?
- [35:41]
B
Oh yeah, yeah, right. I love that too.
- [35:42]
C
This is exactly the way that people are producing rare plants in laboratories. It's called tissue culture and it's basically cloning a few cells of a plant and letting them grow in a completely sterile environment. And it's basically like that scene in the Matrix for plants. So, yeah, I can really see an interesting sci fi horror thing because we think, oh, that's so nice. They're little baby plants that what? And when we see humans, we're like, this is horrendous. This is a dystopian vision of the future.
- [36:12]
B
That was also a little bit the purpose of my work, to question the ethics around that. So, okay, it's okay to do it with plants.
- [36:20]
C
I don't know.
- [36:21]
B
I'm not going to be a plant saver whatsoever. But it's weird, it's strange to like put a plant through stress or put plant cells through stress to find out if maybe they, they grow faster or. Yeah.
- [36:36]
C
So I mean, it's basically when we do unnatural things to plants, like irradiate their cells and try and produce valuable mutations to make them look different in a way that would make them unable to survive in the outside world. We think that's amazing. This is technological advance. This is, this is a wonderful human discovery. And when we see somebody doing that to human beings, and I'm not in any way saying that human beings and plants are equivalent, but we have a totally different reaction to a technological process that looks on a cellular level very, very similar completely.
- [37:07]
B
Or dogs.
- [37:08]
A
Dogs are a great example because you want them to look a certain way. And now poor thing cannot breathe properly.
- [37:15]
B
And then it becomes dependent on the human. But then you're not going to kill all these disabled dogs. You're going to like live with them and find a way of struggle.
- [37:41]
C
You have been talking a lot about sort of interacting with the after effects or the wider resonances of what can be called, I think, a technological culture. Right. This is all about this advance. And you were saying yourself, acceleration, etc. But I'd like to hear from whatever direction make sense to you, something about your relationship to technology in your work.
- [38:06]
B
Technology is definitely big part of what I do, starting by Working with my laptop as all of us. So. And yeah, I mean technology is everything. But anyway, I incorporate in all these pieces also a technological element. It has happened like that because I also had access to these kind of resources and then I just made something out of it. But I think they also bring a lot of controversy and important questions into play when like making art with for example, like high quality technology gadgets that wouldn't be in certain spaces but would be in others, like a speaker dome or like a mock up system or like a tracking device. I mean I didn't use all these very specific technologies in the latest pieces, but I would be open to because I mean these things are there and I think in my opinion if they are there already, it's also good to appropriate them to. To make something out of them that would maybe question their role in. In where they are.
- [39:25]
A
That relates to immersiveness because you mentioned immersive theater and when you're describing if whoever's listening to us, they have never been to an immersive theater performance, you mention things like there's video, there might not be a. There might not be a specific narrative, but there's going to be a sort of interaction that goes a little bit beyond the stage and audience device. Someone could describe a Beyonce concert in a way like that completely. It's very immersive. There's a lot of video lights. Maybe you have a phone app, maybe you have a new bracelet that blinks with the rhythm of the music. How is it that different or is not that different at all? For example, the relationship that you have or that a big rock concert, a pop concert, uses of technology or even on the content level, like on the sonic level.
- [40:29]
B
Well, first, I don't think I will have the resources that we usually have ever.
- [40:35]
A
You never know.
- [40:36]
B
Well, maybe.
- [40:37]
C
Yeah, but if you did, would there be a difference?
- [40:42]
B
I think first difference is what is Pagency thinking about? So I guess that matters as well. And I mean, I'm not even sure what is Patience thinking about right now. But I don't know. I think using this kind of technology to disseminate speech or like a narrative that goes along the lines of ecological justice or climate justice might be different to just sing about love or. I mean, I'm not also bringing down any of these pop cultures. Like I think there's amazing art right now and I think actually multimedia theater really like is influenced by all this. Like this is the reference because this is the mainstream culture, this and the sci fi movies. Completely.
- [41:41]
A
Yeah. I mean if we're talking about pop culture, ecology and immersive performance. Bjork, that equals Bjork. Right? And Lady Gaga's meat dress, meat garment. It's not that dissimilar in a way, even though it might be from what you're saying, quite different in terms of intentionality. Right?
- [42:01]
B
Yeah, I don't know. I think. Should somebody with this kind of intentionality be completely coherent with their practice and try to be the most ethical possible? Or are we using this as a tool to change things on a bigger level and make maybe people who are actually. Who actually have a greater responsibility and influence over things change the way they do things? So I think that's a very tricky and complicated question. So if I speak about ecology, then I just can do concerts in the park, or can I actually speak about ecology making use of things that of course are controversial because we live in a very complicated world where things are set to harm in a way, or things are said to not have this sustainable existence in relation to other.
- [43:04]
A
There's no ethical consumption in capitalism. That's the gist of it. I totally agree.
- [43:10]
C
I mean, I think that what you're getting at is really important because we do tend to apply, just as a general public collective, we different standards. The corporation which is destroying the environment is, well, yes, what do you expect from them? But the artist taking an ethical position is expected to be perfect. Yes, that's a real difficulty.
- [43:29]
B
I think so. And I've been thinking about it lately also, because when I see somebody speaking about their artistic research, when it touches like ecological concerns, it turns everything extremely vulnerable and criticizable. Whether if somebody's speaking about an exclusive human topic about time or about existence, then it's like, ah, fine, it's easy to navigate. So I don't know, should we be that harsh with people that are trying to make a difference or should we be a little bit more like, curious of. Okay, just do the thing. Let's find out what it comes out of it. Let's see how it.
- [44:13]
C
I mean, I wonder where that resistance is coming from, because it seems almost like an instinctive reaction.
- [44:20]
B
Yes, I think so.
- [44:21]
C
Why do you think that's the case?
- [44:23]
B
I don't know. I think I'm gonna think about this.
- [44:25]
C
I mean, I think I have a theory because it ties back to something that I thought of at the beginning of our conversation, which is non human centered ecologies and a non human centered view of the world through music also contains this kind of very interesting tension. Because music, you know, we were Saying we talk about whale song, we talk about birdsong. But I think we can agree that the song part is in our ears, of course. Right. So using music to expand sort of the view of worthiness or of participation or of agency or whatever can seem, I think to some people very, I don't even want to say scary, but very, very destabilizing. Because music is seen as a human thing because of its intentionality, because of its emotion, and because people have been singing songs about being in love, losing their love or dying for about 600 years now and sort of pushing the boundaries of that and saying, but maybe, maybe this isn't just a human thing, or maybe even more dangerous, maybe it should not be a human thing because we have a responsibility.
- [45:33]
B
Yeah. Or at least not only human thing. Yeah, yeah, maybe it's like a defensive position.
- [45:39]
C
I think so. You know, and I'm saying that from the perspective of the 19th century pianist, because if you see someone approaching the big problems in the world, so perhaps the biggest threat to human existence with art, and you think, yeah, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm playing, I'm playing nice, nice piano pieces, then maybe you feel defensive, threatened. Well, or you feel called to take responsibility as well. And I would agree with you that the, the answer to this call is then to be open and curious rather than saying, well, if I can't do it, then. And you know, I'm not saying that any content based criticism of non human centered artistic research is coming from there, but I do think that there's, there's an unconscious, this is for us in music making.
- [46:31]
B
Yeah. I'm gonna work a little bit against my title of the PhD because I think this non anthropocentric word or non anthropocentric composition or art, it's something that, it's extremely controversial because I, and I think that's positive because it will foster a lot of discussion and questioning in any context where this pops up. But I think ultimately this is to change our behavior in relation to other species. So of course we are not the center, but we are the target. The target is not the frogs that are going to hear our concert because we don't know how that will fall or how that will be perceived. And if the target is to like, I don't know, change our way of perceiving the world or being more open or aware of these entanglements, then this is oriented to the well being of the human in the same way as your concerts are. So it's not a practice that is going to step over yours. I think we are working together.
- [47:48]
C
I think it's.
- [47:49]
B
It's.
- [47:51]
C
I think it's.
- [47:56]
B
Click.
- [48:05]
C
So we had a brief touch on technology, which seems like such a specific word. So when I say technology, what does it mean in the context of what you do?
- [48:14]
B
I'm talking in very practical terms. I would say coding, like programming, like laptops, lights, whatever. I don't know. Instruments, electronics, synthesizers.
- [48:33]
C
So the things that you need or the. The materials that you need to do the work?
- [48:38]
B
Yeah, more or less, yes.
- [48:40]
A
And that's a list of things from the four or five things that you said that other than instruments. It would be basically the same list if someone asked, oh, what are the things that you use for a practice of multimedia art or what in other places people call new media? How is it for you navigating those two universes? Is it music that has staging? Is it theater that has music that has sound as the conceptual space that is manipulated in order to create the theater? Or it doesn't matter, it's precisely being in between. How do you see the navigation between those two fields and your work? I mean, specifically, how do you situate yourself?
- [49:24]
B
I think there's some concepts that have been more useful to describe my practice, although they are a little bit specific. Like instrumental theater, as Heinrich Goebbels would say, which is a theater that is driven by musicians playing rather than by actors speaking. So word has a very little influence on what's happening. It's more like the music who's bringing the things forward. So that could be one of the labels to it. But another one that I only heard recently is visual theater that even takes one step back. So it's just like. Really? Yeah, acknowledging this quality of, like, being immersed in something and feel that you're inside an ecosystem or inside a painting or inside a living organism sculpture. I don't know, but I think maybe I would stick to a more musical term because that's also my main background and practice. But, yes, all these labels, I also feel that they are to fit in a program. So I wish I didn't have to have a name for it. You just can come and see it. And then without this cataloging, maybe it's easier to. To engage with more, like, fluid formats that would adapt to the concepts that the piece is dealing with.
- [51:06]
A
But it is a political decision also, right, to call something music or not. So what you're saying is like, well, maybe, yeah, call it music, don't call it music, fine. But it is a political decision that. Meaning that they say, no, no, that's what I'm proposing. I'm proposing that you. Not even from the. From the experience perspective, that's not what I'm getting at. But I'm proposing that by calling it music, what we consider to be music, it's now a little bit broader. It's the same with calling composition or not. And I. I share the same. The same question sometimes, which is, well, yeah, sure, I have a background in composition, but calling this. Am I going to call this performance music a piece? Or is it sound art? And it becomes a. It becomes a. A political statement saying, well, I'm broadening what I consider what I think we should call music by including the sound sculpture, by including the, you know, noise performance at the Anarchist Commune Collective. And so there is that there might be some value in. In thinking if.
- [52:17]
B
Yeah.
- [52:18]
A
Or. Or really situating yourself. You know, you want to keep a term composition with a capital C for the. For those specific places. We're going to call this experimental art, experimental music or something. So there's a. It's a decision to be. To be made also. Right.
- [52:33]
B
Definitely. Yeah. I think I forgot to mention, but composed theater, it's also a really good umbrella for my practice, like the book by David Roessner and Matthias Rebstock. Gather a lot of examples of, like, musicians that had composed in more conventional ways with scoring and other elements that are not only music, but lights or movement or choreography. So I think I would be a continuation of this school or this. Yeah. Umbrella, as I said. And I think another reason to call it music is because I'm surrounded by musicians and everybody that I'm working with are musicians. Like in the last piece I did, there was like, everybody had a relationship to music to some extent. The light designer is a composer, the technician director. It's also a multimedia artist. The performers are an ensemble. They are not actors. So our common language, even if it's in a subconscious level, it's going to always be a musical sensitivity.
- [53:50]
C
And I think that might actually not be a bad place to stop. Thank you so much for giving us so much time and these deep insights into all of the things that you're working on. We look forward to seeing what happens next.
- [54:01]
B
Thank you very much to both of you.
- [54:19]
C
So Alicia's work is in some ways very politically relevant because she's talking about things like climate change, and she's not doing it in just an informational way. I think it's very important in general when speaking about Things like climate change, not to give up and say, well, now you know, it's your responsibility. But there's this interesting conundrum because people are really intense about art for art's sake and about making art and music a kind of non political space.
- [54:53]
A
I think it's not possible, right? We're all political agents. And what you just said of, well, climate change, you can show in a very informational way and very obvious way with a chart or on the news, and you present the information that is very clear and unequivocally true. And a lot of times just gets not considered and it passes right above people's heads because we're bombarded with that at all times. So the tension between making art, activism and political art, art that touches on a political topic and the apparent contradiction of presenting in a way that is not obvious. And that's what the art for art's sake that you're mentioning comes into play, where it comes into play because you're somehow trying to take advantage of this thing that we for some reason believe that art speaks to us on a different level. Art speaks to us in a way that maybe we're not able to articulate properly. And I really like the. Try that in the best way that this expression can be used, which is the weaponizing of art as a way to look. You're not paying attention to the news and it's fine because we're all overwhelmed. And you hear news about climate change every day. Maybe you're gonna watch this music performance, this art exhibition, or this different way of getting this sensibility into you. And then again, sensibility, we don't tend to talk about those, about the news in those terms, but we use those terms for art. So I think that's what stands out for me the most. And I like to see how artists that have a work that is unapologetically political and unapologetically activists like Alicia's, to see how they position themselves in terms of. Look, my art is simply a medium for me to go and present to you a message of activism. I'm thinking completely different example on another domain. But you know, bands like Rage against the Machine, which one might think, well, they almost exist to do political activism, or in the case of Alicia, really, how do you position yourself and present that in a non direct way in your, in your work?
- [57:32]
C
A little bit of devil's advocate here, but I think. Do you not think that it can be very dangerous to get at people through artistic sensibilities? Because in a way we're almost defenseless. You know, this kind of emotional impact is still a really powerful way of sort of dragging people in your direction. And although unfortunately with the current political situation, we're not trained well enough to deal with misinformation. Were even less capable of defending ourselves against. What you could say is, I mean, if you didn't happen to agree with the position, a kind of artistic manipulation or misinformation.
- [58:12]
A
But that would imply that there is only one way to perceive and receive the artwork. Right. Maybe that's the. The. The power of it, which is you're going to see the work and you're going to have the experience, but each person is going to make it their own and they're going to appropriate it in a different way. Up to and including being absolutely unfazed by and insane. This. I couldn't care less about the turtles. And this doesn't say anything to me. What I need is the graph on the news. So all the way up to and including completely non sensibilities.
- [58:52]
C
I mean, I agree especially with the kind of collaborative and cooperative and immersive elements of Alicia's practice. I don't think that that's something that would happen in. In this case at all. But I do think that there's an awful lot of. I mean, you can. You could discuss whether you want to call it art or whether you want to call it music, but there are an awful lot of currents in which that kind of ambiguity, that kind of like space to have different interpretations is really not desirable. I mean, just think about the latest Hollywood blockbusters. You are totally clear on who's right and who's wrong. It's a very black and white world. And transposing that kind of perspective on complex questions with then the expressive power of music or art can be. I just feel a little bit. I feel that that's also an area that we have to take responsibility for. That a political stance or an activist stance is great, but you're kind of responsible to draw the line for yourself in a way that doesn't involve manipulating people.
- [59:53]
A
Manipulation definitely comes into play in when you. Your examples of the latest blockbusters because they are made to be easily consumed.
- [60:04]
C
I mean, we want to be manipulated. I mean, it's. It's. If. If music were not in some way manipulative, it would be really boring.
- [60:13]
A
Yeah.
- [60:14]
C
I mean, it would be awful. It would be. It would be the most sort of. I don't know. I don't want to say that nobody's capable of being emotionally manipulated by mathematical Abstractions, but you know what I mean, Right.
- [60:24]
A
Some people might.
- [60:25]
C
Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously, but it wouldn't have the same kind of mass appeal. And I just, I just think that maybe I'm just deeply skeptical of, of, of unreflected collectivist movements. But I just think that if you open that door of making, making statements and, and using music and art to achieve a goal, then you have a very, very strong responsibility to make sure that nothing untoward comes through it after you.
- [60:57]
A
Nothing untrue.
- [60:58]
C
Untoward. I mean, so like some, so if, if you. It's, it's like, okay, we've split the atom.
- [61:04]
A
Yeah.
- [61:05]
C
And now somebody's built a bomb with it. I'm not saying that you shouldn't have split it, but I'm, I'm saying that after you've split it, you can't close that anymore. So be very, very sure of what you're going to do.
- [61:17]
A
That's a lot of responsibility to put in, in art and music. Right. There's a lot of trust that music is able to do those things in such a concrete and such a pragmatic way.
- [61:33]
C
I mean, but the alternative is believing that it can't, which is actually much worse. Right.
- [61:38]
A
And maybe that's why we do it. Right. That's. We thread that line between. I don't think this is communicating anything in the, in the purely semantic way. Usually works that try to do that. They are the most boring or on the surface.
- [62:00]
C
Thank you for dismissing the entire genre of opera and musical theater.
- [62:04]
A
No, I mean, they, they put things together, Right. It's, it's not, it's not a sonified pamphlet.
- [62:11]
C
I'm not going to say that a lot of the, the 19th century operatic blockbusters are in any way more subtle than Holly Hollywood. Got it from somewhere.
- [62:20]
A
Yeah.
- [62:20]
C
I just happen to think that's great.
- [62:22]
A
You know, I'm gonna leave to the 19th century experts to wait in on that and refrain myself from, from commenting.
- [62:30]
C
But this is the space to make bold statements as someone who knows nothing about the material.
- [62:35]
A
Yeah, There you go.
- [62:36]
C
I mean, that's what I've been doing.
- [62:38]
A
Yeah. Making a fool of myself in front of everyone.
- [62:41]
C
So if we're talking about the political nature of art and the responsibility of any political actor, I do think that what we're going to hear from Alicia is a really good way of navigating that space, you know, because this sort of not imposing something on people is always a good way to start that, Right?
- [63:03]
A
Yeah, it's non imposing and it's very Clear that she's not shying away from that responsibility. That's what's interesting. Right. There's a very good balance. I agree with you. There's a very good balance between non imposing. So there's a respect from the perspective of the artist in direction of the
- [63:23]
C
audience and everybody else involved. You know, she was. She was really, really clear about the breadth of the networks she's trying to create.
- [63:31]
A
Yeah. It's a. The thing is creative collectively, but then at the same time is unapologetically in her mind as the thing that is the driving motor of the making of the work. Right. It's not subtle in the sense that it's not hidden. It can be subtle. Subtleness can be a good thing, but it's not hidden. There's a stance there. So it's authentic in a way. And that's what probably draws you to it.
- [64:06]
C
Yeah, that's the ethical position to take, I think. You know, if you're going to do something like that, then everybody needs to be aware that you're going to do it. Yeah.
- [64:14]
A
And then you can choose if you engage with it or not. And you can choose to engage it in your own terms or not. Up to and including not engaging at all.
- [64:22]
C
Absolutely.
- [64:23]
A
Or engaging simply. And that's one of the things that came up in the discussion, in the conversation, up to and including engaging it simply to criticize it.
- [64:32]
C
I really wish. I mean, what a pity. But. And this is apart for the later reflection now because I think we've just gone seamlessly from introduction to reflection. But I really wish that we had asked her about the possibilities of non engagement. Right. Because this kind of open theatrical space, this kind of immersion should also have an exit if it's going to have that kind of authenticity and an element of choice about when and in what way one uses this exit from the audience perspective. Yeah, well, from. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, why not? From everybody's.
- [65:06]
A
In what way exit?
- [65:07]
C
Well, when. How does it.
- [65:09]
A
Producing?
- [65:10]
C
Well, how does it stop? No, I mean, with the experience.
- [65:12]
A
Right, with the experience.
- [65:13]
C
So this experience goes on for a certain time, but it seems to have an awful lot of flexibility in it.
- [65:17]
A
Yeah.
- [65:18]
C
And one of the big hierarchies in like normal musical performance is who's in control of the beginning and the end. I mean, because it's always been a real scandal if somebody gets up and leaves while something is going on. Right. That's. That's almost the strongest statement that you can make. That's an even stronger statement than Staying and booing.
- [65:39]
A
But that assumes a certain type of relationship to the, to the musical object that is in front of you. Right. Those rituals, they. Well, that aspect of the ritual might not apply in other settings. You might have it from the conception of the thing already embedded, a possibility that is not experienced in its entirety. People can come in, can come out. The notion of a session.
- [66:06]
C
Yeah.
- [66:06]
A
Might not apply to that.
- [66:08]
C
Well, but the empty session is a failure, whereas the full session is not.
- [66:13]
A
But a session that has something between 10 and 30 people throughout its eight hours of existence.
- [66:21]
C
Yeah.
- [66:21]
A
And it's kind of a audience of thesis in a way.
- [66:26]
C
Yeah.
- [66:26]
A
It's always shifting.
- [66:29]
C
But again, the. I mean, I don't know if, if like club culture measures things this way, but anything existing in this capitalist framework, you know, which we've been speaking about, numbers, mean success and lack of attention, especially in our attention economy, social media, etc. Lack of attention is failure. You know, it's a kind of capital, really. Attention in people's time.
- [66:53]
A
Yeah. The setting, the setting allows for that. It's permeable to that relationship. So in a way, the, maybe the, the. The possibility for exiting, it's already there, embedded on the nature of, of the. The object that is being, that is being created. Which I agree, if you go to a concert and it's. There's a piano and only a piano on stage and a certain repertoire with a certain type of ritual, it's like you said, it might be even worse than viewing. Right.
- [67:23]
C
Well, I mean, even, even in a commercial theater production, you basically, what you're saying is a capitalist statement. I paid for my ticket and this is so bad that I would rather lose the money.
- [67:34]
A
Yeah. I mean, that is because capitalist doesn't want only your money, it wants your time.
- [67:39]
C
Yeah. Well, I mean, you are exchanging money for a increase in the value of your time. Right. And what I think is nice about this immersive theater, assuming that the kind of exit hierarchy has been dismantled, is that this is like a positive reworking of that solely negative exit in other spaces. Because here it can just be an expression of individuality, of agency. It can be a way of shaping your own experience.
- [68:04]
A
Yeah. It can be a way of delegating work. Maybe that's not the best word, but it can be a way of acknowledging the time that your audience has and saying, look, you can be here for 10 minutes, you can be here for seven hours, you can be here for as long as you think that this experience is valid for you. And I'm not the One to control
- [68:28]
C
it, but also of letting the audience have the full shaping of their experience. Because I mean, how often have you read a book or seen a movie and you think it should have stopped there? That was great. I wish it had stopped there. And this is really giving people the scissors of fate. Right. You get to decide when the thing is, if you want closure is coherent and closed for you. If you have a child at home who really needs to go to bed, then this is the pragmatic moment where the artistic life and your real life intersect, but kind of in a non exhausting way. Right. So I think that could be a really, a really nice way of demonstrating the different relationship between audience, performance, technicians, space, the whole ecology of a musical and theatrical experience.
- [69:23]
A
And it's very much related to her interest in how this connects to our current social capitalist world and how priorities are set, are set in relationship to interests that might remove agency from you as a subject that is just in the world trying to do things and those forces are acting on you to. Like you said, well, maybe you have a child at home and you need to go home. So between not going at all to a performance or well, I can go and maybe stay for only the amount of time that I have.
- [70:01]
C
I just thought of. Because I just thought of something that I find really interesting. And people are always talking about the fact that we have only one planet. This is our only chance, we can't get away. Even though various people are looking at the moon and Mars. So the possibility of an individual exit from a performance space is like the negative image of the inescapability of this, this path that we're taking in the world. Right. Because here nobody has an exit. Not even the people who are responsible for the destruction. You know, we're all in the same space.
- [70:35]
A
They're trying very much. Right.
- [70:37]
C
But there's still, there's no way. I mean, current position, no way out.
- [70:42]
A
No, it's a. The stage is a microcosm for our planet. Right.
- [70:46]
C
And in that way it kind of has an almost. I mean, I don't know if it's a utopian perspective, but it's a. Certainly a much optimistic one than the one that we have, which is, you know, as you said before, the whales are dying. We will also be dying.
- [70:58]
A
Yeah.
- [70:59]
C
And there is as yet no way out. Maybe sounds as a half worm, half noun.
- [71:18]
B
If it's not a noun, then it's Orpheus.
- [71:21]
A
Clinked this is a podcast from Orpheus Institute. Please get in touch with us@podcastorpheusinstitute ba that is I n s t I t u t. You can find it spelled out in the show notes. Orpheus sound is produced with help from Peter Blome, Federi the backer and cayoquintens.