Are you listening? (working title)

During the 20th century, music became ubiquitous. The phonograph cylinder, followed by the widely successful phono record, allowed people to listen to music at home for the first time. The listener became disconnected from the sound source, and on a massive scale.

The senses involved in listening include not just our ears. Through our eyes we expect and confirm the nature of the sounds heard. But without a visual source for music, what are we actually listening to? A record, or an orchestra? A radio, or a jazz band? Loudspeakers, radios, tape, CD, mp3... technology has allowed us to create contexts for music anywhere.

Pythagoras devised a method of allowing his students to direct their concentration on the contents of his teachings. If he delivered lectures behind a veil, while students observed a strict silence, then perhaps their aural perception could take primacy in a hierarchy of senses. If the only option was to listen, would this environment permit more efficient communication of ideas?

It was on this model that Pierre Schaeffer based his theory of acousmatic or reduced listening, which aimed to detatch subjectivity from the listening experience. The only object in this case is perception itself. Of sound. Never sounds of things. Just sound. John Cage's piece 4'33" coaxes the listener into a reduced listening experience of their environment.

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This documentary aims to investigate modes of listening across a multitude of contexts and examine differences in cultures of the world through the ear.

Are you listening? is currently undergoing research.