CONSTRUCTION & CRYING

The Listening Biennial, AVTO, İstanbul

2025


18 hour sound event with 27 global and 14 local artists

27 uluslararası ve 14 lokal sanatçının katılımıyla 18 saatlik bir ses etkinliği




My contribution to the listening program was a 23 minute 46 second sound piece made for this occassion. The track patches together readings of excerpts from my texts published over the years on Byproduct* - my newsletter on Substack. While the pre-written material forms the basis of the soundwork, the speaker (I) intervenes occassionally to talk in a non-scriptive, improvised manner and comments upon the scripted text as if to layer a reflection across time and context. We hear an omnipresent soundscape of construction work, at once disturbing and enabling the spoken words. The track eventually becomes a self-fulfilled prophecy as the speaker comes up with the idea of becoming an ASMR content creator for crying, to then going through something personal on the recording day that actually made her cry.   

︎︎︎ Listen here





“Sounds near one another influence each other. Listeners near one another affect or influence with active listening.”

“Quantum Listening simultaneously creates and changes what is perceived. The perceiver and the perceived co-create through the listening effect. All sounds are included in the field. This created potential, cultivates surprises, opens the imagination and approaches and even plunges over the edges of perception into the mystery of the universe predicted by quantum field theory.”

Now that I’m looking back, the way in which the track is made draws strongly from Pauline Oliveros’ Quantum Listening (2024, Spiral House). The track “CONSTRUCTION & CRYING” does not isolate urban background noise of the moment of recording. Instead the track lets the microphone capture all that it can, and considers everything that is listened in the moment of recording as part of the meaning-making experience. The track, although spoken in English, layers more intimate recordings of personal notes spoken in Turkish. The presentation of the track on the day of The Listening Biennial happened to be layered with further urban noise coming from the open window, confusing the audience with different sound sources present in the moment of the public listening.