Untraining the Ear, a project created in collaboration with SAVVY Contemporary and Deutschlandfunk Kultur, aims to un- and re-learn the ways in which we listen. These listening sessions work to strip sound of its common contextual affiliations, such as with geographical location, genre, identity, and so on. Curated sonic encounters explore the auditory beyond hearing, in hopes that we can begin to listen.
Each session, crafted by an artist, consists of an auditory voyage into an other mode of listening. In order to explore the ways in which we navigate our world, this project questions how we listen to the world we live in. How do we hear beyond our ears? How is the way we listen shaped, constructed, and altered? What narratives, be they social, economic, political, or cultural, define listening?
In an effort to (un)train, (re)train, (de)construct and (re)construct normative hearing, Untraining the Ear aims to create space for non-normative listening habits. This unfolding process touches on topics such as the re-representation of marginalized sounds and voices, the power and politics of sound technologies, and production aesthetics in global narratives.