Oliveros, Pauline. "Quantum listening: From practice to theory (to practice practice)." Culture and Humanity in the New Millennium: The Future of Human Values (2002): 27-41.
Pauline Oliveros (1932–2016) was an American composer, performer, and Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York. She is known for developing the theories of Deep Listening and Quantum Listening, methods of attuning to sonic environments through meditative listening practices. Her essay “Quantum listening: From practice to theory (to practice practice)" reflects on the development of these theories in relation to her musical career and philosophies. In reflecting on technology, spirituality and sound, Oliveros explores how listening influences our daily lives and proposes that conscious attunement has the power to foster a sense of environmental interconnection, and to shape human culture and perspective
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Within the text, Oliveros makes distinction between different forms of aural perception, stating “We hear in order to listen... We listen in order to interpret... We interpret what we hear according to the way we listen.”[1] While hearing is described as the passive basis of listening, often occurring unconsciously based on the direction one's ear is oriented in, listening requires active participation on the part of the listener.[2]
The concept of Deep Listening grew out of Oliveros’ 1988 collaborative performance with musicians Stuart Dempster and Panaiotis, recorded in an underground cistern in Washington State. She describes the theory as resulting from the collective improvisation, intense listening, and intermingling of musical languages that occurred in the process.[3]
Deep Listening encompasses an attunement to “the relationships among any and all sounds whether natural or technological, intended or unintended, real, remembered or imaginary, [including] the environmental and atmospheric context of sound.”[4] This listening may take place in any space and time, requiring no prior musical knowledge, equipment or training. As such, the process is not one that separates the listener from sound but situates them within it as part of daily life, as an active participant in a sonic landscape rather than a passive or external observer.
With this basis in Deep Listening, Oliveros goes on to discuss her related theory of Quantum Listening, summarizing that:
I see and hear life as a grand improvisation. Quantum Listening is listening in as many ways as possible simultaneously – changing and being changed by listening... [staying] open to the world of possibilities for interplay in the quantum field with self and others – community – society – the world – the universe and beyond.[5]
This practice of “listening to listening”, of being aware of how and to what one listens, involves going “below the surface of what is heard” to attune to the mesh of aural relationships present in one’s environment.[6]
Oliveros identifies the cultural and social power of listening, summarising that the "Interpretation of our sense information (listening) and the sharing of this experience with each other is the basis of culture and our values... [As] human values are developed through the experience of listening... [with] practice humanity could be transformed to a flexible culture of listeners."[7]
Both Deep Listening and Quantum Listening have the potential to enact ideological change by encouraging the recognition and experience of perspectives beyond one’s own body, culture and society. As such, both methods of attunement hold the potential to challenge hierarchical boundaries between listener and ecology, to encourage curiosity beyond one’s own cultural viewpoint, and to disrupt anthropocentric ideologies that prioritise humanity over the rest of existence. This mirrors the writing of Jez Riley French, who similarly reflects that in attuning to the sonic world around us, "we can begin to unravel fictions of place [and] our acceptance and reliance on structures of knowledge, archive, and status that favour our species [and our] attempts to always define, set and build (faulty) borders.[8]
Visually-focused cultures, including those informed primarily by the language of Western science, tend to value the act of listening less than those of seeing. As Oliveros writes, “we take cameras to the zoo, not tape recorders,” and such spaces tend to be oriented to human time schedules and sensory priorities rather than those of their non-human inhabitants.9 Within modern industrial societies, humanity often arranges the world around it to suit its needs, rather than recognise itself as fellow participants within the mesh of existence.[9]
Like any medium, artificial technologies possess both positive and negative features. The text proposes that the lesser attention paid to listening in contemporary society emerged in parallel to industrial age technology - although Oliveros does not elaborate on this suggestion, it is possible that image-based technologies were favoured for their perceived objectivity in over other forms of sensory attunement. Oliveros also identifies that the sounds produced by industrial technology has become a near constant feature of our contemporary environments, often standing as “a symbol of the need to accumulate power.”[10] Such noise is what theorist Bernie Krause describes as anthrophony, sound produced by humans, including through the materials we create.[11]
Despite the concern of ever-growing extractive and environmentally damaging technological developments, Oliveros highlights the potential of technology to enhance listening. In the text, she references the development of hearing aids and sound engineering equipment as examples, along with her own experience of using a tape recorder – the machine being able to capture environmental sounds that were previously unnoticeable to her. In contemplating future technologies, Oliveros wonders if we may one day be able to listen to the complexities of the universe as “unfolded by Quantum Mechanics” or in ways that non-human beings experience.[12] Technologies may offer the potential to extend our aural perception into post-humanistic capacities, in ways that enhance ecological interconnection rather than anthropocentric goals.
The themes of quantum field theory and quantum mechanics are explored in the latter half of the text, through Oliveros’ reflections on the parallel properties of quantum particles and sound: "Particle fields influence certain particles when near them. Sounds near one another influence each other. Listeners near one another affect or influence one another with active listening."[13] This idea highlights the potential for sound to influence life, either as a physical or metaphysical force. Similarly, Oliveros’ experience as a Chi Kung practitioner and the meditative practice of attuning to physical energy or Chi intersects with her perspective on listening: “Our world is a complex matrix of vibrating energy, matter and air just as we are made of vibrations. Vibration connects us with all beings and connects us to all things interdependently.”[14]
Much in the same way particles can enact force and influence on one another, the act of listening involves a reciprocal flow of energy between the listener, their sonic environment, and others listening within the space. Within this listening field,[15] sounds shift and change based on where one is positioned and the entities acting in the environment. As a result, each individual’s perception of sound varies. In turn, the presence of each listener within the field affects the field itself. In this way, meditative listening disrupts the notion that the experience of sound is universal, opening space for the consideration of alternative points of view and perspectives beyond one’s own.
Oliveros writes:
Listening involves a reciprocity of energy flow [and] sympathetic vibration; tuning into the web of mutually supportive interconnected thoughts, feelings, dreams, vital forces comprising our lives... Deep Listening is the foundation for a radically transformed social matrix in which compassion and love are the core motivating principles guiding creative decisions making and our actions in the world.[16]
This analysis is similar to the work of ecological theorist Timothy Morton, whose article “Thinking Ecology: The Mesh, the strange stranger and the beautiful soul” identifies the interconnected nature of existence and the power of semiotic systems to shape perspective. As we listen deeply and quantumly, we take part in our world beyond the boundaries of individuality.
Through Oliveros’ reflections on spirituality, technology and sound, this text illustrates that how one listens is often shaped culturally, affecting how and to what one is attentive. In thinking on the fluid and metaphysical properties of sound, her writing considers its possibilities as a form of consciousness, intelligence and force of influence. Overall, this text illustrates how Deep Listening can form the basis for radical transformation and social change by promoting empathy and attunement as the undercurrent for humanity’s actions in the world. As Oliveros proposes to the reader, “how we listen depends on our consciousness... Are we creating the sound we hear by listening or is sound creating our listening?”[17]
[1] Pauline Oliveros, "Quantum listening: From practice to theory (to practice practice)," Culture and Humanity in the New Millennium: The Future of Human Values (2002): 1. [2] Ibid., 2. [3] Ibid., 4. [4] Ibid., 6. [5] Ibid., 2. [6] Ibid., 6. [7] Ibid., 18. [8] Jez Riley French, “In Limitless Geologies #1 (Geophonic Works), by Jez Riley French,” Bandcamp, March 3, 2023, https://engravedglass.bandcamp.com/album/in-limitless-geologies-1-geophonic-works. [9] Ibid., 8. [10] Ibid. [11] Kirtimų Kultūros centras, ””Field recording art” lecture-workshop with Yiorgis Sakellariou,” YouTube video, 1:51:16, September 15 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoLVbiRVots. [12] Oliveros, ”Quantum Listening,“ 10. [13] Ibid., 17. [14] Ibid., 33. [15] Ibid., 16. [16] Ibid., 18. [17] Ibid.
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