Wandering Sound | Wędrując dźwiękiem (PL)
23.06.2024 - 23:59 / Synagoga Wysoka, ul. Józefa 38, I piętroListening workshops
For most of us, listening seems trivial, an everyday activity, probably not worth any special effort as it works without any intervention. However, most of us see no difference between listening and hearing and would probably be surprised if they heard that anyone can learn how to listen (whereas hearing is a passive activity) and that listening can also be formatted by choosing and developing the way in which we listen. What makes this situation even more interesting is the fact that, as cognitive sciences have recently told us (although generally speaking, this is not new knowledge, but it has not been scientifically confirmed before), the listening model determines, to a much greater extent than we commonly imagine, our way of experiencing the world and functioning in it. In other words – how you listen to the world, is how you live in it! And listening is a complex and powerful tool – it is a kind of tool for organizing acoustic data that reaches us through the already mentioned hearing. What sounds we will be aware of, which ones we will discard to the edge of consciousness, and which ones we will put in the background or completely ignore depends on listening (!). You could say that in Western culture we have traditionally focused on selected sounds that are loud enough to bring them to the foreground. This happened because Western culture is oculocentric, i.e. it believes that vision is the basic sense used in the process of cognition and focuses primarily on visual data. However, in the 20th century, due to many circumstances, including the development of sound recording and emission technology, the so-called auditory reaction took place and we started LOOKING more closely (!) at listening. Consequently, we were forced to change our minds about this form of perception, discovering many different models of listening and, perhaps most importantly, realizing that ways of listening can be adjusted, that we can learn to listen in different ways. And that different ways of listening involve different ways of experiencing the world! In other words, depending on how we listen, we determine the world we live in.
I would like to invite you to listening workshops, during which I will try to show you the “layer” of reality which is within your perceptual capabilities, that is, which you can actually hear, but you are not fully aware of, because you probably never listen to it. During our meetings, we will listen in-depth and use technology to listen “closely” – we will use microphones and headphones. I am sure that in places most of you know and have visited many times, you will hear sounds that you have successfully ignored so far. You will hear them not only through microphones, but also naturally, with your own ears – I will help you, show you and teach you how to do it. We will listen in three different places of the former Jewish town: in the synagogue, on the former market and in a selected street. I assure you that this experience will allow you to experience well-known places in a different way. And who knows, maybe we will be able to hear the past, which seems to be irrevocably gone – sound waves do not disappear, but interfere with other waves, resonate with objects, triggering subsequent sounds, creating an essentially endless sequence of events. Which of the sounds discovered during the workshops will be an echo, a derivative and resonance from the times when its Jewish inhabitants walked the streets of Kazimierz, does the cantor’s singing still echo in the synagogue, can we hear the conversations of the former inhabitants among the sounds of the street and the calls of trading merchants in the market?
Rafał Mazur – musician, philosopher, writer
He was born 1971 in Kraków. His involvement with music began in his youth with the cello studies in Krakow. He switched to bass guitar in the late 1980’s. Since 2000 he has played an electric and acoustic bass guitar built to his demand. He has developed an advanced and individual approach to his instrument, and to improvisation in general, in which sonority, extended technique and gesture combine effortlessly in performance.
Rafal Mazur plays on acoustic bass guitar. He has performed jazz and improvised music in clubs and festivals across Europe as well as in China, South Korea and Japan. Recently he has collaborated with Agustí Fernández, Liudas Mockunas, Martin Küchen, Vasco Trilla Artur Majewski, Peter Ole Jørgensen, Mikołaj Trzaska, Zlatko Kaucic, Lotte Anker, Lisa Ullen, Frederic Blondy, Charlotta Hug, Raymond Strid, Keir Neuringer, François Carrier, Michel Lambert, Barry Guy, Mats Gustafsson, Loelle Leandre and others.
Mazur’s main field of interest and activity is collective and solo free improvisation. He regards Daoism as a strong base for the enrichment of the improviser’s attitude. He is founder of Dao of Improvisation – workshop of spontaneous improvisation based on daoistic strategy of action in unexpected situations.
He is also academic philosopher and his main fields are philosophy of improvisation, Chinese daoistic philosophy, Chinese philosophy of art, evolutionary aesthetics and naturalistic philosophy of art. In his dissertation (2017 at Jagiellonian University) he propose the hypothesis about audiocentric ground of Chinese system of thinking and compare the traditional musical/sound practice of Chinese philosophers – wenren, with contemporary sound activities as sound art, soundscapes, sound walks and contemporary sonic philosophy. On the basis of his comparative work Mazur is constructing kind of innovative look on the concept of cognition which is developed by him in the project of listening philosophy and naturalistic concept of music as a vibration system. He is an author of philosophical book „The Great Tone has no sound. Daoist philosophical sound practice in the context of selected trends in contemporary art and philosophy.”, philosophical fairy tale based on Chinese philosophy „Journey to the Great Mountain”, and several scientist papers and philosophical essays.
In his work are among others two CD’s with Agustí Fernández (duo and trio with Artur Majewski), LP in duo with Martin Küchen, three CD’s in trio with François Carrier and Michel Lambert, LP Jellyspace with Mikołaj Trzaska and Peter Ole Jørgensen, cooperation with Ramon Lopez, Guillermo Gregorio and Percy Pursglove, trio NOBJECT with Martin Küchen and Vasco Trilla and trio RAN with Albert Cirera and Nicolas Field. He released Cds in most of important free jazz and free improvisation as Clean Feed, No Business Records, Relative Pitch, Fundacja Słuchaj and FMR Records but his main label is Not Two Records.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of creative work as an improviser, on the ground of his artistic and philosophical concepts Mazur prepared solo project – comprovisation (composition for improviser) with electric bass guitar referring to rock music, free improvisation and listening as a cognitive practice called „The Great Tone has no sound – Da Yin Xi Sheng (Laozi – Daodejing)”. In the project Mazur explores the listening as a cognitive practice based on philosophical daoist concept of music joining traditional Chinese and contemporary theories with sound activities and heavy rock vibrations.
Tickets to one workshop – 35 PLN or pass to 2 workshops (70 PLN) available at 33.jewishfestival.pl/en/tickets/; limited number of participants (20 persons)
