Attunement Board
Attunement Board is a possible, adapted and attempted ‘advisory board’ of Bureau for Listening
From Merriam-Webster dictionary:
attune, verb
at·tune ə-ˈtün
attuned; attuning; attunes – transitive verb
I: to bring into harmony : TUNE
II: to make aware or responsive
A working document framing the Attunement Board of Bureau for Listening.
A signing ceremony of the Declaration for Attention by the board members will soon take place.
Premise for conceiving this document:
A draft of this declaration was sent to the first generation members of the Attunement Board. During our first meeting on the 28th of November 2023, 30 minutes will be reserved to discuss the draft and formulate the final first generation Declaration for Attention.
The Declaration for Attention is a framework for the Attunement Board and conceived as a source of listening inspiration and encouragement towards the work of Bureau for Listening.
Declaration:
The main intent of the Attunement Board of Bureau for Listening is to make the project stay questioning and open to what it means to investigate, practice and promote listening. The Attunement Board is a creative and critical counseling partner to Bureau for Listening and will offer a broadening and deepening of different listening perspectives and strategies.
The intent and the organization of the board is dynamic, and will adapt to the possibilities of the current board and of the work of Bureau for Listening. The Declaration for Attention is a living document and will be revisited by every future Attunement Board. Each meeting of the board will be an open exchange of ideas and visions for the Bureau for Listening.
We insist on being sensitive and responsive to the constant wondering of what an Attunement Board is and what it means to attune. What is the intention, the attempt and the practice of attunement? We insist on nurturing our curiosity for this wondering. This question of the Attunement Board exists parallelly to the open question of what Bureau for Listening is?
Note of appreciation:
Bureau for Listening is thankful to all the members of the Attunement Board to embark on this journey. We deeply appreciate their effort, wisdom and care for the project of Bureau for Listening. We would like to note that the members of the Attunement Board are not being financially compensated for their work of attuning.
Attunement Board members:
(Self-descriptions)
Gry Worre Hallberg, performance artist and PhD is the co-founder and artistic director of the award-winning performance group and movement Sisters Hope. Recently published her PhD Sensuous Society – Carving the path towards a sustainable future through aesthetic inhabitation stimulating ecologic connectedness, introducing ‘inhabitation’ as a new artistic paradigm. Do also see her two TEDx talks; Sensuous Society (2013, TEDxCPH) and Sensuous Learning (2015, TEDxUppsalaUniversity). Selected IETM Global Connector. sistershope.dk. Silence and listening through all senses in rhythm with the cosmic force of life.
Holger Schulze is professor in musicology at the University of Copenhagen and principal investigator at the Sound Studies Lab. His research moves between sound in popular culture, a cultural history of the senses, and the anthropology of media. Currently he is working on the three-volume Encyclopedia of Sound Studies, as one of the three chief editors. Selected Publications: The Bloomsbury Handbook of the Anthropology of Sound (2021, ed.), Sonic Fiction (2020), The Sonic Persona (2018). „Listening is a corporeal activity—the same way one might regard cooking, cycling, playing an instrument, or constructing a building or any machine a corporeal activity. Listening is in no way a solely passive and receptive activity, as it was regarded for centuries. Listening by humanoid aliens is not an arbitrary and neglectable non-activity; it is a constant activity of searching and being ready, of listening closer and listening from afar, as a whole. As humanoid aliens, we are in a constant state of recalibrating, of disengaging and reengaging our particular modes of sensing—and so also listening.“ (Holger Schulze, The Sonic Persona, 2018, p. 55f.)
Nana Francisca Schottländer (She/they, b. 1977, DK) works cross-aesthetically with choreography, performance and installation. Central to the work is the body as a living tool for research and creation. Strategies of immersion, co-creation and long duration are employed, along with inspiration from science and philosophy, to foster embodied knowledge and co-creational exchanges. The work often revolves around encounters and intra-actions with more-than-human worlds and bodies like rocks, fungi, water, soil and larger geographical areas. In recent years focusing on landscapes marked by human extraction, production and consumption. Listening, in the widest sense of the word, is crucial in this work.
Line Marie Thorsen, is deputy director and postdoc at Center for Applied Ecological Thinking, Copenhagen University. She is an art historian and environmental anthropologist focusing on the ways art and aesthetic practices are offering new imaginaries for sustainable futures. Her empirical focus is on climate and environmental activist art, as well as landscape and agricultural aesthetics, which has included curating the exhibition Moving Plants, 2017, and conducting extensive field-research, mostly in south-east Asia. Listening as both an artistic and academic pursuit can be a framework for and a practice of ecological thinking.
Morten Søndergaard (b. 1964) is first and foremost a poet, but since he debuted in 1992 with the poetry collection Sahara i mine hænder, he has artistically worked cross-aesthetically with both installations, decorations, sound, performances and exhibitions. As a poet, he is also concerned with what happens outside the paper, and he explores language, materials and space to find out how language affects us. How does poetry work and what can poems endure? He graduated from Forfatterskolen in 1991 and in 1995 became a cand.phil. in literature from the University of Copenhagen. Søndergaard has received several literary awards and grants, including the Danish Arts Foundation’s lifetime grant. Listening has been a wise companion in many different shapes through Morten’s career.
Signing of declaration:
Past notes, questions and in-process thoughts on the possibility and shaping of the board:
Bureau for Listening is wondering upon what a possible advisory board for the bureau could be. We are in the process of finding that out – searching and discovering possible organizations and strategies.
The main intent of such an advisory board is to keep deepen and strengthen our work for listening as a practice and phenomena. We are interested in organizing a board able to challenge our own bias and limitedness in relation to listening and the bureau’s organization.
We hope to present an advisory board as soon as possible, probably fall 2023.
We are in the process of (re)finding the framework of such an advisory board. A process we find rather challenging. We would therefore like to share some of the questions we are asking ourself in regard to a possible advisory board for Bureau for Listening. Sharing these questions is a way for the bureau to attempt a kind of transparency and vulnerability. Some questions are perhaps more rhetorical, but others pose radical and fundamental considerations and practices that we find important in the process of creating an advisory board. These are only our early questions and we are looking forward to encountering new ones, also in relation to discussing the advisory board with ‘outside’ parties. We will add notes and further questions as the process continues.
What is the intention with the advisory board?
What questions do we ask for advice for?
And what kind of advice do we seek?
What power does the board hold over the bureau?
With what ethic do we invite to and attempt a practice for this board?
What ethic do the board seek to give advice on?
How do we compensate for the advice given?
In what way can the board help us navigate the Bureau for Listening as a project in a context of its founding-members primarily being white cis-gendered, privileged of wealth, education and safety?
In what way can the members give up power and privilege, seek reparation and community building?
What experiences, wisdoms and listenings do we hope for, ask for, need within the advisory board?
Why would anyone want to be a member of the board – what is offered in an expanded meaning of value?
What do we mean with an advisory board?
Can we challenge the stereotyped idea of power-men-in-a-group?
Can this board be more about community and fairness?
In what ways can the board be a practice for listening?
In what ways can the board be an artistic practice?