I rubber

stamped

L

I

S

T

E

N

on each person’s hand and began walking with them down 14th Street towards the East River. After a while I began to do these works as ‘Lecture Demonstrations’. The rubber stamp was the lecture and the walk was the demonstration. I would ask the audience at a concert or lecture to collect outside the hall and would stamp their hands and lead them through their everyday environment. Saying nothing, I would simply concentrate on listening and start walking.

 

(Max Neuhaus, ‘Listen’, 1990)

(cited and layoutet as in Sound. Documents of Contemporary Art. ed. Caleb Kelly. MIT Press, 2011, pp. 108)

Max Neuhaus series of ‘Lecture Demonstrations’ was an attempt to lead people through their everyday environment, through city- and landscapes, places well-known, while listening, and gestural attempt to refocus people’s aural perspective.

Bureau for Listening will attempt to reappropriate the simple gesture of ‘Lecture Demonstrations’, both by organized performances and pop-up. Instrumental is the use of the rubber marker.