During a time of political tension between America and Russia, namely the Cold war, where America’s struggle against the spread of communism saw an indirect confrontation between the two superpowers, there was a widespread sentiment of worry regarding the potential threat this conflict could have on the future.
Pauline Oliveros, a pioneer of electronic music in San Francisco at the time, responded to these events by turning inwards via ‘Sonic Meditations’ with a goal of unifying people with a ‘humanitarian purpose of expanded consciousness’ through text based scores born from experimental private compositions focused on soothing and relaxing the mind and body.
In order to reconnect with herself amidst the global despair, Oliveros’ experiments with extended drones on her accordion led her to form sound and body exercises that she coined ‘recipes for listening’, through which she emphasised the importance of listening actively, as opposed to passively, as a form of self healing. Translating these into textual scores, one example reads “Take a walk at night. Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears.”
These instructions, eventually compiled into what we now know as ‘Sonic Meditations’, seems to me like a renewed way of self reflection that focuses on listening as an active pursuit, whilst incorporating traditional forms of meditation such as breath-work and Gong baths. However, although her work is widely known to revolve around the phenomenon of deeper listening, I feel that Oliveros’ work with kinetic awareness blurs the line between sound and movement. Whilst her intentions may have initially revolved around intent listening, does the involvement of movement not distract the individual from focusing all their attention on the sounds they are submerged in? Her idea, however, to incorporate movement came from her encounters with Tai Chi, a practice that primarily focuses on self healing, and with this knowledge it can be said that multiple sensory forms are intertwined if the main purpose is to remedy oneself of inner tension.
The term ‘body-centered politics’ strikes me as a very poetic description of her work as it leaves us with the notion that in times of political misfortune one can retain some form of composure within themselves, using listening and movement as a form of activism.
Moreover, the ensembles she formed in order to act out these meditations gathered in non-verbal meetings. On many occasions I have experienced an exchange of energy and emotions with others where no words were needed, and in many ways this made these encounters all the more powerful. As a result, I understand Oliveros’ necessity to exclude forms of verbal communication in order to create an atmosphere of heightened states of awareness and sensitivity to one another on a feeling level. She emphasised that music is a byproduct of the activity of experimenting on the self and that without the pressure of being involved in a performer/ audience axis a safe space is created for non verbal communication between its participants.
I feel that the dichotomy of existing in a divided state can be remedied by unifying with others. A collective oneness can be achieved, and perhaps help centre the mind and the body. An example of this comes to mind, where I engaged in a political protest at trafalgar square. The act of chanting and kneeling with thousands of other like-minded people not only emphasised the gravity of the situation at hand but the power people have when uniting in a common cause, and as a result fed me strength and confidence in my own abilities as a human being. This can also be seen in one of Oliveros’ meditations ‘Teach me how to fly’ where participants were asked to hum in unison via careful observation of their individual breath and a consequent exhalation of sound. The title is a quirky reference to the fact that this group exercise can sound like an airplane taking off. A mighty prospect when alone, yet an easy task when we join with one another. Going back to the notion of increased sensitivity to our fellow humans, these shared experiences can manifest our individual inner experiences, paving the way for acceptance from others and most importantly, self acceptance. In 1974, Oliveros wrote, “How many of you out there think you are in the minority? If everyone came out of the closet the world would change overnight.“
A lack of control over seemingly despairing situations can lead us to respond by using the tools at our immediate disposal to create a safe haven for self healing. As a result it frees us to discover alternate ways of knowing ourselves in a deeper way, overcoming mainstream societal restrictions on how one should listen or move based on class, gender or nationality and connect with others in order to move towards a more accepting civilisation. Perhaps the most effective way of advancing as a species is by looking inwards rather than searching outwards.
References
Laima. “Deep Listening: Discovering Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic World with Laima.” The Vinyl Factory, 1 Apr. 2021, thevinylfactory.com/features/discovering-pauline-oliveros-sonic-world-with-laima/.
O’Brien, Kerry. “Listening as Activism: The ‘Sonic Meditations’ of Pauline Oliveros.” The New Yorker, 2017, www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/listening-as-activism-the-sonic-meditations-of-pauline-oliveros.
Oliveros, Pauline. SONIC MEDITATIONS by Pauline Oliveros.
“The Vietnam War – the Cold War (1945–1989) – CVCE Website.” Cvce.eu, 2013, www.cvce.eu/en/education/unit-content/-/unit/55c09dcc-a9f2-45e9-b240-eaef64452cae/5ad21c97-4435-4fd0-89ff-b6bddf117bf4.