illywords » listening

When there’s nothing left to say

admin — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 11:27:12 +0000

Silence creates room for the mind, and the mind can create visions. Yoko Ono described how the hypnotic effect of a flame would help to do this: “You could tell someone to look into the fire for 10 days just to create a vision in someone’s mind” she write in her first, epic work, a book of instructions for performances entitled Grapefruit (a fruit, like her, created from a mixture of East and West, the lemon and the orange).

By listening to her dual nature, she achieved a rare ability to invent mental “micro-climates”, opportunities to avoid the here and now and enter the “forever”. However, a listening, thinking mind should not aspire to the noisy confusion of large events but should introduce small ideas. These ideas then generate transformations, tiny but active, nourished by that special form of attention: “making yourself available, like paper”.

There is nothing heroic about it: “see small, hear small and think small”, she writes on those pages typed between 1952 and 1964. Even today, in her book The other rooms (2009), she invites us to listen to shadows: “People need shadows in order to rest. I’d like you to send a bunch of shadows to a friend”. Silent shadows which could be the faces of people loved and lost, but also the shadows created by the sun in a room, which become three-dimensional before our eyes and therefore a welcoming space filled with emptiness created especially for us, a space we can fill with our bodies or thoughts.

Listening to birdsong means understanding what the emptiness of the sky contains: life. Ono’s short film Outro consists of a single image coming in and out of focus. It shows Ono, Sean as a young boy, and John Lennon in a garden, a family appearing and disappearing. It is already in a void, or no longer exists, but the game of disappearing images is guided by the constant presence of the birds.

John Cage, her lifelong friend, also dedicated one of his most famous pieces to birds. The same birds who represent the sound of the skies and also of emptiness, and which represent the soundtrack of silence. We all know what idea Cage had of silence, as he even tried looking for it inside an anechoic chamber and was forced to accept that in the absence of any sound, we hear at the very least the blood flowing through our veins and the beating of the heart. Silence, the music consisting of a rest sign written on a fiveline stave, is nothing more than another anthem to listening, to the noise of the heart, the noise of emptiness, the fullness of meaning we can achieve even when there are no more words. We should mention at this point that Japan, a significant influence on both Yoko Ono and Cage, is a universe in which the kind of silence aimed at listening to the rustling of a falling leaf is much more highly regarded than it is in the West. In this fluctuating world every moment comes and goes, and it is worth remembering this even by just concentrating on the noise that consumes it.

We should remember that ancient practice brought back in vogue by Yoko Ono: the wish tree. It can be an olive tree, a maple or even a simple wooden panel bedecked with handwritten notes declaring our wishes. The artist arrives and gathers them all up, as with the Wish Tree at the 2003 Biennale, makes a small bonfire and delivers them up to the dustbowl of the world. Burning them is not intended to be an offence, but a way of perpetrating our wishes. We, who expressed these desires, have another powerful ritual at our disposal to help us achieve them: not magic, but listening. By writing down what we want, by hanging up that note, we have had to focus on an emotion, a future prospect. Nothing, other than understanding, re-reading and listening to our desire, can help us realise it. Yoko is not a witch, she is an elderly fairy, who now has the wisdom to help us listen to what we feel.

The opinion

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:51:24 +0000

During these times of reflection and change caused by the global crisis we are all experiencing, I find the topic of listening to be extremely relevant. My approach is to see what can be learned from it, starting with the basic theories of modern management. I think this is essential, if we are to deal with the current economic situation.
For management guru Peter Drucker, the mission of any company is to obtain, and keep, customers. Easy to say, but to achieve this vital objective, a company first has to identify its potential customers and then win their loyalty – something that is far from simple to do. As we will see, this process is based on listening.
In order to identify potential consumers, a company needs to know how to focus on what society is communicating, through its lifestyles, trends (current or future) and weaknesses. Traditionally, a company’s Marketing department is responsible for this task. The second step is the responsibility of Sales, whose hands-on experience allows them to identify and interpret the specific needs and wants of each potential client. It is then up to Marketing to convert these signals into precise directions for product development, and transmit them to the R&D department, whose staff have a delicate, complex task. They have to generate ideas that can be transformed into projects, combining creativity with financial, technological and temporal limitations. To find their way through this jungle, the ability to listen is again key. In this case, it takes the form of brainstorming, where the team uncritically considers all the ideas – even the most bizarre – expressed by each member, until a popular winner emerges. At this point the Production department comes into play, is asked to listen to the proposals put forward by Marketing and R&D, and then has to make itself heard when setting out its own terms and conditions. Production limitations are often critical for the success of the new product, which might, at this point, see the light of day.
Is that the end of the road? Of course not. Since time has elapsed since the start of the process, the potential customer we talked to at the outset might now have different requirements. Or another competitor might have got there first. Or the initial ideas might have been thrown off course by problems encountered along the way. At this point, we find ourselves with a product that no longer matches the expectations of our potential customer. The people responsible for resolving this mismatch are the sales team. If they are good at their jobs, they’ll be able to use the Socratic art of maieutics and win the prospective client’s support for their proposals. How? By using a clever series of questions and answers, once again based on the ability to listen.
This time we really have reached the end of the road. It is an opportunity to remember that selling and using the maieutic method successfully is not only the task of a company’s sales force. We are all responsible for using this approach, no matter what our roles, in order to obtain approval, finance, or trust – in our professional or personal lives.

Travelling companion

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:39:16 +0000

Sometimes I am asked to help other people to improve their listening skills. My profession exposes me to the risk of thinking of listening mainly as a subjective ability, something that can be trained, partly linked to personal predisposition.

But when I actually listen, and when listening becomes a tool necessary for a job in which you approach people and situations in order to create change, I notice that it is a skill that varies over time, expressed by a subjective intention or created by the circumstances. Part of it comes from within, while part of it you suddenly find next to you, almost by chance. Listening is a travel companion.

On the other hand, you really listen when you meet someone who wants or needs to be listened to, or in order to find something that might be important and seems to have been missed.

Listening, an unreliable companion, has accustomed me to perceiving a company in terms of history and geography.

I quickly realised that I found it fascinating (and still do) to listen to the stories of individuals and groups. Colourful tales are transformed into legends that represent a social event or a moment in the evolution of a company or other organisation. Narration gives a linear order to the sequence of events, and unlike reality it has the appeal of cohesion. It tells of forces moving in what, with hindsight, seems to be a well-defined direction. It helps to simplify and give meaning.

But extended opportunities for listening open up another dimension that to me is even richer, the dimension that gives you a glimpse of organisational landscapes characterised by diverse voices, motives and a multitude of trajectories, signs often hidden by the emerging story, territories whose logic and vibrancy can perilously unbalance the system but can also create the conditions for positive change.

In this sense, taking the time to listen allows me to tap into the complexity, change-related tensions and the abundance of knowledge which exists in organisations, in order to bring effective procedures and projects to life.

But it also brings me closer to a fundamental aspect of corporate relations, when they are not merely based on power and hierarchy: mutual recognition. This is a dimension that will emerge if you accept the fact that listening has a certain element of gratuitousness. It asks you to give up your time and yourself without constantly thinking of the ends to be achieved. This way, by dedicating space to other people, you can build substantial relationships, understand and recognise others’ experiences, individual and collective identities. It is also a way to enable the listener to engage and achieve recognition in his own right.

I want to be like the wind

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:24:14 +0000

Is the “listening” aspect a feature of your work as an architect?
First of all I’d like to give an example. Italo Calvino, on the subject of hearing (or listening), told a story that for me is extremely significant. There was a powerful man who once became king. From that time on, he decided not to move from his throne in case someone physically tried to unseat him and take over his role. His power became symbolic of the inability to listen, the impossibility of being “on the street” among the people, listening to their voices. This little tale illustrates the distance between power and listening. I believe that power distances you from the ability to listen and this is why I’ve always tried to minimise the opportunities I’ve had for exercising it. I’m terrified that I’ll forget how to listen and hear what’s going on around me, because of that deep-seated worry that I’ll no longer hear the moods, desires, pleasure, pain and disasters that always repeat themselves throughout history.

Your profession gives you the chance to create projects on a large scale whose presence means that not only can they interact with the present day, but can also speak to future generations. In your approach to these projects, how do you relate to the concept of listening?
My ideas on this are very clear. Listening should not be confused with the concept of participation. You need to live amongst people and always bear in mind that you are working for others, to improve their lives. You shouldn’t work to satisfy your own narcissistic, selfish aims – traits which can be found in even the most down-to-earth, modest and affable architect. You run the risk of turning your work into a trend, detached from society and its needs. I don’t believe in participation, it’s a demagogic concept from the 1970s, but I think the essential thing is to live with other people, treating them not as a means but as an end, and seeing the vital essence of your work in others.

You often describe your love of the wind, and creating “natural” shapes. How important is it for you to listen to Nature?
Ultimately, landscapes and geography are essential parts of our existence, whether they are deserts, oceans or forests. When I said that I wanted to be like the wind, caressing the leaves of the trees, I was trying to describe my desire to achieve – through my work – that state of tension that the wind gives naturally, without rhetoric. I believe that studying the unpredictability of Nature is one of the best ways to listen to what is going on around us.

As you said, as an architect you try to listen to people’s needs and wants, and put them into a context. Do you also use this sensitivity in your relations with material things?
I don’t use the word material very often, I prefer substance which has connotations of evolution and conveys the concept of transformation. I’ve worked a great deal with substance, and very little with materials, because I want surfaces that can adapt and embody that necessary element of ageing. I believe that materials need to follow the same destiny as mankind: they are born, live, grow old and die. I believe in duration, of the kind that takes life beyond the confines of the “material”.

Many of your works convey this element of transparency, the desire to listen to the blue sky above us, among other things. You yourself have said that all your designs are cut out from the sky …
My job consists of the way I touch and listen to the earth and the sky. The rest – with a hint of irony – is just architecture and is certainly less interesting. The crucial thing is the way you touch the earth and the sky. The cloud we are creating for the Congress Centre in Rome is a building that links rigidity and mobility, it creates a dialogue. In the end, all this can be linked to looking, observing, feeling what your city is telling you. To paraphrase Savinio, the city is listening to you.

That reminds me of your experience with the painter Giorgio De Chirico. Did that time enhance your ability to listen?
The main thing is that at that time I wasn’t a fan of Schopenhauer or Indian philosophy. De Chirico, on the other hand, saw it as an important source of inspiration for his work, especially with regard to the relationship between the visible and the invisible. Understanding and listening to the visible means showing respect to the invisible, and discovering that reality lies behind the appearance.

What has been your most profound experience of listening?
At the age of six, when my father died. I didn’t go to his funeral because I was taken to a friend’s house, but I watched it without seeing, and I listened without hearing. The last memory I have of him is as he lay sleeping in my bed, after he had moved there because he had been ill all night. He told my mother not to worry. Both of them were very young. I grew up then.

Interview by Marco Minuz

Blinding the ears

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:53:25 +0000

In front of a cup of coffee with Andrea Bellini

The theme of this edition of illywords is “La cultura dell’ascolto” (or “the Culture of Listening”). Did this lead to the idea of choosing “Accecare l’ascolto” (“Blocking the ears”) as the title for the section on theatre and the role of theatrical performance in the modern art of Artissima?
A.B. The title, “Blocking the ears” was inspired by the theatre of Carmelo Bene, a great Italian actor who battled against the modern tradition of bourgeois theatre and script-led theatre with his naturalist approach. Bene rejected what is known as “director-led theatre” in order to restore the actor to his role as the ultimate protagonist of the theatre. Theatre is “made” by the actor and his “scenic” script rather than a script he has to recite from memory as a mere “entertainer” or “persuader”. In some ways the script is considered secondary, because a theatrical performance should be seen and experienced to the full. The word became enhanced and uncoupled from its meaning, no longer with the hitherto purely communicative function but taking on a meaning of its own, leaving traces of a sound interpreted as oblivion. In this sense, Bene speaks of “blocked ears”. We have dedicated this five-day event in Turin to this idea of a theatre as a “non-place” or a “universal place”, theatre as an “act”.

Is “Blocking the ears” intended to highlight the fact that the cognitive process depends on interdependence between the senses – or is it just a good title?
A.B. There is no need to highlight the fact that the cognitive process depends on interdependence between the senses, this concept is already very clear. As I said, “Blocking the ears” refers to a new way of experiencing the theatre. I have to admit that sometimes (but not always) I think it is also a good title!

What role has listening played in modern art, and how much has it changed during the past 30 years?
A.B. If by listening you mean the approach to listening and understanding, I’d say that this attitude has always played a fundamental role in art. You cannot see a work if you don’t understand it. If you mean listening in the strict sense of the word – with your ears – I’d say that from the early 1900s, hearing became just as important as sight. Think of the futuristic and Dadaist avant garde theatre, the work of John Cage, or the culture of “happenings”, performance and video art, for example.

What is left of the artist who used to closet himself in his studio or head off to far-flung locations in order to express his creativity?
A.B. Nothing.

Does the modern spectator want to listen, to get involved, or does he prefer a passive role, judging the work from the outside, perhaps guided by a critical framework that will help him to understand it?
A.B. There are many types of spectator, all very different. Everyone confronts a work of art as he thinks best, or perhaps to the best of his ability. A passive attitude should always be countered: to realise its potential a work of art always needs someone who can receive it and knows how to “listen”, in other words art needs us in order to exist.

Can art shows, rather than museums and biennial exhibitions, be seen as a kind of crossroads for thoughts and encounters, and therefore also opportunities for listening?
A.B. Art shows (the good ones) are effectively places where people meet and thoughts come together, so they can be seen as opportunities for listening. In the art world, biennale events and museums have a different role – obviously just as important – so it would be better not to mix up these different levels and confuse the public in the process.