Experiences of listening may be understood to weaken us, making us vulnerable to the intensities of worldly contact and each other. As such, listening may act as the basis for compassion and care, enabling an ethics of mutuality and intersubjectivity. Yet, listening is not always empathically oriented, rather, the vulnerability listening gives rise to may also lead to profound injury and rupture. What can be drawn from such intensities listening seems to engender? And what forms of practice might be found by way of sound’s relational capacities? Exploring these questions, Prof. LaBelle will focus on how sound and listening may figure another state of embodiment, emphasizing the dynamics of interruption, vertigo and strangerhood. 

Brandon LaBelle is an artist, writer and theorist working with sound culture, voice, and questions of agency. He develops and presents artistic projects and performances within a range of international contexts, often working collaboratively and in public. He is the author of Sonic Agency: Sound and Emergent Forms of Resistance (2018).