Viki Zioga

art, pedagogy & research

 ΦΑΝΤΟΜ power

Research

ΦΑΝΤΟΜ power: Developing a collective listening consciousness through artistic and pedagogical strategies.

 

The unfair conditions of audibility in our society, that consequently affect individual and collective agency, point towards an urgency for a listening literacy on a macro- and micro-political level. Hence, we need to begin in our immediate environments and transform them into communities of conscious listeners. This research project investigates ideas for listening transformation. How can we weave artistic strategies and pedagogical methods into a learning structure, that facilitates the development of a collective listening consciousness on a micro-political scale?

 Studying practices that move between art, activism and education, along with experimentation within the social contexts I relate to in the everyday, led to the formulation of a workshop. This workshop, under the name a small listening gesture, invited different communities to listen, perform and reflect together. In that way, we started building a network of small listening gestures.

 Reflecting on this network through my theoretical framework, I identify the ways by which such a learning structure can facilitate the transformation of a social context into a community of conscious listeners. Questioning the relationship between facilitator and participant, seeking ways to reduce hierarchies and subvert the traditional roles is imperative. By fostering intimacy and by engaging the ear, the voice, the body and the brain we embody how we come together, how we listen and are listened to within our small communities. The network remains open and proposes a toolkit for future listening gestures. Envisioning these gestures, multiplying and generating collective power, I propose these acts as a way to move towards equal audibility.