Participants
- Hélène Cazes
- Madalen Claire Benson
- Anthony Gavin
- Sara Ramshaw
- Hermit
- David Gifford
- Puppets Forsaken
- Leah McInnis
- Mitch Renaud
- Mark Zion
- Edith Skeard
Hélène Cazes — “I can hear you!” / “Silence, where? Who? Into the Woods!”
Talk 1 (Friday): “I can hear you!”
‘I hear you!’ In the vestibular world, rolling with the spires of the cochlea, meandering in the nearby canals we hear Silence, or the many guises of silence. Not the deafening one. The hear-me kind. We listen silently, invisibly. On the outside, once we pass the auricle, there would be no silence. Hardly.
A dialogue between the Princess and the Pea explores a positive silence — one that seizes you like a sense of beauty, miracle, mystic revelation, and connects us to certain places, people, objects. The talk moves into playful, produced and provoked intangible, invisible, inaudible sounds: the sound of the snowflake falling on a snowbank, the sound of dissociation, the resonance of wait time in the MRI, the soundtrack of not-so-silent movies — mixing all of it with emotion, passion, bounciness, tinnitus.
Note to the reader: The Pea and the Princess could not agree on the topic, the title, the take of their non-paper. Expect perturbations in consistency with the outline, logical sequences, and even semiotic rêveries. It is recommended not to take notes if you attend, and come prepared with little things to nibble on (interesting noises), fidget with, etc. Bring a book, too.
Talk 2 (Saturday, with Mitch Renaud): “Silence, where? Who? Into the Woods!”
‘Silence, where? Who?’ For some time (thank you David the Magician, thank you Benevolent Providence) it has been possible for many of us in Victoria to listen to the Almost Silent Orchestra of Driftwood, its inner music made of shapes, grains, pains, all of it grown and kept inside. Full silences that whistle, crack, talk – in time, when we are listening. This is a language of ghosts and dreams, the conversation of mostly dead Woods, almost or beyond dead, tossed, dismissed, broken and yet, still around. Their stubborn silence seems to contain our own, vegetal, naked music. If we are listening, watching, seeking, touching too. All right.
While photographs and poems will bring the silent orchestra in its no-flesh-nor-bone presence, the Pea and myself will noisily poke at their silence with narratives (when, where, who), introductions, applause etc. Programme notes, in a way.
The Princess and the Pea have been travelling together for four years, living a life of delightful dangers, secret adventures, and character reformation. They regularly produce themselves in shows where they pretend to be academics or vegetables. The truth is, no one, not even themselves, knows who they are, what they are to each other, where they are, where they are going. A very complete CV is available on demand but, now, is it a past life? a forgery? Is the real Hélène disguised as a Princess? For reasons of (in)security? Humbly yours at cazesh@gmail.com.
Madalen Claire Benson — An Absence of Sound + A Healing Cacophany: Art’s Interrogation of Legalized Dispossession
A sporadically layered cacophonous song is imagined as an act of healing. The marked (supposed) absence of sound through silence enacts embodied refusals. In my presentation I consider these distinct, yet somehow interconnected uses of sound in two land-based artistic works: Duane Linklater (Omaskêko Cree) and Brian Jungen’s (Dane-ẕaa) 50-minute silent film Modest Livelihood from 2012 documenting moose hunting, and Mike MacDonald’s (Mi’kmaw) Seven Sisters from 1989, a seven-channel video work made while the artist supported Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en Nations in preparing testimonial documentation for the hallmark land claims dispute Delgamuukw v. British Columbia. In/communication resonates across these works, which together provoke a reconsideration of narratives that claim every place within the geographical purview of settler colonialism as sites of dispossession. Through their entanglement with settler state legal mechanisms (post-confederation treaty rights and modern land claims disputes), Modest Livelihood and Seven Sisters affirm how Indigenous Nations, peoples, and networks continue to maintain connections with place not wholly defined by the terms of dispossession, perhaps in spite of the far-reaching impact of dispossessive state legal regimes. Situating them in contestation with the state legal mechanisms that lurk at their edges demands a critical reflection on the enshrinement of rights rhetoric in case law, and the potential disjunctures between law and justice that result on both Crown and Treaty lands. Through my analysis of their nuanced approaches and use of sound, I hope to show how land-based art can make the important assertion that while dispossession may be a useful analytic in supporting Indigenous struggles for land rematriation, coupling critique with generative refusals grounded in place-based resurgence centers, rather than re-eliminates, Indigenous sovereignty.
Madalen Claire Benson is a PhD candidate in Visual Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Benson’s research concerns land-based contemporary art practices; critical settler and Indigenous studies; the politics of land, including land use and rights; liberal thought and property regimes; extractive capitalism and environmental justice. Benson’s dissertation brings together entangled networks of art and law to consider the implications of land-based art as a contestation of settler state legality, historicizing recent (1988-2024) land-based art made in sites of legal dispute within Canada. With a Master of Arts in Art History, Theory and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Bachelor of Arts, Honours in Art History and Philosophy from the University of Toronto, Benson is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship recipient (2023-27). She has published in Visual Studies, Journal of Modern Craft, InVisible Culture, Environment, Space, Place, and Scroope: Cambridge Architectural Journal, and sits on the editorial board for Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal. An organizer of the Climate Exchange Platform through the Sandberg Instituut at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Benson has a background in arts organizing having worked on projects such as the Skeena Salmon Arts Festival and Capture Photography Festival, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Chilliwack Arts Council.
Anthony J. Gavin — “Sudden Noise: A Course in Intrusive Un-Thinking”
Contrary to western philosophy’s long-held bias that intrusive noise is antithetical to thought, this paper asks how it might help to promote thought. Western philosophy has often privileged sight as a sensuous metaphor for thinking about thought, which it has further characterized as a silent inner dialogue. A key question running through this paper is thus how to theorize the sonic otherwise than as a mere repetition of the visual and beyond the ipseity of the ‘I’/eye. Drawing from a wide range of thinkers including Plato, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Hans Jonas, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, and Jacques Derrida, this paper investigates how acousmatic interference can stimulate the free-flowing of thought by unsettling blockages that reduce thought to so many stagnant images. This involves thinking by means of un-thinking, including by un-thinking the sonic as antagonistic to thought or secondary to the visual field. In conclusion, I seek to promote speculation on potential new practices of un-thinking, or thinking otherwise, by thinking-together-with acousmatic interference.
Anthony J. Gavin is an interdisciplinary PhD candidate in UVic’s Cultural, Social and Political Thought program and a Continuing Instructor in Philosophy at Camosun College. His areas of specialization include deconstruction, biopolitics, and posthumanism. When not focused on his studies, he can be found relaxing with his cats, playing Magic: The Gathering, or daydreaming about other-than-human experience.
Sara Ramshaw — “Listening Otherwise: Law, Sound, Theatre”
For Stó:lō writer, academic and sound artist Dylan Robinson, decolonising listening involves listening otherwise, that is, becoming aware of how normative listening habits and abilities are guided by our listening positionality. This positionality is shaped by perceptual habit, ability, and bias. In his book, Hungry Listening (2020), Robinson demonstrates how the dominant Western (Settler) approach to listening is extractive in nature; it desires certitude and feeds on the satisfaction that comes from being able to identify, recognise, and catalogue with some semblance of certainty to whom and/or to what we are listening. He calls this “hungry listening”, which is also a “listening for”: markedly devoid of any relationality. In contrast, “listening otherwise” is always a listening-with. It is a process of listening that is committed to receiving “otherness” and it intentionally engages with the unfamiliar, strange, and not already understood. Listening otherwise thereby requires a suspension of our belief in the certainty of knowing what listening actually is. This session explores the process of decolonising listening through the phenomenon of the Staged Radio Play. Written to be performed theatrically on stage as an imaginary radio drama, the live radio play mimics the format of a classic radio drama, complete with sound effects (Foley) produced in real-time in front of an audience, to create a show that combines the auditory experience of radio with the visual aspects of a theatrical performance. Focusing on Stage Foley as Sonic Fiction, I explore the process of making strange or unlearning listening as it relates to this artistic genre and provide some modest offerings as to how this might move us from hungry listening to listening otherwise in an attempt to decolonise listening in theatre, law, and society more generally. Audience participation in creating Foley items/sounds will be encouraged!
Sara Ramshaw is Professor of Law and Faculty Affiliate of Cultural, Social and Political Thought (CSPT) at the University of Victoria. Her research interests fall broadly in the area of arts-based approaches to law, with a specific focus on the improvisatory arts, especially music, dance, and theatre. She is currently the President of Lawyers on Stage Theatre Society (LOST), having also directed, acted in, and produced various LOST productions.
Hermit — “Political Shitnoise (Part 2)”
Concerns about the impacts of AI on human thought, labour, and culture proliferate in the headlines, obfuscating the consequences of the underlying shift in our perception of and impact on the soundscape sparked by the advent of sound recording in 1877. This shift is marked by the decoupling of our sonic environment from that of the visual and tactile, disrupting time and space and accelerating the commodification of everyday life.
I propose a series of explicated acoustic vocal vignettes, to be performed solo or in unison, in commemoration of sound and noise recalibrated to their potential acoustic qualities, contexts, and ideologies: wolves howling on a beach, glide bombs in the Donbas kill zone, sex on the 9th floor balcony, the crackling of high-voltage power lines.
To quote Russolo, “every manifestation of our life is accompanied by noise”. May we let it recall us brutally to real life! Our song is sound, our anthem is noise.
Hermit explores limitation and vulnerability though voice, actionist performance, and homemade electronic devices on the brink of functionality. Fluent in all aspects the form: heavy cacophony, theatrical absurdity, anxious acoustics. Active since 1994 with an extensive discography.
David Gifford — “Fata Morgana”
David Gifford will investigate the thickness of air, through turbulence and thermal convection by demonstrating the ‘schlieren’ visualization technique. He wants to see the shadow of sound. Will he succeed?
DG is an experimentalist who builds Rube Goldberg machines in his backyard. He likes drawing and magic. He is a friend of Summer of Theory.
Puppets Forsaken — “Muffaletta”
Puppets Forsaken presents an attenuated sound situation.
Program
Exposition: A volunteer from the audience approaches the sculpture.
Development: The volunteer enters the sculpture and the audience watches.
Recapitulation: The volunteer re-transitions back to the audience.
Puppets Forsaken is a collaborative sculpture/sound project originally formed for Summer of Theory 2019. Inspired by the intonarumori of Futurist Luigi Russolo, author of the manifesto “Art of Noises” 1913, the project constructs acoustic noise generators that take over rooms and involve audience members, performing for old growth trees that are no longer there, theory symposiums, live radio and noise shows. They also entered a telekinesis competition in which they lost. In this current iteration, Muffaletta is a collaboration by David Gifford and Mowry Baden.
Leah McInnis — “Souvenir Me”
Sonorous Hollows Allow for Key Errors to Reside (S.H.A.K.E.R.)
To keep safe. Things in things. Museum of things. Junk boxes. The sound of things museum. Museum of the sound of things. Sounds of found objects. Found object sounds. Safe and sound. Things I found. Things I find on the ground. Put them in a box to make a sound. A crowd is forming, the sculptures were too weird. Safe and found sounds. Souvenir shakers. Souvenir me. Souveniring.
Leah McInnis walks around and finds things on the ground and sometimes takes them home. Or she gives them to people as gifts. Sometimes they become an art, and the art gets left in a back alley for someone else to find. She is not sentimental!
Mitch Renaud — “Refractions of/for/from the Woods”
The Woods, found driftwood, cast-off their prescribed existence as derelict castoffs to shore up a liminal otherwise to categories or concepts, holding up a suspension against delineations such as form and matter, or subject and object. Leaving the shore, The Woods splinter these limits to arrive as thresholds, not lines but zones of possibility or indetermination.
What is it to notice the Woods? They are both marks and marked, dislocated from their cause or referent, they escape index to take up the trace, marking the presence of absence while sustaining the absence of presence. Drifting in-between surface and grapheme, the Woods open to a different means of understanding the sensible in our current time and place.
How does one go about gathering, arranging, and being with them? As ensemble, who is the host and who the guest? Are they made intelligible or do they make legible? Maybe they are strange kin to memento mori, less reminders of the inevitability of death, than a sort of graphetic, amalgams of grapheme and prophecy, bare-marks or forms-of-life to come that are always-already (not) t/here or dead?
The ebb and flow of these questions, gives rise to opportunity to attend to the ambience of the Woods as catalysts for form, which I will approach by moving out through refractions, positioned at the interface between mediums to offer oblique passage.
Mitch Renaud is a litany of evasions based in Victoria, BC, on the unceded homelands of the lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Xʷsepsəm nations). Moving between writing around attention, making unheard music, and occasionally performing with electronics, he is interested in the myriad aspects of relation: whether through feedback systems, (co-) composition, or place-based work.
A PhD student at the University of British Columbia, he performs solo as well as in ongoing collaborations with artists such as Katelyn Clark (Ouroboros, Hallow Ground 2025).
Mark Zion — “Desire, Law, Deferral… Snap, Cackle, Pop: Building a BDSMP3 Player with Deleuze and Fiends”
I will unsoundly but noisily deconstruct what psychoanalysis has termed ‘sadomasochism,’ proceeding from Deleuze’s insight that sadism and masochism operate on entirely different logics. Sadism is immediate, channeling pain and violence to transgress, destroying the law. Conversely, masochism operates through deferral and distancing; it may mobilise and transform desire, creating a new law whereby submission and control are not mutually exclusive. But how can masochism (also) regenerate or symptomatise (trans)individual stasis? Staging an art-theory encounter with brief sonic interludes—and thereby risking a lapse into sadism—I will mainly ruminate crunch, grind, gasp on Leopold von Sacher Masoch’s novella, Venus in Furs, and Deleuze’s treatise, Coldness and Cruelty. A discordant array of masochists, canonical and everyday, may be recruited in a desperate (but ultimately self-defeating) attempt to amp up the main track.
Mark Zion holds a PhD in Law and Society from the UVic Faculty of Law, where he has also been an Adjunct Professor, teaching Torts and Green Legal Theory. An anti-Zionist, anti-credentialist, antinomian on a mute but precarious line of flight from the socius, he has taken S&N as a cryptogram, willfully mishearing an echo of masochism, on which he has become a reluctant expert. He dreams of a quiet SOT preparation process and a harmonious life but is aware that may be tone deaf—for reasons to be explored.
Edith Skeard — “Secrets and Noise; The Right to Oblivion”
What of the self is retained in refusal? What is the e̷̢̨̢̛͔̗̱͉̺̗̖̲̞͆͆̇̂͊̽̊̿͌͆̌̚̕r̴͕̫̼͇͚̝̜͂̈́̓̀̀̋̎͗͑͘̕h̵̞͔̻̣̭̓̾̾̈́̏̄̕s̶̘̤̭̗̥͙͖̜̥͇͙̼̼̼̀́̊͘ḓ̸̨̱̩̻̠̱͖̞̞̺̰̠̖͑͜f̵̨̨̨̛͕̪̝̬͎̮͓̲̊̃͜͝ in the unknowable other? ȃ̴͉̲͆̂̓́w̸̡̘̥̹̰̝̘̻̄̌͂ glhl̶̛̙͙͊̇̊́͘ĭ̷̳̝́̈́͊̍̚e̷̢̨̢̛͔̗̱͉̺̗̖̲̞͆͆̇̂͊̽̊̿͌͆̌̚̕r̴͕̫̼͇͚̝̜͂̈́̓̀̀̋̎͗͑͘̕h̵̞͔̻̣̭̓̾̾̈́̏̄̕s̶̘̤̭̗̥͙͖̜̥͇͙̼̼̼̀́̊͘ḓ̸̨̱̩̻̠̱͖̞̞̺̰̠̖͑͜f̵̨̨̨̛͕̪̝̬͎̮͓̲̊̃͜͝n̶̡̗̪͍̲̻̬̯͈̒̋͐́̒̽̀͑͌̆͊̍͝ x ̵͛s̷̛̝̫̭̦͎̼̘̓̾ķ̶̞̟̘͔̟̲̖̖̀́̋̄̍̏̽̓̌̍̈́͊́̏f̷̡̧̛̛̹̭̤̭̹̘̬̗̱̘̪̖̔͗̇̃̌̏̽̿̐͘̕̕͝h̵̨̨͖̤͍͈͚͕͔̯̣̘͓̯͑̄͊̕q̴̧̢͔͎̻̟͔͍̣̱̥͒̊̃̏͛̐̌̈́;̴̡̢̬̮́̂̿̎͐͐̌̚͠͝ͅ2̸̛̱̗̫̞͕̖͈̲͍͖͇͎̈́͂̽́͜p̷̰̂͗2̶̨̢̨̜͎̜͚͔̤̟͓͎̼̪̲̔̀͊̒̉̄̓̚͝ȩ̴͓̱̹͕̫̟̇͛̓̂̀͝ personal data, and the manufactured desire for belonging through self annihilation. What is the ȃ̴͉̲͆̂̓́w̸̡̘̥̹̰̝̘̻̄̌͂ h̸̛̩͖̗͕̜͍̗͓́̈́̕l̶̛̙͙͊̇̊́͘ĭ̷̳̝́̈́͊̍̚e̷̢̨̢̛͔̗̱͉̺̗̖̲̞͆͆̇̂͊̽̊̿͌͆̌̚̕r̴͕̫̼͇͚̝̜͂̈́̓̀̀̋̎͗͑͘̕h̵̞͔̻̣̭̓̾̾̈́̏̄̕s̶̘̤̭̗̥͙͖̜̥͇͙̼̼̼̀́̊͘ḓ̸̨̱̩̻̠̱͖̞̞̺̰̠̖͑͜f̵̨̨̨̛͕̪̝̬͎̮͓̲̊̃͜͝n̶̡̗̪͍̲̻̬̯͈̒̋͐́̒̽̀͑͌̆͊̍͝ s̷̛̝̫̭̦͎̼̘̓̾ķ̶̞̟̘͔̟̲̖̖̀́̋̄̍̏̽̓̌̍̈́͊́̏f̷̡̧̛̛̹̭̤̭̹̘̬̗̱̘̪̖̔͗̇̃̌̏̽̿̐͘̕̕͝h̵̨̨͖̤͍͈͚͕͔̯̣̘͓̯͑̄͊̕q̴̧̢͔͎̻̟͔͍̣̱̥͒̊̃̏͛̐̌̈́;̴̡̢̬̮́̂̿̎͐͐̌̚͠͝ͅ2̸̛̱̗̫̞͕̖͈̲͍͖͇͎̈́͂̽́͜p̷̰̂͗2̶̨̢̨̜͎̜͚͔̤̟͓͎̼̪̲̔̀͊̒̉̄̓̚͝ȩ̴͓̱̹͕̫̟̇͛̓̂̀͝e encryption as an ontological practice. ȃ̴͉̲͆̂̓́w̸̡̘̥̹̰̝̘̻̄̌͂ h̸̛̩͖̗͕̜͍̗͓́̈́̕l̶̛̙͙͊̇̊́͘ĭ̷̳̝́̈́͊̍̚e̷̢̨̢̛͔̗̱͉̺̗̖̲̞͆͆̇̂͊̽̊̿͌͆̌̚̕r̴͕̫̼͇͚̝̜͂̈́̓̀̀̋̎͗͑͘̕h̵̞͔̻̣̭̓̾̾̈́̏̄̕ disclosure. Starting from the text “The Right to Oblivion” by Lowry Pressly, this h̵̞͔̻̣̭̓̾̾̈́̏̄̕s̶̘̤̭̗̥͙͖̜̥͇͙̼̼̼̀́̊͘ḓ̸̨̱̩̻̠̱͖̞̞̺̰̠̖͑͜f̵̨̨̨̛͕̪̝̬͎̮͓̲̊̃͜͝n̶̡̗̪͍̲̻̬̯͈̒̋͐́̒̽̀͑͌̆͊̍͝ s̷̛̝̫̭̦͎̼̘̓̾ķ̶̞̟̘͔̟̲̖̖̀́̋̄̍̏̽̓̌̍̈́͊́̏f̷̡̧̛̛̹̭̤̭̹̘̬̗̱̘̪̖̔͗̇̃̌̏̽̿̐͘̕̕͝ navigates the necessity of obfuscation and h̵̞̓̾̾̈́̏̄̕s̶̘̤̭̗̥͙͖̜̥͇͙̼̼̼̀́̊͘ḓ̸̨̱̩̻̠̱͖̞̞̺̰̠̖͑͜f̵̨̨̨̛͕̪̝̬͎̮͓̲̊̃͜͝n̶̡̗̪͍̲̻̬̯͈̒̋͐́̒̽̀͑͌̆͊̍͝ s̷̛̝̫̭̦͎̼̘̓̾ķ̶̞̟̘͔̟̲̖̖̀́̋̄̍̏̽̓̌̍̈́͊́̏f̷̡̛̛̹̭̤̭̹̘̬̗̱̘̔͗̇̃̌̏̽̿̐͘̕̕͝h̵̞͔̻̣̭̓̾̾̈́̏̄̕s̶̘̤̭̗̥͙͖̜̥͇͙̼̼̼̀́̊͘ḓ̸̨̱̩̻̠̱͖̞̞̺̰̠̖͑͜f̵̨̨̨̛͕̪̝̬͎̮͓̲̊̃͜͝n̶̡̗̪͍̲̻̬̯͈̒̋͐́̒̽̀͑͌̆͊̍͝ s̷̛̝̫̭̦͎̼̘̓̾ķ̶̞̟̘͔̟̲̖̖̀́̋̄̍̏̽̓̌̍̈́͊́̏f̷̡̧̛̛̹̭̤̭̹̘̬̗̱̘̪̖̔͗̇̃̌̏̽̿̐͘̕̕͝vh̵̞͔̻̣̭̓̾̾̈́̏̄̕s̶̘̤̭̗̥͙͖̜̥͇͙̼̼̼̀́̊͘ḓ̸̨̱̩̻̠̱͖̞̞̺̰̠̖͑͜f̵̨̨̨̛͕̪̝̬͎̮͓̲̊̃͜͝n̶̡̗̪͍̲̻̬̯͈̒̋͐́̒̽̀͑͌̆͊̍͝ s̷̛̝̫̭̦͎̼̘̓̾k̶̀́̋̄̍̏̽̓̌̍̈́͊́̏f̷̡̛̛̹̭̤̭̹̘̔͗̇̃̌̏̽̿̐͘̕̕͝ f̷̡̛̛̹̭̤̭̹̘̬̗̱̘̔͗̇̃̌̏̽̿̐͘̕̕͝h̵̞͔̻̣̭̓̾̾̈́̏̄̕..