Listening and subjectivity in musical and sound composition

• Grant number: 23/16242-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Effective date (Start): September 01, 2024
• Effective date (End): August 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Music
• Principal Investigator: Marilia Velardi
• Grantee: Valeria Muelas Bonafe
• Host Institution: Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades (EACH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project proposes an artistic investigation (Velardi 2016, 2018) on the compositional process in Music and Sound Art. The objective is to explore the compositional process as a process in which subjective experiences can be accessed, elaborated and shared through listening. In this project, the focus on the interrelationship between listening and subjectivity (LaBelle 2018, Campesato & Bonafé 2019) is the key to deconstructing universalizing colonial-patriarchal paradigms and promoting the diversity of voices within the field of musical and sound composition. In light of decolonial feminist theories and micropolitics, I propose to work collaboratively with other composers and sound artists to systematically develop an original method to investigate compositional processes in Music and Sound Art. This method - with which I have been working experimentally in recent years and which I have called 'cartography of creative process' (Bonafé 2024) - is based on the cartographic approach of Suely Rolnik (1989) and is modulated by a feminist policy of listening (Bonafé & Campesato 2021) which seeks to amplify what is commonly silenced. This method will initially be developed in the context of a case study with Brazilian artists who work professionally in the experimental music and sound art scene and will subsequently support artistic interactions with artist-researchers who are in the university training phase, as well as with artists who are developing outside the academic circuit, incorporating subjective and creative perspectives from socially diverse groups. This set of participatory cartographic actions will give rise to a collection of aural-visual-conceptual diagrams that will reveal ways of thinking and practicing composition that escape approaches exclusively committed to the artistic and intellectual production of white men from the global north. Focusing on the work of Brazilian artists, women and gender minorities, I will outline an understanding of the compositional process that encompasses subjective and creative experiences of non-hegemonic communities, which will challenge current approaches to teaching and research in the field of Music and Sound Art and will strengthen a new paradigm - with a decolonial feminist bias - for musical and sound creation.