Clairaudience
It’s a natural thing to want to know “what happens next” and there are plenty of online Nostradamus types who want to tell you the worst of their fears. More seriously, it’s over 15 years since Mark Fisher wrote that “It’s easier to foresee the end of the world than the end of Capitalism”. This also turns out to be (very possibly) mistaken, because it is now apparent that both could happen at the same time. The ending of the Chinese support of Apple’s manufacturing base and market supremacy, the invasion of Taiwan and the capture of its semiconductor technology could turn the world economy to shit in a week. This is neither polemic nor conjecture according to FT investigative journalist Patrick McGee.
The business of predicting the future is not the same as clairvoyance. How can thinking ahead involve other senses beside vision and be beyond the exceptionalism of individuals claiming a special psychic talent? Hearing, and more specifically, listening to the future… I thought a good word might be ‘clairaudient’ and was gently surprised to discover a more collective term, Clairaudience.
There is an urgency to evolve the significant work undertaken by Pauline Oliveros (and many others) who first wrote about an emphasis on ‘sonic awareness’ in the early 1980s, which she evolved into her continuing practice and dedication to ‘deep listening’ later on that same decade. Oliveros died in 2016 and a posthumously-published work ‘Quantum Listening’ continues the connection she insists between sound and consciousness.
Clairaudience might begin by taking your ear pods off and not living your personal life on headphones (metaphorically) – what do you now hear? Silence is golden, or would it be the opposite end of the spectrum? You hear too much? Builders drilling in the street, people shouting at each other for no reason, but you might also hear the birds and what they have to sing. You might suddenly remember the sounds your mother used to make in the kitchen when you were a child. You might hear a new noise across the way and wonder, “What the fuck was that?”. It wasn’t an immediate danger, but it was seriously alive, and I heard it, just for that moment. What could it be, where is it going? Listening is transformative. Autumn is the time of year when trees dance in the wind, and the wind sends debris down the street, rattles the window panes, blows away the cobwebs.
Having struck a chord of foreboding with the expansionism currently underway in China, North Korea and elsewhere, it is as well to remember that many Eastern philosophies present the entry points to a renewed emphasis on meditation and contemplation in the West. And so to Clairaudience – the emphasis is on the ‘audience’, not on the musicians, sound artists nor the rise of ambient AI soundtracks. Oliveros favoured special locations with which to disseminate her sounds – caves, amphitheatres etc. with their special acoustics. This is obviously not always possible. It is first about paying attention to the sounds around you, finding a quiet time to listen in to your own surroundings, to sense the subtle sensations that the everyday can conjure. Yes, modern life is loud and there’s no such thing as silence (© John Cage) but in the spaces in between you might find a resonant frequency.
Further reading:
Ghosts of My Life, Mark Fisher
Apple in China – The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company, Patrick McGee
Pauline Oliveros, Sonic Mediations
Stasiland – Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, Anna Funder
Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner
The Listeners, Jordan Tannahill
Perfection, Vincenzo Latronico
