International Transdisciplinary Symposium AIRY ENCOUNTERS RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS Helsinki, June 6–8, 2022 PROGRAMME AND ABSTRACTS International Transdisciplinary Symposium AIRY ENCOUNTERS RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS Helsinki, June 6–8, 2022 PROGRAMME AND ABSTRACTS Koper 2022 International Transdisciplinary Symposium AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS Programme and Abstracts Editors/Urednici: Maja Bjelica, Päivi Järviö Editor-in-Chief of the Publishing House/Glavni in odgovorni urednik založbe: Tilen Glavina Editor for Philosophy and Religious Studies/Urednik za področji filozofije in religiologije: Lenart Škof Technical Editors/Tehnični urednici: Alenka Obid, Maja Bjelica Design and layout/Oblikovanje in prelom: Alenka Obid Cover photograph/Fotografija na naslovnici: LungTreEar, Maja Bjelica Publisher/Izdajatelj: Science and Research Centre Koper, Annales ZRS/ Znanstveno-raziskovalno središče Koper, Annales ZRS For the publisher/Za izdajatelja: Rado Pišot Online edition, available at: http://www.zrs-kp.si/index.php/research-2/zalozba/ monografije/ This symposium has been financially supported by the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS), through the project Surviving the Anthropocene through Inventing New Ecological Justice and Biosocial Philosophical Literacy (J7-1824). Kataložni zapis o publikaciji (CIP) pripravili v Narodni in univerzitetni knjižnici v Ljubljani COBISS.SI-ID 109213955 ISBN 978-961-7058-86-4 (PDF) CONTENTS 7 ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM 11 PROGRAMME ABSTRACTS 19 TRANSVERSALITY OF THE POETIC ARTS OF BREATH 20 Salomé Voegelin and Mark Peter Wright Sound’s Transversal Breath 22 Stefanie Heine Pneumatic Touch and Sonic Encounters in Walt Whitman 24 PRĀṆIC INQUIRIES 25 Purushottama Bilimoria The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind… Blowin’ in the prāṇa 27 Kalpana Subramanian Cinema of Breath: A Prāṇic Inquiry into Experimental Film 29 MATRIXIAL BREATH AND RESPIRATORY SOUNDS OF DIFFERENCE AND TOGETHERNESS 30 Lenart Škof “The Blessed Cosmos compared to the Air we Breathe” 32 Christoph Solstreif-Pirker Matrixial Breath: A First Introduction to Rhythms, Procedures, and Consequences of Respiratory “Jointness-in-Difference” 34 Tanvi Solanki “Black Pneuma” and “World Breath”: Respiratory Difference and Belonging 36 ARTISTIC JOURNEYS OF AIR 37 Riikka Theresa Innanen, Antti Nykyri and Leena Rouhiainen Presenting the Air Journey 39 Bart H. M. Vandeput (Bartaku Art_Research) Intimate Scarification: a bodily mixture of seed, vocal cord, air pipe and plant breath 40 THE NOTHING AND THE VOICE OF BREATH 41 Päivi Järviö The meaningfulness of nothing: Breathing as an expressive means in the experience of singing 43 Maja Bjelica Respiratory voicings: Inspiring and conspiring AiRTISTIC RESEARCH INTERVENTIONS 47 AIRING 48 Kajsa Dahlbäck The singer’s inner work: in practice and theory 50 Chris Harker Pneuma 51 Michael Schmid A Lung Full of Ears 52 BREATHING 53 Michael Schmid BREATHCORE 54 Eeva-Liisa Puhakka Leave the Body, Leave the Mind 56 RESPIRING 57 Petri Berndtson Philosophical Breathwork in Theory and in Praxis 59 Bart H. M. Vandeput (Bartaku Art_Research) Retinal-alian Group Hum: breathing-sounding the retinal code 60 Hilkka-Liisa Vuori Generous singing: towards the pedagogy of listening 62 Miriam Jakob and Jana Unmüßig Breathing Sideways AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM I am a prehistoric man. I live more in the elements than in society. Eugène Guillevic, French poet In our ocularcentric tradition we have a saying: “Out of sight, out of mind.” We tend to easily forget people and things that are no longer visible or present to us. We tend to forget them because the words “in sight, in mind” are also true. What we see is what we think. But what about the matters that are always out of sight, matters that are never visible to us, that are invisible by their nature? Are they also “out of mind”? Do we have a tendency to forget such matters in an even more profound way than things and persons that we have seen in the past and perhaps will see in the future? The elemental atmosphere of air as an environment is perhaps the most important and profound invisible matter in our life. It constantly surrounds, environs, and penetrates us. For us human beings, the elemental air is the mediator and mediation of every-thing. In his book Air and Dreams, one of the great-est elemental philosophers Gaston Bachelard says: “everything that passes through air is dynamically and substantially aerial.” All things in our life have an aerial meaning and thus we are nothing without air and still we forget it. There is no existence without it. Our first relation with air is breathing. All dimensions of our existence perpetually depend on the air we breathe and thus another great elemental philosopher Luce Irigaray says: “To forget Being is to forget air.” In relation to this she also says: “The forgetting of breathing in our tradition is almost universal.” Instead of forgetting the atmospheres of breathing and elemental air as an environment, in our symposium we will poetically celebrate air, and mindfully cultivate breathing as the deepest sources of inspiration (literally “in-breathing”) for living a wonder-full, creative, responsible, hospitable, joyous, meaningful and harmonious life of well-being with our fellow human beings and with flora and fauna, the more-than-human world at large. In the symposium, our focus will be the poetic, creative and elemental encounters between breath, sound and the atmospheres of air. Sound is always an aerial phenomenon as it is mediated by the atmosphere of air, or in other words, 7 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS as it always passes through the air. The element of air is so hospitable that it lets this perpetual sonorous airing take place. For example, music is an atmospheric art of melody, rhythm, harmony, and silence that environs and en-velops acoustic beings. Embodied beings can participate in the atmospheric sound arts as their acoustic organs (ears) are somewhat similar to the respiratory organs in a sense that they are open and receptive to the elemental atmosphere itself. Vision differs radically from hearing, listening and breathing as in it the seer distances himself or herself from the seen, and as the visual field is always limited. We hear and listen to what happens behind us, but do not see it. The immense respiratory and acoustic atmosphere is not at the distance as it surrounds and penetrates us from all directions. For these reasons sound arts as well as respiratory arts have the potential to help us to resonate, vibrate and breathe in harmony with the rhythms and fluctuations of the atmospheric nature. Where the wind’s song fills the air with a harmony that has no cries nor silent agony. The whole murmurs so softly that the melody has room for the highest and the lowest note, the sharpest and the deepest. Should a bird sing, the whole joins in an accompanying choir. But the song bursts forth or van-ishes without a tear. If nothing happens, nothing is missing. If no sound is detached, the atmosphere remains full of music. Listen: nothing. The sound of silence. The rustle of air in the silence. The music of air touching itself – silently. Luce Irigaray, Elemental Passions 8 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS SYMPOSIUM CO-ORGANISED BY Science and Research Centre Koper, Institute for Philosophical Studies, Slovenia Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland ORGANISING AND PROGRAMME COMMITTEE Petri BERNDTSON, Science and Research Centre Koper, Slovenia Maja BJELICA, Science and Research Centre Koper, Slovenia Päivi JÄRVIÖ, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland Lenart ŠKOF, Science and Research Centre Koper, Slovenia 9 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS PROGRAMME International Transdisciplinary Symposium AIRY ENCOUNTERS RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS Helsinki, June 6–8, 2022 MONDAY, June 6, 2022 Chamber Music Hall, Sibelius Academy 16.00–17.45 Welcoming Inspirations Michael Schmid plays István Matuz: The Gliss Flute solo Petri Berndtson: Welcoming the Airy Encounters Opening airings Kajsa Dahlbäck: The singer’s inner work: in practice and theory Lecture concert, in collaboration with Aapo Häkkinen 17.45–18.15 Welcoming refreshments 18.15–19.00 Chris Harker: Pneuma An audio-visual meditation on the breath Michael Schmid: A Lung Full of Ears Collective con-spiratory 11 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS TUESDAY, June 7, 2022 Pajasali Hall, Suomenlinna island 9.00–10.30 Michael Schmid: BREATHCORE Breathing workshop 10.30–10.50 Coffee break 10.50–12.10 Panel I TRANSVERSALITY OF THE POETIC ARTS OF BREATH ChAIR: Maja Bjelica *Salomé Voegelin and *Mark Peter Wright: Sound’s Transversal Breath *Stefanie Heine: Pneumatic Touch and Sonic Encounters in Walt Whitman 12.10–14.10 Lunch break 14.10–15.10 Eeva-Liisa Puhakka: Leave the Body, Leave the Mind Interactive artistic presentation Visit to the HIAP Suomenlinna 15.10–15.30 Break * Presenters joining remotely through video-conference. 12 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS 15.30–16.50 Panel II PRĀṆIC INQUIRIES ChAIR: Lenart Škof Purushottama Bilimoria: The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind… Blowin’ in the prāṇa *Kalpana Subramanian: Cinema of Breath: A Prāṇic Inquiry into Experimental Film 16.50–17.10 Coffee break 17.10–19.10 Panel III MATRIXIAL BREATH AND RESPIRATORY SOUNDS OF DIFFERENCE AND TOGETHERNESS ChAIR: Petri Berndtson Lenart Škof: “The Blessed Cosmos compared to the Air we Breathe” Christoph Solstreif-Pirker: Matrixial Breath: A First Introduction to Rhythms, Procedures, and Consequences of Respiratory “Jointness-in-Difference” Tanvi Solanki: “Black Pneuma” and “World Breath”: Respiratory Difference and Belonging * Presenter joining remotely through video-conference. 13 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS WEDNESDAY, June 8, 2022 Pajasali Hall, Suomenlinna island 9.00–10.00 Petri Berndtson: Philosophical Breathwork in Theory and in Praxis Experiential lecture 10.00–10.30 Coffee break 10.30–12.00 Panel IV ARTISTIC JOURNEYS OF AIR ChAIR: Päivi Järviö Riikka Theresa Innanen, Antti Nykyri and Leena Rouhiainen: Presenting the Air Journey Bart H. M. Vandeput (Bartaku Art_Research): Intimate Scarification: a bodily mixture of seed, vocal cord, air pipe and plant breath 12.00–12.30 Bart H. M. Vandeput (Bartaku Art_Research): Retinal-alian Group Hum: breathing-sounding the retinal code Multibody sonic performance 12.30–14.30 Lunch break 14 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS 14.30–15.30 Suomenlinna church Hilkka-Liisa Vuori: Generous singing: towards the pedagogy of listening Embodied sonorous dialogue 15.30–16.00 Break 16.00–17.30 Panel V THE NOTHING AND THE VOICE OF BREATH ChAIR: Hilkka-Liisa Vuori Päivi Järviö: The meaningfulness of nothing: Breathing as an expressive means in the experience of singing Maja Bjelica: Respiratory voicings: Inspiring and conspiring 17.30–18.00 Coffee break 18.00–19.00 Miriam Jakob and Jana Unmüßig: Breathing Sideways Participatory lecture essay 19.00 Petri Berndtson and Lenart Škof: Respiratory Reverberations 15 ABSTRACTS Panel I TRANSVERSALITY OF THE POETIC ARTS OF BREATH ChAIR: Maja Bjelica Tuesday, June 7, 2022 Pajasali Hall, Suomenlinna island 10.50–12.10 *Salomé Voegelin and *Mark Peter Wright: Sound’s Transversal Breath *Stefanie Heine: Pneumatic Touch and Sonic Encounters in Walt Whitman * Presenters joining remotely through video-conference. AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS SOUND’S TRANSVERSAL BREATH Salomé VOEGELIN CRiSAP, London College of Communication Mark Peter Wright CRiSAP, London College of Communication This short paper aims to bring you into a conversation on the possibility and impossibility of listening together as a listening with: a post-anthro-pocentric/post-humanist consideration of perception as the generation of relationships, as sensing with, rather than a hearing/seeing of. The ideas presented emerge on the one hand from PoL ( Points of Listening), a series of events co-convened by the speakers since 2014, which focuses on listening as an investigative lens on collective, communal and participatory practices. Discussing some of the listening done together in the context of PoL we will reflect, in hindsight, on the status of the of and the with in its practices. Fur-ther, and on the other hand, this paper also draws on one of the speaker’s, Mark Peter Wrights’s, forthcoming book Listening After Nature (Bloomsbury 2022), and tries to practice what the other, Salomé Voegelin, terms a transversal sound studies: a sound studies that does not outline one discipline but practices an interloping of ears everywhere. Keywords: listening with, participatory, collective, sound studies, transversality Salomé Voegelin is an artist, researcher and writer who works with sound’s relational capacity to practice possibilities of the undisciplined and the knowledge of a fuzzy geography. She is interested in the transversal potential of sound: listening at once to literature, art, music, history as well as to science and social science, to hear from their communalities rather than their difference. She writes essays and text-scores for performance and publication. Books include Sonic Possible Worlds (2014/21), The Political Possibility of Sound (2018) and Listening to Noise and Silence (2010). Voegelin is a Professor of Sound at the London College of Communi-20 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS cation, University of the Arts London and currently represents the Professorship Sound Studies at the University of Art Braunschweig. www.salomevoegelin.net Mark Peter Wright is an artist-researcher working at the intersection of sound arts, experimental pedagogy and critical theory. Operating between the field and lab, site and gallery, he is committed to amplifying forms of power and poetics within the creative use of sound and documentary media. Wright has exhibited artworks internationally with galleries and institutes and published across numerous peer reviewed journal platforms. He is a member of CRiSAP (Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice) and his forthcoming monograph is titled Listening After Nature (Bloomsbury 2022). http://markpeterwright.net/ 21 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS PNEUMATIC TOUCH AND SONIC ENCOUNTERS IN WALT WHITMAN Stefanie HEINE University of Copenhagen In my paper, I want to focus on the sonic-erotic respiratory encounters Walt Whitman stages in Leaves of Grass. In lines like “The sound of the belched words of my voice, words loosed to the eddies of the wind”, breath figures as an assemblage connecting the singing “I” and the environment as well as the textual world and the readers engaging with it across time and space. The breathing, which is not only described but enacted through the poem, is a breathing together-apart, an (often) erotic pneumatic touch which involves separation. In a famous passage, where the speaker whose “song” is about to “cease” addresses the reader with the words “This is no book, / Who touches this, touches a man”, breath plays an important role: “Your breath falls around me like dew—your pulse lulls the tympans of my ears”. This pneumatic-sonic embrace involves departing and “farewell”, but it is also an emphatic gesture of living on, persisting in time. The mode of ongoingness it sketches is neither subsumable to the idea of readers breathing new life into a poem nor does it function according to the model of biological reproduction. The tenuous breathroutes potentially opened by the texts cannot be cast into a solid form, which mirrors the most physical form of respiratory reception, namely, reading literary texts out loud: the words modulated by breath dissolve into thin air before they can assume a stable form. Keywords: breath, poetry, Walt Whitman Stephanie Heine is assistant professor for Comparative Literature at the University of Copenhagen. She was a researcher and lecturer at the Department of Comparative Literature in Zürich and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of To-ronto, Centre for Comparative Literature. Heine completed her PhD in 2012 and her Habilitiation in 2021. Selected publications: Visible Words and Chromatic Pulse. Virginia Woolf’s Writing, Impressionist Painting, Maurice Blanchot’s Image (Turia + Kant, 2014); co-edited with Sandro Zanetti, Transaktualität. Ästhetische Dauerhaft-22 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS igkeit und Flüchtigkeit (Wilhelm Fink, 2017); co-edited with Arthur Rose, Naya Tsen-tourou, Corinne Saunders, and Peter Garrett, Reading Breath in Literature (Palgrave, 2018); Poetics of Breathing. Modern Literature’s Syncope (State University of New York Press, 2021). 23 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS Panel II PRĀṆIC INQUIRIES ChAIR: Lenart Škof Tuesday, June 7, 2022 Pajasali Hall, Suomenlinna island 15.30–16.50 Purushottama Bilimoria: The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind… Blowin’ in the prāṇa *Kalpana Subramanian: Cinema of Breath: A Prāṇic Inquiry into Experimental Film * Presenter joining remotely through video-conference. 24 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS THE ANSWER, MY FRIEND, IS BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND... BLOWIN’ IN THE PRĀṆA Purushottama BILIMORIA San Francisco State University University of Melbourne While breath (wind) and prāṇa are not the same entities, breath has been identified as the closest ontological sibling of the rather elusive and ethe-real life-principle ( elan vital) identified as prāṇa in the Indic-Dharma traditions: be it Brāhmaṇic-Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Āyurveda, Patañjali’s aṣṭaṅgayoga, Kuṇḍalinī and Haṭha Yogas, and with qi in the classical Chi-nese medicinal system. The paper presents a short survey of the history of breath/ prāṇa from early cosmological loci in the Ṛgveda – as Vāyu, the god of Wind – to the appraisal of prāṇamayakoṣa (breath sheath) in the Upaniṣads as the sentient principle accompanying ātman or jīva (soul). We next move to examine the shifts of the “wind” into deeper esoteric applications, nota-bly: prāṇāyāma as controlled-breathing practices in yoga, Buddhist and Jain contemplative focus on the flow of breath, and the role of deep breathing for cleansing vital organs and meridian points ( nādīs). Last but not least, the use of breathing to funnel prāṇa through the cakras (central energy centers), to its complete cessation in higher stages of yogic samādhi (absorption, including the near-death- āsana) and finally the last fast of sallekhāna (voluntarily dying). Keywords: breath, wind, prāṇa, Indic-Dharma traditions, prāṇāyāma Purushottama Bilimoria, PhD, works in Indian & Cross-Cultural philosophy, Philosophy of Religion and Critical Thinking, and lectures at State University of San Francisco as well as Cal State Long Beach, affiliated with University of California@ Berkeley. Named as Lead Scientist of Purushottama Centre for Study of Indian Philosophy and Culture at Peoples’ Friendship University (RUDN) of Russia, he is Principal Fellow at University of Melbourne, where he serves also as an Co-Editor-in-Chief of S ophia, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy & Traditions, and Assoc. Editor of Journal of Dharma Studies (all with Springer). Recent publications include: History 25 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS of Indian Philosophy (with A. Rayner, 2019), Religion and Sustainability (with R. D. Sherma, 2021), Contemplative Studies and Hinduism (with R. D. Sherma, 2021); Indian Ethics Vol. 2 (with A. Rayner & R. Sharma, forthcoming 2023). 26 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS CINEMA OF BREATH: A PRĀṆIC INQUIRY INTO EXPERIMENTAL FILM Kalpana SUBRAMANIAN State University of New York at Buffalo Even as “the universal right to breathe” becomes an urgent call of our times (Mbembe 2020), the role of breath in cinema and media studies remains relatively underexplored. Lenart Škof and Petri Berndtson (2018) ar-gue for a new “respiratory philosophy” that foregrounds breath as a mode of critical inquiry. This paper investigates the role of breath in experimental cinema, employing a comparative media philosophical approach. It brings into dialogue Yogic cosmology, film phenomenology and Deleuzoguattarian philosophy, to propose a framework of breath poetics called “Cinema of Breath.” The notion of embodiment in cinema is reimagined through a genealogy of prāṇa or breath as cosmic life-force. Drawing from the seminal 7th century tantric text, the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra, this paper explores how the ability of breath to alter the senses and consciousness, can be understood in relation to the cinematic experience. Building on theories of sensory cinema posited by Laura Marks’ (2000) and Davina Quinlivan (2012), this paper fur-ther articulates aesthetic concepts such as “flesh” and “haptic hearing” in experimental film, through the notion of “sparsha” (touch), which is associ-ated with the element “vayu,” (air) and exists within an alternate concept of cosmic unity. Finally, this paper highlights how a prāṇic mode of inquiry can help reimagine the cinematic form as a breathing and reverberating whole. Keywords: breath, aesthetics, cinema, senses, yoga References Marks, Laura U., and Dana Polan. “The skin of the film.” In The Skin of the Film. Duke University Press, 2000. Mbembe, Achille, and Carolyn Shread. “The universal right to breathe.” Critical Inquiry 47, no. S2 (2021): S58-S62. Quinlivan, Davina. Place of Breath in Cinema. Edinburgh University Press, 2012. Škof, Lenart, and Petri Berndtson, eds. Atmospheres of Breathing. SUNY Press, 2018. 27 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS Kalpana Subramanian is an artist-filmmaker and Ph.D. candidate at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is interested in cross-cultural inquiry into experimental film and media. Her dissertation articulates the framework of “Cinema of Breath.” Her films and media art projects have been showcased internationally and have received various honors and awards. She was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder (2015–16) and UK Environmental Film Fellow (2006). 28 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS Panel III MATRIXIAL BREATH AND RESPIRATORY SOUNDS OF DIFFERENCE AND TOGETHERNESS ChAIR: Petri Berndtson Tuesday, June 7, 2022 Pajasali Hall, Suomenlinna island 17.10–19.10 Lenart Škof: “The Blessed Cosmos compared to the Air we Breathe” Christoph Solstreif-Pirker: Matrixial Breath: A First Introduction to Rhythms, Procedures, and Consequences of Respiratory “Jointness-in-Difference” Tanvi Solanki: “Black Pneuma” and “World Breath”: Respiratory Difference and Belonging 29 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS “THE BLESSED COSMOS COMPARED TO THE AIR WE BREATHE” Lenart ŠKOF Science and Research Centre Koper, Slovenia Alma Mater Europaea, Ljubljana, Slovenia The title of my lecture is a paraphrase of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe” and the lecture will be an attempt of a cross-cosmological Vedic and Christian thinking. In my talk, I will first present cosmic correspondences from the Vedic context. We know that the ancient Ṛgvedic hymns were sung and that the Vedic recitation had a deep cosmological meaning. Hymns were a part of the sacred ritual reci-procity between macrocosmic and microcosmic spheres (such as wind and breath), and verbal (and thus breathed) actions were the most important part of the Vedic ritual. Words mirrored and indeed embodied reality and poets were able to formulate sacred truths as based on this sacred cosmic cor-relation, called bandhu or upaniṣad. The most prominent example of the respiratory cosmic thinking is the Ṛgvedic Creation hymn (RV X.129) in which Breath is a primeval cosmic Sign, being enigmatically present before Being or non-Being. As Ṛgvedic hymns were all orally transmitted, they were thus sacred and living-breathed archives of ancient Indians. In my presentation, I will explore into the respiratory origins of Vedic hymns and in the conclud-ing section make an idiosyncratic comparison to the Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem on the cosmic goddess Mary, compared to the Air we breathe – in my interpretation thought of as a matrixial khora and marking the primeval Womb-Breath of all creation before any other ontologico-cosmological sign. Keywords: Ṛgvedic hymns, cosmology of breath, creation theology, feminist theology, khora Lenart Škof is Head of the Institute for Philosophical Studies at the Science and Research Centre (Koper, Slovenia) and Dean at Alma Mater Europaea – Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis (Ljubljana, Slovenia). He co-edited Atmospheres of Breathing (SUNY Press 2018), The Poesis of Peace (Routledge, 2017) and Breathing with Luce Irigaray (Bloomsbury, 2013). Lenart Škof is an author of several books, among 30 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS them Antigone’s Sisters: On the Matrix of Love (SUNY Press, 2021) and Breath of Prox-imity: Intersubjectivity, Ethics and Peace (Springer, 2015). Homepage: https://zrs-kp.academia.edu/LenartŠkof 31 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS MATRIXIAL BREATH: A FIRST INTRODUCTION TO RHYTHMS, PROCEDURES, AND CONSEQUENCES OF RESPIRATORY “JOINTNESS-IN-DIFFERENCE” Christoph SOLSTREIF-PIRKER Institute of Architecture and Landscape, TU Graz GCAS College Dublin Thoughts on breath and breathing often emphasize homeostasis, universal equilibrium, and symbiotic exchange of different actors in an ideal-ized aerial space. Such thinking finds its analogy in a narrative that understands the planet as an all-encompassing mechanistic system. In such a system (prominently envisioned by Lovelock and Margulis), humans play a minor role, being involved in a progressive automatism of much more extensive and inaccessible agencies. The conclusion that “the human move to take responsibility for the living Earth is laughable” (Margulis 2001, 143) is highly problematic, as it deprives humans of any ethical imperative. The destructive implications of the current wellness culture – the most seduc-tive masquerade of financial market capitalism – underscores this view. Against this background, the need for a differentiated conception of planetary co-existence becomes apparent – the need for breathing patterns be-yond symbiotic fusion. This paper presentation raises the question of Matrixial Breath as a counter-hegemonic form of thought and action. Matrixial Breath opposes the prevailing phallic narratives of being-toward-death (Heidegger) and striving toward the inanimate state of inorganic matter, from which life circularly re-arises (Freud). The Matrixial Theory, established and developed by the Israeli psychoanalyst, artist, writer, and philosopher Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger, claims pre-natal, intra-uterine, and maternal-intimate alliances to form the primary constituents of human subjectivation and societal formation. Within the Matrixial field, emergence is always a fragile and caring communication between “I and (non-)I,” a “being-toward-birth with being-toward-birthing” (Ettinger 2019, 183). Referring to the artistic research project “Viele von ihnen weinten/Many of them cried” (2020-), the paper presentation explicates Matrixial Breath through the sound of trauma 32 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS and transgenerational psycho-planetary responsibility and highlights the rhythms, procedures, and consequences of this non-harmonious yet hopeful respiratory praxis. Keywords: Matrixial Theory, Bracha L. Ettinger, Feminist Environmental Ethics, Breathing, Anthropocene References Ettinger, Bracha L. “Beyond the Death–Drive, Beyond the Live–Drive—Being–toward– Birthing with Being–toward–Birth: Copoiesis and the Matrixial Eros—Metafeminist Notes.” In Aberrant Nuptials: Deleuze and Artistic Research, edited by Paolo de Assis and Paolo Giudici, 183–214. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2019. Margulis, Lynn. The Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution. London: Phoenix, 2001. Christoph Solstreif-Pirker, Ph.D., is an architect, researcher, theorist, pedagogue, psychotherapist-in-training, and a practicing artist working on performance, performative research, encounter-investigations, painting, drawing, sound, and text. After studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Denmark, and the Graz University of Technology, he completed his Ph.D. in artistic research and contemporary art under the supervision of Milica Tomić and Henk Slager. His doctoral thesis entitled “Being-Together-With the World-Without-Us” addressed the question of space and subjectivity in the (Post-)Anthropocene and suggested performative forms of thinking and practicing in facing the contemporary ecological trauma. Between 2017 and 2021, Christoph served as Assistant Professor and Deputy Head of the Institute of Architecture and Landscape, TU Graz, and is currently a Post-Graduate Researcher at GCAS College Dublin, where he completed a second MA in philosophy and psychoanalysis under the supervision of Bracha L. Ettinger in 2020. His research interests include (post-)anthropocenic subjectivity, trauma, political ecology, performative research, non-philosophy, ecofeminism, copoiesis, psychoanalysis, continental philosophy, art theory, and their connection to architecture and the wider planetary space. Christoph’s work has been widely received and appeared in GAM – Graz Architecture Magazine, Ruukku: Studies in Artistic Research, JAR: Journal for Artistic Research, PCS – Psychoanalysis, Culture, Society, and Comparative Literature Studies. He is currently preparing his first monograph on Matrixial Breath and Ettingerian Environmental Ethics, to be published in 2023. 33 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS “BLACK PNEUMA” AND “WORLD BREATH”: RESPIRATORY DIFFERENCE AND BELONGING Tanvi SOLANKI Underwood International College, Yonsei University In my talk, I will explore how my work on the concept and practice of listening to difference could be practiced as “sound art,” forming new communities, or initiating a dialectical relation between alterity and belonging. The German philosopher Herder writes that a Frenchman “draws breath up from his throat” to a lesser extent than an Englishman, or an Italian, and cites travelogues which describe the Yameos as withdrawing their breath while speaking in a way inaccessible to a French geographer (de la Condamine) listening to them. If we take into account cultural difference in the way breathing the same continuum of air establishes community formation – we can think of Ashon Crawley’s phrase, “black pneuma” –how breathing together is a form of sharing, an “ongoing openness to life that is always and exorbi-tantly social,” (Crawley) how would that affect artistic practices globally, and their reception by the ear, and production through breath? Is breathing a kind of “cultural technique” that differs according to who our interlocutor or imagined interlocutor is? Friedrich Kittler called Richard Wagner’s operas “World Breath,” and such a universalizing of what is otherwise a German, culturally particular technique of breathing, an erasure of cultural difference, is connected to Wagner’s nationalistic politics. What are the varying ways to produce and to listen to (contemporary, live) sounds which take into account cultural difference in production and reception of breath, each act of which is situated, non-essentializable, non-identical and relational? Keywords: Sound Studies, listening, media studies, political theory, critical race theory, ethnography, aesthetics, anthropology, breath, philosophy, Black theory, African American Studies Tanvi Solanki is an Assistant Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Yonsei University’s Underwood International College in Seoul, South Korea. Her 34 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS work seeks to relate practices and concepts of what she calls ‘listening to difference’ with the history of philology, the university, anthropology, language politics, and migration. Her research on sound, voice, listening and culture emerges from her dissertation, “Reading as Listening: The Birth of Cultural Acoustics 1744-1802,” about the works of the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. She received her Ph.D. at Princeton University‘s Department of German and her B.A.with high honors in Germanic Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago. She spent two years at Cornell University as a Stanford H. Taylor Postdoctoral Associate prior to her arrival at Yonsei University in 2018. She has been or will be a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Classical Studies at the School of Advanced Study at University College London, the Max Planck Institute of History of Science, and the Humboldt University in Berlin. She has published in a number of peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes including History of European Ideas, Classical Receptions Journal, Germanic Review and German Studies Review and has presented her work in a variety of international, interdisciplinary venues. 35 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS Panel IV ARTISTIC JOURNEYS OF AIR ChAIR: Päivi Järviö Wednesday, June 8, 2022 Pajasali Hall, Suomenlinna island 10.30–12.00 Riikka Theresa Innanen, Antti Nykyri and Leena Rouhiainen: Presenting the Air Journey Bart H. M. Vandeput (Bartaku Art_Research): Intimate Scarification: a bodily mixture of seed, vocal cord, air pipe and plant breath 36 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS PRESENTING THE AIR JOURNEY Riikka Theresa INNANEN Independent artist Antti NYKYRI Independent artist Leena ROUHIAINEN Theatre Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki The Air Journey is an Internet-based audio-visual artwork by three Finnish artists: videographer Riikka Theresa Innanen, sound designer Antti Nykyri and choreographer artist-researcher Leena Rouhiainen. The work approaches the element of the air through its indirect exposure to follow the fact that air is often most tangible through the manner in which other materials and conditions impact its experienced quality. The starting point of the work are short evocative texts. The read texts form the basis of a soundscape and visual design that is meant to prompt audience members, who explore the work via mobile devices, to become sensitive to their embodied relatedness with different aspects of the air and their environment. The work is described by us as a sensuous journey into inter-corporeality afforded by the element of the air. Aside from presenting excerpts of the work, the presentation discusses how the themes of breathing and air acted as motifs in generating the inter-medial artwork – focusing specifically on the manner in which immaterial and material aspects became intertwined in the workings of the piece. Keywords: the element of the air, Internet-based audio-visual artwork, The Air Journey Antti Nykyri is a diverse Helsinki based artist, specialized in interdisciplinary collaborations between arts, education, research and other areas of society. His professional expertise is grounded in sound, sound design, sound art and music. His artworks and collaborations have taken forms of interactive sound installations, 37 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS mobile pieces, musical instruments, poetry applications, light and sound works for public space and performative works such as contemporary dance, theatre and circus. The body of Nykyri‘s work covers 20 years and several dozen pieces. Nykyri has published peer reviewed research articles and held presentations in context of artistic research. He has contributed to education, developing and lecturing university grade art education for several institutions. Riikka Theresa Innanen is Finnish artist working as choreographer, dancer and visual artist. Her work has been exhibited in North America, Europe and West Africa additional to Finland. She has been the featured choreographer of Tanssin Vir-taa dance festival in 2014 and received several grants, including the artist bursary from Svenska Kulturfonden in 2011–12; and received paid residences such as in 1 year in Daghdha Dance Company in Ireland. In May 2016, a documentary film was broadcasted on YLE (Finnish Public Broadcast Company) directed by Barbro Björk-felt. Currently she is focusing on a collective processes and social activism refugees. Since graduating from School for New Dance Development (SNDO), Theatre facul-ty of Amsterdam School of the Arts in Holland in 1997 she has been also curating events such as Side Step festival and taught dance, composition and camera work, most extensively in Amsterdam School of the Arts 1997–2004. Leena Rouhiainen is Professor in Artistic Research at the Theatre Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. She is a dancer and choreographer whose research interests lie in somatics, choreography, experimental writing, phenomenology and artistic research. In recent years she has been developing approaches to writing as artistic research. Together with visual artist Riikka Theresa Innanen and sound artist Antti Nykyri created The Air Journey (2021), an Internet-based art work and with dance artist Kirsi Heimonen, media artist Raimo Uunila and sound artists Antti Nykyri the short film Writing the Shadows as Choreography (2021). She has published articles and co-edited journals and books in these areas, including Dance Spaces: Practices of Movement (2012) with Susanne Ravn, Tanssiva tutkimus: tanssitutkimuksen menetelmiä ja lähestymistapoja (2014) with Hanna Järvinen. She was chair of the board of Nordic Forum for Dance Research (NOFOD) between 2008–2010 and executive board member of Society for Artistic Research (SAR) between 2015–2020. 38 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS INTIMATE SCARIFICATION: A BODILY MIXTURE OF SEED, VOCAL CORD, AIR PIPE AND PLANT BREATH Bart H. M. Vandeput (Bartaku Art_Research) School of Art, Design and Architecture, Aalto University In the proposed talk, the focus lies on the experiences with entangling plants and sapiens through sonic and respiratory vibrations. Seed scarifica-tion is a technique that is used to overcome seed dormancy of the seeds of certain plants. It inspires the artistic approach whereby sapiens vocal cord vibration is manipulated through self-strangling. Creating aerial vibrations that are directed towards the nearby seeds. Would their energetic core respond sproutingly? And, when reporting back to plants, would the vibrational and biochemical quality of breath-wording towards plants impact plant and sa-pientic becoming? Keywords: interspecies signalling, artistic research, ontology Bartaku stands for the art_research practice of Bart H. M. Vandeput (BE/FI). He holds a LIc. in Social Sciences and is Doctor of Arts. Bartaku practice has two decades of collaboration-based experience in tying species and disciplines both within the arts and in-between art, science, and humanities. The workings are fused by plants and inspired by philosophy, science, complexity theories and making_thinking loops. It materializes through interventions, exhibitions, lectures and labs. Since 2007 the relationalities between light, energy and bodies are inquired with the main research strand “PhoEf: The Unidisclosed Poiésis of the Photovoltaic Effect”. Most renowned are the temporary Photoelectric Digestopians Lab series, featuring digestible solar cells, intimately test-tasted on subjective tongues. Natural dye-based solar technology is the medium as well in Blck Vlvt (2020): the first hand-painted solar panel painting, which ties the Baroa belaobara berryapple plant with a painting by JMW Turner. www.bartaku.net 39 Panel V THE NOTHING AND THE VOICE OF BREATH ChAIR: Hilkka-Liisa Vuori Wednesday, June 8, 2022 Pajasali Hall, Suomenlinna island 16.00–17.30 Päivi Järviö: The meaningfulness of nothing: Breathing as an expressive means in the experience of singing Maja Bjelica: Respiratory voicings: Inspiring and conspiring AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS THE MEANINGFULNESS OF NOTHING: BREATHING AS AN EXPRESSIVE MEANS IN THE EXPERIENCE OF SINGING Päivi JÄRVIÖ Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki In this presentation, I will discuss what has often been articulated in the context of musicology as nothing: the moments in singing, which listeners typically perceive as silence, breaking, or the “absence of a sounding note or notes” (Rastall 2001; see also Finscher 2016/1997). For a classical singer, one of the major challenges of vocal technique is the acquiring of a well-functioning, preferably non-noticeable breathing technique that does not affect the flow of music. Consequently, breathing in connection with singing has often been discussed from the point of view of breath control (e.g., Indik 2009; Fleming et al. 2021). A singer might not necessarily even experience the pauses as moments of meaning. In so-called rhetorical music (Haynes 2007), pauses are, however, an essential part of the embodied “speaking in tones” of the singer, and designed by the composer as such. By discussing, and demonstrating upon, an 18th-century recitative frag-ment, this paper focuses on the rhetorical actio and the embodied experience of a singer performing music, in which breathing, and pauses have a function of meaning making as part of the rhetorical actio. The point of being is that of the musician-singer’s own, embodied experience, which – as in the case of breathing – has until recently been largely overlooked in musicological discourse. The discussion unfolds in the context of embodied historiogra-phy, the present-day interpretations on historical performing practices, and that of artistic research. Keywords: singing, breathing, experience, music, pause, silence, meaning, historical performing practices, artistic research References Finscher, Ludwig. 2016/1997. Pause, Begriff. In MGG Online. https://www.mggonline. com/mgg/stable/14850. 41 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS Fleming, Renée, Ingo Titze, and Rachelle Fleming. “The FlemIngo Stance: Resistance Training in Breath Management.” Journal of Singing 78, no. 1 (2021): 83-86. https://dx.doi. org/10.53830/CSKA8292. Haynes, Bruce. The End of Early Music: A Period Performer’s History of Music for the 21st Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Indik, Lawrence. 2009. “The End of Breath for Singing: Exhalation and the Control of Breath at the End of the Phrase.” Journal of Singing 66, no. 2 (2009): 131-140. Rastall, Richard. 2001. “Rest.” In Grove Music Online. https://www.oxfordmusiconline. com/grovemusic/ Päivi Järviö, mezzo-soprano, D. Mus. (PhD), specializes in the singing, researching, and teaching of Baroque and Renaissance music. She has performed as a soloist with numerous baroque ensembles and orchestras in Finland as well as abroad. Her recordings include music by Claudio Monteverdi, Luigi Rossi, Henry Purcell, and Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco. She has coached singers, choirs, ensembles and conductors. In her doctoral thesis (2011) she studied the embodied performing practice of Italian Early Baroque vocal music, and is currently working as university lecturer at the DocMus Doctoral School (Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts, Helsinki). As post-doc, she worked (2012) as a senior fellow in the Artistic Experimentation in Music research project at the Orpheus Institute (Gent, Belgium). Her research focuses on the embodied present-day practice of performing early vocal music and the history of early music performance in Finland. 42 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS RESPIRATORY VOICINGS: INSPIRING AND CONSPIRING Maja BJELICA Science and Research Centre Koper, Slovenia This research paper is attuned to following echoes of airy resonances of thoughts of philosophers of breath, such as Luce Irigaray and Emanuel Levi-nas, philosophers of listening, such as Jean-Luc Nancy and Lisbeth Lipari, and sound creators and researchers as Pauline Oliveros and Helen Phelan. These echoes are connected in consonant ways to address inquiries upon breath and its voicings, voices and their inspiring, inspirations with songs, singing conspirations, conspiring with the more-than-human respiratory world, respiring cohabitations and other airy clouds of thoughts. These windy reverberations are listened to through exploring embodied experiences of voices, brought to sound by breathing itself. Keywords: breathing, voice, sound, listening, air, intersubjectivity, community, elementality, environment Maja Bjelica, PhD, is an associate researcher at the Science and Research Centre Koper’s Institute for Philosophical Studies. Currently she is working on the research programme on liminal spaces or areas of cultural and societal cohabitation and a research project on biosocial philosophical literacy. She obtained her doctoral degree in 2018 at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Primorska, Slovenia, with the dissertation “A Philosophical-anthropological Study of the Possibilities of the Ethics of Hospitality: Breath, Silence and Listening in Spaces of Intersubjectivity”. She transdisciplinarily cross-pollinates philosophical, musicological and anthropological research in themes of ethics of listening, ethics of hospitality, (applied) eth-nomusicology and (community) music. 43 AiRTISTIC RESEARCH INTERVENTIONS AIRING Monday, June 6, 2022 Chamber Music Hall, Sibelius Academy 16.45 Kajsa Dahlbäck: The singer’s inner work: in practice and theory Lecture concert, in collaboration with Aapo Häkkinen 18.15 Chris Harker: Pneuma An audio-visual meditation on the breath Michael Schmid: A Lung Full of Ears Collective con-spiratory AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS THE SINGER’S INNER WORK: IN PRACTICE AND THEORY Kajsa DAHLBÄCK Centre for Artistic Research, University of the Arts Helsinki In my lecture concert I will perform French baroque music with harpsi-chordist Aapo Häkkinen. Together with this music I will discuss the concept of singing-in-the-world, based on Heidegger’s being-in-the-world as well as Škof’s and Berndtson’s breathing-in-the-world. The singer’s instrument has a practice-based foundation in body–breath– mind, the triadic concept from where I study the phenomenological singing-in-the-world. As I will show, the singer’s inner work does not separate the different sides of the triadic concept, instead they appear as one concept with three sides. Within this concept, the body will awaken from chora (Kristeva, Plato), the breath from inspiration and the mind resonates with touch. Many internationally renowned singers speak of the importance of breath for singing – Magda Olivero answered “fiato, fiato e poi fiato” (“breath, breath and then breath”) on the question of which are the three most important techni-cal features for the singer to learn. I see the breath connecting the singer to the meaning and interpretation of the song as well as to the musicians and audience. To manage this process the singer needs the whole triadic concept of body–breath–mind. The singer’s instrument is one in constant change and so is also body–mind–breath. In practice, employing the triadic concept within ensemble work will show as a feeling of breathing together – forming the phrase and meaning together. Together with Aapo Häkkinen I will perform music by composers such as Julie Pinel and Joseph Chabanceau de la Barre. Keywords: singing-in-the-world, singing, early music, breath, phenomenology, artistic research Kajsa Dahlbäck, soprano, SMus, is an experienced interpreter of early and contemporary music. She has performed worldwide on festivals such as Herrenchiem-see Festspiele (Germany), Bolzano festival (Italy), Musica Antigua (Brazil) and Bre-48 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS zice festival (Slovenia). Dahlbäck has sung with many high profile orchestras such as Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, Finnish Baroque Orchestra and Tapiola Sinfonietta. She is the winner of the Culture prize 2022 by Svenska folkskolans vänner, in the prize motivation it is written: ”She is one of the best in her genre, and her breathtakingly virtuous recordings have received attention both in her home country and internationally. Dahlbäck is the founder and artistic leader of Vaasa Baroque, an early music festival, since 2013. In 2016 she founded the early music ensemble Earthly Angels which for its first album has been awarded with YLE Album of the Year 2018. Dahlbäck has been successful in voice competitions both in Finland and abroad, such as Lappeen-ranta 2008 AsLiCo (Italy) 2007 and Kangasniemi 2004. She studied at the Sibelius Academy (church music) and Högskolan for scen och musik (Gothenburg university, opera) and received her artistic doctoral exam from the Sibelius Academy at the University of the Arts Helsinki. More information on Ms Dahlbäck’s professional activities can been found on www.kajsadahlback.com. 49 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS PNEUMA Chris HARKER For centuries, the enterprise of civilization sought to detach humankind from the wider system that is nature, both philosophically and physically. The harrowing images of deforestation, for instance, figure as one symbol of such detachment, for it is not only the destruction of complex biospheres but also of our very foundation of life. The world’s forests are essential to life. Just as we, they are themselves immersed in an intricate circle of inhalation and exhalation – our lungs diffuse oxygen into the blood and expel carbon dioxide as we breathe out; green plants absorb carbon dioxide during pho-tosynthesis and release oxygen into the atmosphere. The fundamental nature of breathing can be understood as a means of breathing in the external world, indicating the inevitable entanglement of our existence to the earth. Realized in 2020, Pneuma, is a meditation on the breath. The work in-terweaves reflections from different thinkers concerned with the nature of breathing, such as Lenart Škof, Petri Berndtson, Hartmut Rosa and Sam Har-ris. The viewer is invited to partake in an audio-visual meditation through an effigy of a forest in order to simultaneously ponder its life-giving force as well as its connectedness to everyone that is breathing. As a visual means the work employs the use of a point cloud, the result of a LiDAR (light detection and ranging) scanning device put to use whilst scanning parts of a forest, kindly provided by the National Land Survey of Finland. Chris Harker is a photographer based in Bern, Switzerland. In 2020 he completed his Master of Photography at the University of Art and Design in Lausanne (ECAL). Since 2015 he has been photographing human and natural landscapes. His later work is primarily concerned with the notion of anthropocentrism and explores different understandings of being on this earth. 50 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS A LUNG FULL OF EARS Michael SCHMID Ictus ensemble A Lung Full of Ears is an interactive video-work in which the audience is presented with a set of silent instructions on a movie screen. The manipula-tion of their breathing patterns produces significant emotional feeling states. The work addresses the sonic from different respiratory angles. The intimate act of listening is brought into the public by means of an abstracted silent film. Michael Schmid is a performer, musician and flutist specializing in contemporary experimental music. A fixed member of the Belgian Ictus Ensemble and as freelancer he has worked with most of the major European New Music Ensembles as chamber musician and soloist. Next to his activity as flutist he appears as performer of concrete poetry, builds sound installations and conceives sound pieces. Michael has performed the “Ursonate” of Kurt Schwitters over 100 times worldwide, including the Venice Biennale and the documenta 13. A film of his interpretation is part of the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou, Paris. In 2015 he founded the project BREATHCORE, which has been an ongoing investigation of the dynamics of breath within a social, artistic and political context. Recent collaborations include projects with choreographers Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (Rosas), Boris Charmatz, Jerôme Bel, Daniel Linehan, visual artist Manon de Boer (documenta 13; Vienna Secession), composer Georges Aperghis, designer Brynjar Sigurdarson (Lafayette Anticipation, Paris) and theatre maker Kris Verdonck. Michael is artistic adviser of the ictus Ensemble, Brussels. 51 BREATHING Tuesday, June 7, 2022 9.00–10.30 Pajasali Hall, Suomenlinna island Michael Schmid: BREATHCORE Breathing workshop 14.10–15.10 HIAP, Suomenlinna island Eeva-Liisa Puhakka: Leave the Body, Leave the Mind Interactive artistic presentation AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS BREATHCORE Michael SCHMID Ictus ensemble The project BREATHCORE has been an ongoing investigation of the dynamics of breath within a social, artistic and political context. Michael Schmid, musician and performer, initiated the project in 2015. The use of breath as a performative tool bares interesting challenges and frictions. As the only vital function we have a say over, it needs to serve two functions: the instinct and the will. BREATHCORE explores this grey-zone in terms of physicality, emotional-ity, individuality and collectivity. A special focus will lay on the question how breath is and can be a communicator. The workshop focuses on breathing exercises from various cultures and traditions, nonverbal synchronization and listening techniques. The aim is to create an alternate, complementary resonating space to the theoretical part of the symposium by consciously putting breath into practice. 53 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS LEAVE THE BODY, LEAVE THE MIND Eeva-Liisa PUHAKKA Artist in Residence HIAP Suomenlinna Artist of Kouvola city 2020-2022 Smell and hold your breath. Unlike the other senses, smell extends across space and reaches into our bodies. We smell before we see. Our ability to smell connects us to the animalistic acts of the body, but also almost every religion uses fragrances to create a sense of spirituality. Our ability to smell is exceedingly mundane and magical at the same time. Odours have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odour cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. Scents evaporate over time. They are temporary, but leave a permanent mark on our memory. In my interactive artistic presentation I present an audio-olfactory installation called “Leave the body, leave the mind” and tell about my artistic research and investigation of the body and the senses, aesthetics, and the cultural perception and construction of the sense of smell. Eeva-Liisa Puhakka works in mediums that include kinetic sculptures, video, installations, bio art and olfactory art. Puhakka was a founding member of Scent Club Berlin, a collective of artists, designers and scientists working in and between scents and smells and these fields of practice. A specific focus in her work in last years have been the rural depopulation, recycling old machineries and making bioplastics. A big theme in her work is the investigation of human and animal dependence. Eeva-Liisa Puhakka graduated with an MFA in New Media Art from Valand School of Fine Arts, University of Gothenburg (2009) and an MSc in Environmental Engi-neering from Helsinki University of Technology (2001). Puhakka’s works have been widely presented in exhibitions across world. She got the artist of Kouvola city prize for years 2020-22 and was invited to do a solo museum exhibition in Kouvola art 54 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS museum in summer 2021. She is a resident artist in Helsinki International Artist Programme (HIAP) Suomenlinna in 2022. www. eeva-liisa.net 55 RESPIRING Wednesday, June 8, 2022 9.00–10.00 Pajasali Hall, Suomenlinna island Petri Berndtson: Philosophical Breathwork in Theory and in Praxis Experiential lecture 12.00–12.30 Pajasali Hall, Suomenlinna island Bart H. M. Vandeput (Bartaku Art_Research): Retinal-alian Group Hum: breathing-sounding the retinal code Multibody sonic performance 14.30–15.30 Suomenlinna Church, Suomenlinna island Hilkka-Liisa Vuori: Generous singing: towards the pedagogy of listening Embodied sonorous dialogue 18.00–19.00 Pajasali Hall, Suomenlinna island Miriam Jakob and Jana Unmüßig: Breathing Sideways Participatory lecture essay AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS PHILOSOPHICAL BREATHWORK IN THEORY AND IN PRAXIS Petri BERNDTSON Science and Research Centre Koper, Slovenia In my workshop, I will give an introduction to Philosophical Breathwork in theory and in praxis. In Philosophical Breathwork, we work experientially and practically in consultation with breathing and elemental air in a philosophical manner. Since the ancient Greeks’ “philosophy” has meant “the love of wisdom” and “the art of wonder”. I take these basic philosophical ideas to mean that Philosophical Breathwork is the love of wisdom of the breath and the art of wonder of the breath. If we reinterpret the principles of philosophy in this kind of respiratory manner, we can begin to establish an abso-lutely new way of philosophizing. In Phenomenology of Perception, Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes: “Experience anticipates a philosophy as philosophy is nothing but an elucidated experience.” If we were to interpret the word “experience” in this sentence as aero-respiratory experience, we could trans-form this sentence to say: aero-respiratory experience anticipates a philosophy as this new philosophy is nothing but an elucidated aero-respiratory experience. So could we become philosophical students of the experience of breathing (lovers of the wisdom of the breath and wonderers of the breath) and thus let the breath teach us a new philosophy that it alone can reveal to us? In the workshop, we will briefly explore how could this type of experiential cultivation of breathing reanimate our philosophical ideas about the atmospheres of our being-in-the-world (for example, subjectivity, spatiality, temporality, communality) and re-evaluate and deconstruct the traditional dichotomies of philosophy (for example, inner-outer, silence-sound/language, voluntary-involuntary, sensible-intelligible, visible-invisible, active-passive, self-other, mind-body, consciousness-world). Keywords: respiratory philosophy, phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty, breathwork, meditation 57 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS Petri Berndtson works as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Philosophical Studies at ZRS Koper, Slovenia. He coedited the first anthology of respiratory philosophy titled Atmospheres of Breathing (SUNY Press, 2018). Berndtson’s upcom-ing book is titled Phenomenological Ontology of Breathing (Routledge, 2022) and it will be the first publication of a new book series “Routledge Critical Perspectives on Breath and Breathing”. The field of Berndtson’s research is respiratory philosophy. In addition to his theoretico-philosophical work on breathing, he has also invented practical methods of breathing called “Philosophical Breathwork” and “Mindfunful-ness”. Homepage: https://zrs-kp.academia.edu/PetriBerndtson; YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRwDkNaYdkUBRkQ2YmSn6zg 58 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS RETINAL-ALIAN GROUP HUM: BREATHING-SOUNDING THE RETINAL CODE Bart H. M. Vandeput (Bartaku Art_Research) School of Art, Design and Architecture, Aalto University The Retinal-alian Group Hum is a joyful experimental sonic performance with fellow participants. It is inspired by current inquiries involving airborne microorganisms. In this experiment I invite the participants to focus on the moving particles in their eyes, and translate them intuitively nonsensically sonically, fully present, using their body as sound generator. I will prepare them for 11min, after which we perform collectively for 11min. Duration: 22min – 11min preparation and 11min performing. The ses-sion will be recorded. Imagined audiences are sapiens, plants and microbiomes. 59 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS GENEROUS SINGING: TOWARDS THE PEDAGOGY OF LISTENING Hilkka-Liisa VUORI Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki Audi filia – Listen daughter; so begins the rule in the oldest religious order, the Benedictines. It is commonly interpreted as a reference to obedi-ence. In this presentation, I understand it to be an order to listen. Listening as a form of being as a member of a community. Saint Birgitta of Sweden (1303‒1373) wanted the sisters in her order to chant first of all with unisono in their minds, and as a consequence of this the unisono would transfer to their voices as well. These two religious perspectives: listening as a way of being and unisono as a way of mind in chanting become a reality in the space built for chanting, a medieval church. The act of listening happens through the sensitivity of the whole body. My aim in this workshop is to bring into practice the way of listening singing with the help of the acoustics of a church. Suomenlinna church is not a medieval church, but its resonance is perfect for the workshop. It was originally built for Orthodox liturgy, which is purely based on human voice, singing. The hospitality and the generosity in singing is built up with body gestures. The sound is produced with an active body, hands respectfully reaching towards specific points on the wall, on the pillars, in the archs. Every sound one makes is present in the intonation of a fingertip aimed to meet the material. The throat and the fingertips work together in harmony, actively listening to the echo, which they continue with another sound. This creates a generous, sonorous dialogue. Welcome to join the workshop. The material used consists of intervals and scales based on natural harmonics, and melodies sung with vowel sounds. Keywords: listening, acoustics, medieval, generosity, sonorous dialogue, embodyment, resonance, vowels 60 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS Hilkka-Liisa Vuori, DMus, is a singer, teacher and a researcher in Gregorian chant. She teaches chants as a freelance pedagogue but also in Sibelius Academy. She sings chants with singer Johanna Korhonen in duo Vox Silentii, (14 cds since 1992). In addition to her interest in acoustical listening experiences in medieval churches, she is specialised in the body resonance and meditation with voice. She has developed a method of BirthSound – relaxing singing in the childbirth (Edita publishing 2005). At the moment she is also working in the senior homes with the concept of “singing, touching and presence” (funded by Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council). Her latest scholarly works are about the medieval offices of St Thomas Aquinas (Finnish Society of Church History 2020; DocMus, Sibelius Academy 2019), and about the pedagogy of listening (Kokos publications, Theatre Academy Finland 2020). Her present research with Gregorian chants consists of medieval chants from the office of the archangel Michael. 61 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS BREATHING SIDEWAYS Miriam JAKOB Independent artist Jana UNMÜSSIG Theatre Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki Breathing Sideways is an artistic research lecture where the two artist-researchers Miriam Jakob and Jana Unmüßig ponder on their artistic research project “Breathing With” (2020-2021) that they have conducted in the frame of a shared fellowship at the Berlin Artistic Research Grant Program. Within “Breathing With” Jakob and Unmüßig have investigated into various repercussions of “breathing as an intra active phenomenon” (Górska) that suggests worlding as a practice of entanglement of humans and more-than-humans. Having followed the research methodology of meandering, they have integrated sound as means to record and disseminate their findings. In Breathing Sideways Jakob and Unmüßig lead through an archipelago of experiential layers, sounds, and breathing practices combined with a reading of selected passages of a publication they are currently working on (to be published by Errant Bodies Press Berlin, Dec 2022). The lecture shifts between different modalities of attention by constantly alternating between live spoken words and sound tracks that were recorded by sound artist Felix Claßen who accompanied their research trajectory 2020-2021. So that a conversation between the recorded materials and the life reading/ instructions emerges and discloses the different voices and breathings that accompanied “Breathing With”. Attendants of the lecture are considered participants and are invited to try out the breath instructions, if they want to. The space will be filled with stools for participants to sit on. The stools are used for the Perceptible Breath work of Ilse Middendorf, a practice Jakob and Unmüßig have been investigating in their research “Breathing With”. Keywords: Artistic Research, Meandering, Listening, Polyvocal, Perceptual Breathwork (Middendorf) 62 AIRY ENCOUNTERS: RESPIRATORY PHILOSOPHY AND SOUND ARTS Miriam Jakob is a Berlin-based performer, choreographer with a background in anthropology. She holds an MA in Anthropology from the Free University Berlin and a MA in Choreography from DAS at the Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam. More info: www.miriamjakob.com Jana Unmüßig is a Helsinki-based artist with a background in dance and choreography. She holds a D.A. (dance) from the Theater Academy of Uniarts Helsinki and works as a lecturer at the MA Choreography, Uniarts Helsinki. She is visiting researcher at Performing Arts Research Center of Uniarts Helsinki. More info: www.jana- -unmussig.com. 63 ISBN 978-961-7058-86-4 Document Outline _Hlk100826752 _Hlk100826745 x__Hlk39781277 _Hlk100824647 _Hlk100824948 _Hlk100824975 _Hlk100826915 _Hlk100826907