Anne Bourne

sound artist / ecooacoustic composer, improvising cellist, vocalist / trustee, faculty, advisor, creative consultant

Through listening walks, I have observed the coalescence of elemental difference — light to water, water to land, the soil/ mycelium to trees, the minerals and species of the ocean floor in the dark, to the surface, illuminated by subaqueous light. Through attunement to the currents and wave patterns water makes, I experience an expression of time, and a sonic ontology of water.

I offer listening walks and deep listening sonic experiences, compose intermedia works, to draw experiential sensory awareness to the ocean this planet is. My endeavour to hold a reciprocal presence with water.

Lately I have been asked to lead listening walks on post extractivist wastelands (BochumDE mining slag ) near toxic bodies of water (HamiltonCA) and Biidaasige (Toronto CA) I am developing creative ritual and the potential to use seismic and hydro microphones to give voice to the renaturalization process of each location. In Venice I performed with Symbiotic Lab who streams live a river as cocomposer.

In September I was a guest of the Emily Harvey Foundation in Venice and in October aligned with Pietro Consolandi‘s Rights of Nature Collective to field record and learn of the initiatives to grant personhood to the Laaguna Venezia. I was welcomed by Ocean Space to research solo cello compositions within the acoustics of the Chiesa San Lorenzo. In exchange and in gratitude for TBA21 OceanUNI open source ocean literacy, I performed for the Citizens Assembly gathering at Ocean Space curated by Pietro Consolandi, concurrent to the start of the Bienale Musica in Venice.

As a mentor at the Center for Deep Listening I correspond with participants, here is a recent response —

Thank you for your reflection . Pauline referred to the world's sonic environment affectionately as the sonosphere, one of the atmospheres, equally important. Your ruminations, with the writings of Pauline as a point of departure, are vast and seem to open worlds of understanding to you. .. To be heard, as much as always sounding, in terms of presence, is something you can be assured of, and pay a reciprocal attention to. I find the distinction between memory and imagination enables one to travel on the space time continuum. Some of the terms from early quantum physics need to be rephrased with the current level of perception , especially as one like you have now devoted to deepening presence and perception .. I wonder if when we remember a place we love, our physiology adjusts as if we are there, and when we imagine we move from past to future presence .. Perhaps it is not that you can imagine a sound you have never heard, but that you may welcome a sound you have never noticed or attended to. My experience is that if Pauline asked for precision, it was because she sensed the experience possible was not being felt or achieved .. Her call for precision was to allow a deepening of the experience, within simple parameters . Joy is indeed possible within the precision .. and at the same time it was essential to Pauline that creativity was a response, that we all create new deep listening pieces to offer experiences of our unique perception and ways of being .. This is such a remarkably beautiful poetic ending : 'two beautiful teachings that arose were that smiling for me comes with an exhale, and that tears make no sound as they roll on my cheeks...' Thank you for your articulation of a deepened practice and a joyous experience. Anne

Listening Walk photo: Care for the Stranded, cetaceans, scientists, each other..

Learning Endings: Astrida Neimanis, Patty Chang and Aleksija Neimanis Puget Sound, Pacific Ocean, Lincoln Park, West Seattle