| Summary: | In this thesis I offer a philosophy and a performance practice of the ear. It is a theoretical reflection as well as a discussion on my hearing/listening and performance practice, research and workshops. Here is where sound and the body move and perform by relating to the constantly changing acoustic environment. It is an enquiry into and a corporeal experience of sound as the ear body, a bodied experience of sound and listening where the whole body becomes an ear. This is explored through my experience of chronic tinnitus, a criticism of over-determined technology and through a discussion on the trance-dance therapy of Tarantism. With a focus on environmental awareness, this thesis is an ecophenomenological investigation in my theory of site contingency, where I connect my ecophenomenological approach to contingency – contingency intended as a necessary experience of the world – and to acoustic ecology. It offers a methodology for performance-making, also through workshops. They are a ground for shared mutual experience and contribution, with participants from different backgrounds and abilities, and are also a pedagogical instrument, for students and others, in the form of a ‘training’ practice of the ear. This methodology becomes a basis for what I call site-contingent performance, where sound is intended and experienced as relation and as contingency. The kinaesthetics of sound is exemplified in ‘aural choreography,’ a moving by following environmental sounds, and where the experience of contingency is also in the practice of ‘earlines’ drawing; a form of performance and of acoustic documentation.
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