The Sense of Common Self
A collective and experimental research framework

This gathering proposes one day of collective and experimental research through the activation of an ecology of research practices in action. This methodical approach consists in jointly carrying out an organized set of aesthetic research practices interconnected with those of a discursive-propositional kind.

Open to the participation of researchers from all artistic and scholarly disciplines, this research dispositive addresses one of today’s most acute questions: How can we live together? This question can be made more precise by asking: How can we conceive of alternatives to the concept of community as a contract between individuals? How can we explore and realize forms of togetherness that dynamically integrate the individual and the common, enabling and preserving diverse forms of selfhood? How can a collectivity find its own view and its own voice? How can we together activate practices that facilitate these processes? How might these practices bring about the sensitive forms of awareness required to reflect (on) these dynamics?

Drawing on an enactivist approach, three concepts are proposed as catalysts to tackle these questions: the common self (a variety of togetherness emerging from the interdependence between individuals), the sense of the common self (the flow of significance that a common self enacts), and aesthetic practices of reflective co-involvement.

Researchers are invited to inquire collectively into these notions within an ecology of research practices in action, to navigate an experimental research setting together, to co-shape a joint process of sense-making as a way of undertaking fundamental and transformative research on democracy.

Participation for the whole duration of the gathering is encouraged and recommended.

To allow for a participatory research dynamic, the maximum number of participants is 20.

The Sense of Common Self is an aesthetic research project by Alex Arteaga as part of How to Live Together in Sound? Towards Sonic Democracy. This sharing has been conceived and will be facilitated by Alex Arteaga, Emma Cocker, Kirsi Heimonen, and Taneli Tuovinen, with the participation of Leena Rouhiainen and Esa Kirkkopelto.

The Sense of Common Self on the uniarts website

Sharing Artistic Research Modules:
Many Voices, Sonic Shift, Nichephony, and Living Through

The second day of the How to Live Together in Sound? event brings together four modules of artistic research that address the notion of sonic commons with different approaches.

This sharing event aims to actively engage with the audience about sonic commons based on installation and performative forms that expose traces of relational sound exploration. Questions include: How do we relate to our environments and the others, human and non-human companions? How can we be actively engaged without imposing and interfering? How can we live our listening and sounding presence in a shared way?

This session is dedicated to contributions from four artistic researchers, who share their own forms and approaches on investigating the central theme of how we can live together within shared sonic environments.

The topics of the four ‘project-modules’ range from exploring our listening to sounds of human and non-human companions in everyday life through writing and visual thinking (Erkkilä-Hill), to investigating sonic awareness in urban environments (Schacher), to developing non-intrusive music performances that maintain the balance of a sonic environment (Kuljuntausta), to an installation that demonstrates communications about shared experiences in ecological systems (Rinne).

In a series of readings, performances, sound installations, and dialogues, the project group invites the audience as active conversation partners in exploring how to move towards sonic commons and democratization processes.

Living in the world of many voices, Jaana Erkkilä-Hill

Jaana Erkkilä-Hill approaches the question How to live together in sound through explorations in creative writing and visual thinking. She offers a reading on living together with human and non-human companions, listening to the sounds of everyday life. After her reading, she invites all participants to a short writing / drawing session and to share our response to the sonic environment that we are in at the moment.

Sonic shift - transitions in sound relations within our lived environments, Jan Schacher

Shared listening and awareness of the sonic environment are two of the axes investigated in this module. The lived environment includes the urban context that is shaped by forces remaining unconcerned with the sonic dimension. Through investigating what we hear, how we hear, and how our presence as listeners in the places of our urban lives is structured, the focus is on the experience of the commons, that which we collectively experience, shape, and share.

By offering a moment of shared listening in the environment around Musiikkitalo, the notion of togetherness in listening is anchored in a conversation serving as co-research with the audience.

Nichephony: Towards Environmentally Conscious Music Performance, Petri Kuljuntausta

Nichephony is a composition-oriented research approach, that provides a methodological basis and allows a sound artist, composer, or musician to carry out a performance as part of a soundscape in a way that their presence with sounds does not disturb the acoustic balance of the environment. The module explores how a sound maker affects the environment and animal vocalizations / communication.

Based on recordings of performances made by Petri Kuljuntausta in natural surroundings of Helsinki in spring 2024, the audience is invited to experience a sound installation as well as a live performance and a graphic notation, illustrating the collected sound events. By sharing the starting points and goals of the module, insights are collected for the coming repeated explorations of musical niches in sonic environments.

Living Through: Shared experiences communication, Jari Rinne

The idea of living through nature stresses the dynamic character of nature communications. This module focuses on the functioning and use of communications for life-sustaining processes. Lay people are invited to share and produce sonic elements appropriate to their specific felt sense and practices in their ‘naturehoods.’ The goal is to share sonic dimensions of meaningful things, places, and spaces through a process of ‘sonic pickings’ carried out in the region of North Ostrobothnia.

The outcomes of these processes are shown in a sound installation that demonstrates acoustic lenses, as natural material’s agency in sound transformation. In addition, a transposition of the primary encounters in nature are provided in the form of reflective, conceptual sonic poems.