Sonic Spectral Summoning

Sonic Spectral Summoning is an audio and text work, taking the form of a series of 'lessons' and 'fieldwork' sessions, exploring the relationship between the sonic and spectrality and using the voice as a conducting medium. The work was commissioned by Queer Extension, a project exploring alternative, non-institutional art education aimed at participants who may feel marginalised from mainstream art institutions. The final audio and text work was developed through correspondence with a series of online participants during the March 2021 Covid lockdown. In February 2022 the work will be broadcast by the Glasgow-based radio arts festival Radiophrenia, and a text from the work is forthcoming from Contemporary Theatre Review.

Project Description:

This learning experience is aimed at equipping participants with the tools necessary to identify, isolate and summon your own ghostly spectre from the acoustic atmosphere of your choice. Every ringtone, white noise machine, laptop fan or refrigerator buzz has the potential to contain a latent haunting. Every inside joke, gossip circuit and open secret might, if you listen the right way, have the capacity to raise the dead. Drawing on common affects like revenge, melancholy and ecstatic force to tune your senses, you will develop a sensitivity to wraiths, apparitions, and lingering presences.