Listening scores
Stijn Dickel made three listening scores for The Listening Bureau.
In 2025, they appeared along with several other texts by international listening enthusiasts in the publication Anthology for Listening Vol. II.
Read and ... Listen!
The Bureau for Listening proudly presents Anthology for Listening Vol. II, a transdisciplinary and experimental collection of critical and artistic engagements with listening as both a practice and a way of being. This second volume extends an invitation to engage deeply with the transformative, creative, and political dimensions of listening across diverse mediums and perspectives.
The listening stretch
Listen high,
listen low
listen far,
listen close
Listen small,
listen big
Listen in front
and behind
Listen actively,
listen passively
Listen associatively,
listen unraveling
Listen now,
listen later
Listen here
and there
Listen as yourself
and as someone else
And / or get distracted
and just resonate…
Ode to sound
they tremble and shiver
twinkle and rumble
thunder, wander, murmur
sounds are born
and they die
they jump and fall
or whirl around
sometimes they are rushed
sometimes sluggish
sometimes they’re greedy
and hungry
they whine
squabble or screech for help
they wink
or comfort and embrace
sometimes they spy on me
and announce a menace
or notify me of a potential storm
they play, flirt and mate
to fresh vibrations
to lascivious reflections
I breathe them in
and allow myself to be freely surprised
by the sonorous stage
I breathe them out
and allow these fellow travelers
to plug into my quiet skin
Carry a sound part 1
Choose a place with a special atmosphere.
A place with a meaningful quality.
Make a recording of that place.
Choose a certain duration.
Put the recording on repeat and play it back via a bluetooth speaker.
Listen to the place within the place…
Try different spots in the room to listen.
Try different spots in the room to put the speaker.
Take your time and keep on listening. Omni-directional.
Hide the speaker in a backpack and carry the sound with you.
Listen to how the sound changes other places.
Listen to how other places change the sound.
Listen to how the sound interacts with silence, with the wind, with a car passing by.
While carrying the sound,
Listen to how the sound modulates. How it reflects in different acoustics.
Listen to how your body (partially) absorbs the sound. Listen to how it feels.
Take the sound with you to the pub, to the mall, to a friends' garden.
Eat, sleep and shower with the sound.
Listen to how it becomes familiar.
Listen to how it alienates others.
Stop the recording.
Go back to the original place.
And listen to how your listening has changed.
Carry a sound part 2
Do the same exercise as ‘Carry a sound part 1’, but without electronic devices.
Your embodied memory becomes the carrying device…