Arts for Social Change
This online program offers guided sound and movement scores for harmonizing self and other in collaboration with the more-than-human world
currently enrolling for the period
12 November 2022 - 21 January 2023
walks in the continuous field is an environmental sound, breath and listening practice designed to help humans cultivate a social relationship with the more-than-human world. It combines written prompts, explanatory and inspirational writing, media, and collective workshop experiences to create a community of learners and makers committed to greater harmony with our lived environment.
walks in the continuous field is also an ongoing collaborative research project that asks questions about our collective role in the wider life of the planet. What makes us human? What is the relationship between systems that oppress animals and plants and similar oppressive structures that constrain and damage humans? Can the rift that separates our social lives from the social life of nature be repaired and by what processes? walks in the continuous field will be a living document, library and resource for all of its participants as we navigate these and other questions together.
the reflective process of art-making brings us into conversation with our materials and methods, and ultimately with our own core values and beliefs. by centering the more-than-human world within an artistic process, we effectively turn the lens both outward to the larger environment, and inward to confront the nature of our own participation and being-in-common with the larger reality of our lived environment. the outcomes which arise from these processes can be both powerful and unpredictable. in my life, it has set me down a path that I now feel compelled to follow, even though I sometimes find myself reluctant to walk it as I cling to old ways and comforts.
walks in the continuous field runs as a rolling series of three month blocks. The subscription includes access to all project materials, including chat and message support in the Basecamp environment in your own time, and admission to a monthly Zoom workshop. Workshops will initially be held on Zoom with the possibility of in-person or hybrid events to follow. Course materials will be adapted and expanded as the research develops and there will be opportunities for motivated students to form research groups of their own to explore particular topics. I am eager, for instance, to launch a focus on bird sounds and behaviour when the opportunity arises. Where are your interests? This is a great place to come and find out.
Dylan Bolles is a music composer and performer. He spent 6 life-changing years living in a tent in Northern California with his wife, four children and two dogs. He recently moved with his family to Vermont, escaping the fires and drought, and now resides on a rural, off-grid land cooperative where is he working with farmers, foresters, and interested locals on caring for 600 acres of conserved forestland. He received his Doctorate in Performance Studies from the University of California, Davis where he studied inter-disciplinary and inter-cultural collaboration and a Taoist chi cultivation system. He is also a founding member of Thingamajigs Performance Group, a long-running and long-playing composer's collective out of Oakland, California.
My intention in developing this course is to provide tools towards the cultivation of deeper human relationships with the more-than-human world. In addition, this course is an opportunity to assemble a committed group of humans to share experiences, challenges, revelations and hopes as they arise in this process, and to provide important feedback on how to best communicate these new/old ideas. Lastly, this course is designed to open out the many aspects of sound energy at work in our daily interactions and to strengthen our uses of this energy in our music, speech, listening and other day to day activities.
