July 2021, online, Center of Experimental Humanities
 

Listening as Doorways to Futures was a collaborative sound collage that resists recent cultural and sociological claims that humanity is experiencing the ‘End of Imagination’.

Whether German sociologist Harald Welzer, cultural critic Mark Fisher or writer Arundhati Roy—a widespread claim that humans fail to imagine other worlds mingles through the academic cosmos.

However, what if other worlds are out there, but just not visible with the current method of exploration? What if the empirical, data-driven and rigid scientific approach simply does not allow for other systems to be perceived, just as the image-centred world ignores other forms of experiencing? This workshop aimed to counter the claim of a loss of imagination and will exercise sound as a portal to different worlds by conglomerating field recordings from ten participants across the globe who aim to answer one simple question: can sounds open doorways ?

The project took place in form of two workshops with artists Chloe Kelly and Julian Willming.
 

We are grateful for the financial and strategic support by the Center of Experimental Humanities at the Open Society University Network and Central European University.