Collaborative Listening and Cultural Difference in Contemporary Art
Abstract
The research represented in this thesis has a relationship with my sustained interest in the subject of cultural difference that typified my earlier artistic practice. During my Ph.D. studies in Art and Visual Culture at Western University, I have advanced new perspectives on this problematic by elaborating on the potentialities of listening in dialogic and collaborative artistic practice. It comprises the discussion about the projects and activities developed within my doctoral studies, according to two main and related purposes. The first is the examination of hegemonic practices of production of meaning regarding cultural difference with a backdrop of the social, cultural and historical processes that underlie the constitution of the space of modernity in my home country, Ecuador, one of the five nations that integrate the Andean region. The second is the analysis of artistic and collaborative activities where the cultivation of modes of listening (sounding implication, acoustic presence) foregrounds subaltern agency and the production of community. These preoccupations inform the analytical core of the two essays composing my thesis. Mountains and Rivers without End––a collaborative project involving artists and scholars from Canada and Ecuador in research on the historical, social, and environmental effects of mining in the district of Portovelo and Zaruma in Ecuador. Soundscape Pasochoa––a collaborative project developed in collaboration with José Sangoquiza that expand critical perspectives on the practice of the soundscapes to focus on the conditions for subaltern cultural production in the Valle of the Chillos, Pichincha province (Ecuador). A second section involving the presentation of my practice dossier includes documentation of the art projects and activities carried out during my doctoral studies. It also provides a brief discussion of the conceptual lines of the activities I carried out while being part of the research team of Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador. A comprehensive documentation of these projects and activities is found at https://ulises-unda-phd.squarespace.com/.