Shows
conscient podcaste225 hildegard westerkamp – when we were youngThe first thing that comes to mind is my young activist in me that says, of course, let's just fight. Let's just do what we can to speak out against, be revolutionary, be, you know, like we were when we were young in the 60s, 70s. Now I think that my response is to stop and to slow down and to do some deep listening and some meditation and to ground myself because I don't know what to do at this point in time, at all.My second conscient conversation with composer and acoustic ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp. The first...2025-06-2915 min
a calm presencewhen spirit becomes oneA reading by myself, Riel Schryer, Sabrina Mathews and Clara Schryer of my when spirit becomes one posting : a new year’s reflection on hope featuring writings and stories by Peter Schneider, John Crier (as told to Vanessa Andreotti), Richard Heinberg, Zia Gallina, Naomi Klein, Azul Carolina Duque, Jem Bendell, Robert R. Janes and Hildegard Westerkamp. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit acalmpresence.substack.com2025-01-0131 min
conscient podcasta calm presence - when spirit becomes oneA bonus episode in between seasons 5 and 6, featuring my new year’s 'a calm presence' reflection on hope with writings and stories by Peter Schneider, John Crier (as told to Vanessa Andreotti), Richard Heinberg, Zia Gallina, Naomi Klein, Azul Carolina Duque, Jem Bendell, Robert R. Janes and Hildegard Westerkamp. To read the original posting on Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com/p/when-spirit-becomes-one-5f5
*END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODESHey conscient listeners, I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 202...2025-01-0131 min
conscient podcastflowingflowing throughopening ever-new vistas through listening and conversation I received an email from composer Hildegard Westerkamp, about ego, and set Hildi’s words to sound. The time seems right for you to let everyone’s words flow through you - as if through a medium or force - back to all of us in ever new shapes. This creates shifts in everyone’s perception, ideas, attitudes, feelings and approaches towards the world the way it is now. I have always felt that this was precisely what I was doing with environmental sounds. I recorded them...2024-11-0506 min
conscient podcastworld listening day 2024 - listening to the weave of timeWorld Listening Day takes place every year on July 18, which is also Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer’s birthday. The day is organized by the World Listening Project and is dedicated to understanding the world and its natural environment, societies, and cultures through the practice of listening.I have brought excerpts from 7 episodes from the 5th season of my conscient podcast that relate to the theme of the 2024 edition: ‘listening to the weave of time’. e157 sonic research group (part 1)Hildegard WesterkampThe most interesting part to me is to discover what we're no...2024-07-1822 min
conscient podcaste170 sonic research group (part 2)(Note: some quotes below have been edited for concision)Soundwalking is always like magic. It is a magical experience. It is so simple, Hildi, as you said, and it’s as much about listening to sounds or listening to absences of sound. It's not very typical in our lives. We don't live the kinds of lives that require this kind of presence. And so it’s restorative for me and calms my spirit. But also it's such a reminder each and every time I do a soundwalk of the power of just simply listening and opening up that regi...2024-05-2256 min
conscient podcaste157 sonic research group (part 1)The most interesting part to me is to discover what we're not listening to and why we are not doing that. I think it's wonderful that I've had the chance to learn this listening from so early on where you're trained to listen to the environment and at that time it was more about listening to the sounds of the environment and critiquing them, analyzing them, trying to understand them. To me that subject has widened hugely and really has to do about listening in general and trying to understand why we are listening to things and why we're not...2024-03-1052 min
The Radio 3 DocumentaryTuner of the World"For the next hour, I need your ears". It's 1974 and someone is trying to recruit you for a listening experiment on public radio in Canada. Pioneering Canadian composer and soundscape maestro, R Murray Schafer really wants you to commit: "if you're just listening to this programme casually, you'd better turn it off right now".This audio experiment was part of a series on the CBC - the Canadian Broadcasting Company, called Soundscapes of Canada, consisting of ten hours of soundscape montage, field recordings and lessons in listening. From Church bells, to birdsong, to car horns...2023-06-1243 min
conscient podcaste113 soundwalk (part 2) - how can we deepen our listening?(Jacek Smolicki)The ultimate question I'm asking is how can we move away from soundwalk as a kind of framed aesthetic experience or artistic experience and turn it into an existential practice or basically something that is just ingrained in our everyday life and we don't have to frame it anymore. It's just basically part of our way of living. (Claude Schryer)Can you give an example of that? (Jacek Smolicki)An academic example would be the concepts developed by Steven Feld, acoustemology, where basically listening, a kind of so...2023-03-2606 min
conscient podcaste113 soundwalk (part 1) - what is my position in listening ?(Claude Schryer)Jacek, what is soundwalking? (Jacek Smolicki)That's a very broad question, but I'll try to answer from two perspectives: my own and from what is kind of more generally considered soundwalking. So, to quote Hildegard Westerkamp, one of the pioneers of that practice, basically, a soundwalk is any kind of excursion into an environment which is motivated by us listening to it. Whether we do it with or without technologies or whether we do it on our own or in a group and the point of soundwalking is to connect or r...2023-03-2605 min
conscient podcaste102 aesthetics - how can we 'de-modernize' art?(ocean shoreline)The problem with beauty is that it can distract us from reality.Sit with me, please, take a moment. Sit and listen… Over there, about 56 kilometers to the northeast, is the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations, also known as Vancouver.Listen to the ocean flowing, like the blood and liquids in your body. We are water.Listen to the ravens passing by and croaking. They are poetry in motion.Listen to the city rumbling at a distance, but it's hard to hea...2023-01-0805 min
iMMERSE! with Charlie MorrowClaude Schryer - Immersion in Hope 16Canadian Claude Schryer is a Zen practitioner who believes in the power of art to shape a better future & dedicates much of his life to this pursuit. He has been a sound & media artist, having released several electroacoustic soundscape CDs in the 90s. for 20 years, He served as an arts administrator with the Canada Council for the Arts in Inter-Arts after creating that department.
Schryer is an environmental activist and in 2020 launched his bilingual ‘radical listening’ Conscient podcast, which explores art and the ecological crisis. He also offers workshops on art and sound & the climate emergency.
When I h...2022-11-1544 min
conscient podcaste69 soundwalk in the dark'It's 4 56 am on Tuesday, rather than Wednesday, September 29th. I'm about to do something I've never done before, a soundwalk in the dark. I wanted to share with you this experience of walking in the dark and see what happens.'Claude Schryer, September 29, 2021, Duhamel QCYou’ll hear two excerpts from season 2 of the conscient podcast in this episode:e22 westerkamp(Claude Schryer)I'm interested to know, for instance, around sound walking, you've recorded them, and you use them as stimulants or as proposals to people. What, what does that brin...2021-10-1938 min
conscient podcaste69 soundwalk in the darke69 soundwalk in the dark is a monologue that I recorded on September 29th, 2021, from 4.56am to 5.25am, in one take, while walking around our cottage in Duhamel Québec in the dark. I talk about soundwalking, listening, reconciliation, John Cage, dancing, etc., including quotes from season 2: ‘do not listen to this episode’ and e22 westerkamp. Note: I miscalculated the time that the sun would rise and ended up walking in the dark for the entire time ! Erratum : at minute 22 I say that I almost met John Cage in the 'early 1980's' before he passed away but I meant the 'earl...2021-09-2938 minconscient podcaste69 soundwalk in the darke69 soundwalk in the dark is a monologue that I recorded on September 29th, 2021, from 4.56am to 5.25am, in one take, while walking around our cottage in Duhamel Québec in the dark. I talk about soundwalking, listening, reconciliation, John Cage, dancing, etc., including quotes from season 2: ‘do not listen to this episode’ and e22 westerkamp. Note: I miscalculated the time that the sun would rise and ended up walking in the dark for the entire time ! Erratum : at minute 22 I say that I almost met John Cage in the 'early 1980's' before he passed away but I meant the 'earl...2021-09-2938 min
conscient podcaste62 compilation – season / saison 2'I think capitalism is over, but the problem is we have nothing to replace it with. Here's when we need artists, and others, to tell us what kind of vision they have for a future that is different than that: a future of play and meaningful work would be one future that I think is not just utopic, but very possible. 'dr. todd dufresne, e21 conscient podcastVideo version:Transcriptione21 dufresne : capitalism is over, my conversation with philosopher Dr. Todd Dufresne about reality, grief, art and the climate crisis.Dem...2021-08-1443 minconscient podcaste62 compilation – season / saison 2A compilation of excerpts from 41 conversations (31 in English, 10 in French) in season 2 of the conscient podcast. 31 are in English and 10 are in French. You will find a written translation for each French language excerpt below.
Video version
Transcription
e21 dufresne : capitalism is over, my conversation with philosopher Dr. Todd Dufresne about reality, grief, art and the climate crisis.
Democracy of Suffering
I think capitalism is over, but the problem is we have nothing to replace it with. Here's when we need artists, and others, to tell us what kind of vis...2021-08-1443 minconscient podcaste62 compilation – season / saison 2A compilation of excerpts from 41 conversations (31 in English, 10 in French) in season 2 of the conscient podcast. 31 are in English and 10 are in French. You will find a written translation for each French language excerpt below.
Video version
Transcription
e21 dufresne : capitalism is over, my conversation with philosopher Dr. Todd Dufresne about reality, grief, art and the climate crisis.
Democracy of Suffering
I think capitalism is over, but the problem is we have nothing to replace it with. Here's when we need artists, and others, to tell us what kind of vis...2021-08-1443 min
conscient podcaste22 westerkamp – slowing down through listeningWe need toallow for time to pass without any action, without any solutions and to just experience it. I think that a slowdown is an absolute - if there is any chance to survive - that kind of slowing down through listening and meditation and through not doing so much. I think there's some hope in that.Hildegard Westerkamp, conscient podcast conversation with Claude Schryer, March 31, 2021, VancouverHildegard Westerkamp emigrated to Canada in 1968 from Germany and lives in Vancouver on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples - the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), Tsleil-Waututh (Stó:lō and...2021-04-0835 minconscient podcaste22 westerkamp – slowing down through listeningWe need to allow for time to pass without any action, without any solutions and to just experience it. I think that a slowdown is an absolute - if there is any chance to survive - that kind of slowing down through listening and meditation and through not doing so much. I think there's some hope in that.
Hildegard Westerkamp, conscient podcast conversation with Claude Schryer, March 31, 2021, Vancouver
Hildegard Westerkamp emigrated to Canada in 1968 from Germany and lives in Vancouver on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples - the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), Tsleil-Waututh (Stó:lō...2021-03-3135 minconscient podcaste22 westerkamp – slowing down through listeningWe need to allow for time to pass without any action, without any solutions and to just experience it. I think that a slowdown is an absolute - if there is any chance to survive - that kind of slowing down through listening and meditation and through not doing so much. I think there's some hope in that.
Hildegard Westerkamp, conscient podcast conversation with Claude Schryer, March 31, 2021, Vancouver
Hildegard Westerkamp emigrated to Canada in 1968 from Germany and lives in Vancouver on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples - the Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), Tsleil-Waututh (Stó:lō...2021-03-3135 min