Circumambulations (Sao Bento)

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As a listener, traveler and field recordist, I want to recall and re-enter the evanescent energies of extraordinary listening experiences. But my goal is not to capture, or even necessarily to convey what I heard in these moments of listening – they are fundamentally unrepeatable. Instead, I am interested in reflecting on and making meanings from that listening, in textual, musical and visual poetics. But also, I want to walk in contemplative listening with you, and invite you to walk in contemplative listening with a past version of me. Superimposing shards of sound from disparate places and times onto your here and now, I hope to offer a small waking dream charged by the contrast of emplacement and displacement.
The walk begins at Zaratan – Arte Contemporânea, on Lisbon’s busy and important Rua Sao Bento, and stops at a section of recently repaved cobbles, where I offer a recording of the repair process. Then, it goes to the park adjoining the national assembly, and invites the listener to walk a “kora” or ritual circumambulation, as practiced by Buddhists in Nepal and Tibet, among other places.