This workshop emerges from a larger collaborative project between Selwa Sweidan & Nina Sarnelle called Touch Praxis exploring touch as a time-based medium and co-creative knowledge practice. The workshop will include a brief introduction to our ongoing research followed by improvisational exercises around sound (making/listening/making-listening) as a form of touch.

One area of interest we will explore is the intimate and hypersensitive area just outside—nearly touching—the ear: how might we compose for this small but powerful venue? We will brainstorm and test additional prompts around sound as vibrational, cutaneous, kinesthetic, gastronomic, pneumatic or [ __________ ] touch. How/do each of these modes of touching intersect with sound? Where do distinctions between hearing and feeling break down? Can we compose with/for internal organs? What sound can bodies make? We will also discuss broader implications that could arise from this work.

Selwa & Nina are looking for collaborators for ongoing Touch Praxis work and also hope to use this time at PAF to collaborate and see if anyone is interested!