Listening as Porosity | a three-day event focused on relationnal field recording practices, curated by Mathias Arrignon, 4-6 December 2026
“B.— Listening is being porous.
A.— Let’s allow the world to settle and hum within us for a moment, shall we? “
Excerpt from Bref éloge du coup de tonnerre et du bruit d’ailes, by Réné Farabet, 1994, Phonurgia Nova, translated in English by Mathias Arrignon
Listening as Porosity is a three-day public programme led by Mathias Arrignon and shared with artists Action Pyramid and Mélia Roger, focused on relational field recording practices, and hosted at Listen Gallery, Glasgow. Holding an immersive listening session, a technical workshop, and a concluding public symposium, the event created an engaging and participatory environment where audiences could experience and reflect on sound in its ecological, cultural, and emotional dimensions. At the heart of Listening as Porosity lies the idea of field recording beyond mere documentation, approaching it instead as a porous practice where sound, memory, and imagination interweave.
What lies behind the act of playing a recording of a lively forest to a deforested area? Can we scale down our listening to hear the murmur of the soil or the quiet breath of an aquatic plant? Why does the sound of a glacier collapsing create such an emotional resonance in us? How does it feel to use a microphone that you have assembled with your own hands? Why do we record and why does it matter?
Listening as porosity opens up a carefully crafted space for collective listening, reflection, skill-sharing and encourages the possibility of learning, and mostly unlearning.
As well as presenting his work as an artist, Mathias Arrignon is the initiator of Listening as Porosity. After receiving a grant from the Creative Scotland Open Fund for Individuals programme, he decided to develop an event structure that would open up sound art practices to the public. Through this three-day event, he was experimenting a way to share the practice of field recordings, going beyond listening to works and taking the liberty to explore the working and thinking processes of artists who use this medium. For him, field recording is not a solitary practice, it is a collective learning experience.
This programme featured the following events:
• DIY microphone and hydrophone workshop, with Mathias Arrignon & Action Pyramid Thursday 4 December 2025:
The session guided attendees through making a stereo pair of lapel microphones and a hydrophone. Participants left with the devices they had built, along with digital learning materials to continue exploring DIY projects independently.
• Immersive Listening session, with Mathias Arrignon, Action Pyramid & Mélia Roger, Friday 5 December 2025:
A listening session with a 4.1 sound system, offering a slow immersion into a rich variety of places, an ambulation whose sonic coordinates were unfolded by artists, punctuated by moments of exchange over a free shared meal at Listen Gallery. Mélia Roger was presenting Dear Phonocene, an audiovisual piece inspired by scientific research on acoustic enrichment and its role in ecosystem restoration. Action Pyramid’s Materials Unknown shared an assemblage of unfamiliar sounds from water bodies, soils, and plant matter, encouraging listeners to navigate the interplay between perception and imagination. Mathias Arrignon’s Brief elegy to the pale opened up a space for reflection on the allure and loss of Arctic landscapes, using field recordings gathered during an expedition to Svalbard archipelago.
• Public Symposium, with Mathias Arrignon, Action Pyramid & Mélia Roger, Saturday 6 December 2025:
Oscillating between its rich potential and its more problematic aspects, the symposium fostered a stimulating critical discourse around the ethics, aesthetics and politics of listening. Through readings, short listening sessions, debates and guided exercises, this event offered a rare opportunity to learn, unlearn and imagine together a more thoughtful and inclusive practice of field recording. Discussions addressed themes such as extractivism, community collaboration, accessibility through DIY resources and ecological awareness. While providing an ideal opportunity to share ideas from sound studies and other disciplines, the symposium tried to remain convivial and accessible, focusing on topics and approaches that resonate beyond expert circles. The aim was to find a balance between critical depth and open, collective exploration, where curiosity, reflection, and shared experience can come together.
