Lady Kitt - Building Listening into Everything

This episode begins a mini-series that looks at whether or not we should feel concerned about the digital tools we use and the effects that they have on us. The tools we use and the uses we make of them have changed since the web began in the early nineties. Twenty years ago people created blogs and surfed the web looking for like-minded people. Today most people create personal pages on social media platforms and search inside Facebook to find new “friends”.
Does this difference matter?
Owen Kelly looks at the history of the web and the ways that these changes happened and suggests that we can find a growing movement to reclaim the sense of discovery that used to pervade the web. He suggests that we revive the idea of the curated blog-roll and the collective web-ring, and promises that Miaaw will introduce modern versions of these on its website soon.

On September 23, 2022, we put out episode 20 of Common Practice, in which we talked with Beverley Harvey and Brendan Jackson about the creation of the online Jubilee Archives. Later, in episode 27, we talked with Steve Trow, one of the founders of Jubilee, about the importance of cultural capital.
In this episode we conclude these discussions with a conversation with Brendan Jackson, triggered by the official finale of the Jubilee Archives programme. We ask what the project has achieved, and what Brendan sees as its future now that the construction phase has finished.
We also return to the question of Laundry Line, the community and social arts collective that might serve as a very useful model for other groups needing a formal structure in order to apply for funds.

In Culture of Possibility #36 – the podcast’s third anniversary — Arlene Goldbard and Miaaw.net guru Owen Kelly will talk about cultural work and spirituality.
Some community artists reject non-material understandings, but Owen and Arlene each find their work infused with spiritual ideas and practices — albeit very different ones.
Is spirituality necessarily non-material? What can spiritual practice bring to our work? How can ideas and stories from sacred texts infuse and inform work for cultural democracy? How can they connect rather than separate us?

Sam Metz describes their rationale as responding to “the premise of ‘neuroqueering’ (a term first coined by Nick Walker) which seeks to undermine or subvert dominant structures that remain hostile to non-normative neurodivergent bodyminds. I am interested in exploring the idea of ‘hostile’ spaces through my work with a particular focus on what relational connections mean within ecology.”
They go on to say that “in my socially engaged practice I am interested in exploring/ co-producing and defining new moralities for social structures that are safer for neurodivergent people”.
In this episode of Ways of Listening, Sam Metz describes looking for ways of working that don't privilege vision or verbal interactions, and describes a listening practice that extends through the body. They describe the importance of attunement to micro-cues to pick up on participants’ comfort levels, and consider how relationships affect our ability to act as a ‘receiver’. Sam shares methods from their practice, such as encouraging repetitive touch as a means of connecting with embodied feedback.

Did we succeed or fail in 2023? What could this question possibly mean? Do we have any way of measuring our progress, or lack of progress? Do we need one?
By way of addressing this, Owen Kelly suggests three approaches that we might usefully continue to develop in the coming year, and (spoiler alert) none of them involving wearing Fitbits.
As always he attempts to provide some interesting concrete examples and contemporary references rather than hovering high above the clouds of theory.