What Listening Knows

What Listening Knows creatively interrogates different concepts around the act of listening, as if listening were the primary mode of sensing the world. Across three screens, the camera choreography is both grounded and ungrounded, imbued with an acoustic consciousness. The camera twists and tilts across lumpy hillsides, dips into an insect world, then levitates towards a tilted cloudy sky. 

Individuals appear as field recordists, trailing microphones and recording devices through cornfields, scanning anthills and ancient trees. But not all viewpoints are human. Accompanied by a highly-detailed spatial soundscape, Leber and Chesworth’s imagined environment is alive with hidden forces.


Exhibitions
Sonia Leber & David Chesworth: What Listening Knows, Messums Wiltshire, UK (2021)

Credits
Filming, editing and sound design: Sonia Leber & David Chesworth
Colour grading: Peter Hatzipavlis
Performers: Charlotte Hall, Louis Pearson, Molly Grant and singers from Salisbury Cathedral Choir

Acknowledgements
The artists gratefully acknowledge the support of Johnny Messum and the team at Messums Wiltshire, Salisbury Cathedral Choir and the School of Art at RMIT University, Melbourne. Special thanks to Fiona Gruber

Photo Credits
All Sonia Leber & David Chesworth
Installation views of the exhibition at Messums Wiltshire by Steve Russell