conscient podcast

I really believe that we carry the spirit of the land wherever we go. In the Western canon, they say that once you leave home, you can never return, but in the Indigenous canon, home never leaves you. 

I remember Sandra Laronde contacting me when I was running the Inter-Arts Office at Canada Council in early 2000 asking me where Red Sky Performance fits in the Council’s suite of programs and silos. Claude, you know, I combine indigenous dance, theatre, music, media and more but rarely the same way. 

The Council and Red Sky figured things out. I’ve...

My dream with AI started with curiosity about how technology can extend to the boundaries of artistic expression. I was fascinated by the possibility of emerging traditional art and forms of traditional artistry to create something entirely new and engage my passion for innovation and to explore AI as tools to enhance my creative visions and bring artistic ideas to life in ways I could only dream or imagine. (Sean Caesar)

This is a special episode of the conscient podcast featuring a panel at  The Gathering Divergence Multi-Arts Festival & Conference Spring 2024 presented by Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement o...

World Listening Day takes place every year on July 18, which is also Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer’s birthday. The day is organized  by the World Listening Project and is dedicated to understanding the world and its natural environment, societies, and cultures through the practice of listening.

I have brought excerpts from 7 episodes from the 5th season of my conscient podcast that relate to the theme of the 2024 edition: ‘listening to the weave of time’. 

e157 sonic research group (part 1)

Hildegard Westerkamp

I've been thinking a lot about the importance of connecting the value of the arts to everyday citizens and their own connection to creativity, whatever that might be. I think it's something we should be talking about now, not only within our communities and within the arts sector, but outside of as well : talking about the value of the arts to feelings of belonging and connection and the ability to build bridges that the arts uniquely have. 

- kelly langgard, june 5, 2024 imagining in public - cultural leadership in a changing world panel

I agree with Kelly Langgard t...

Whether or not we get to a complete and total collapse or we're looking at collapses of very specific systems for it…  Right now I'm concerned with modeling what we want on the other side as best as possible so that whether or not it's a person or a machine learning algorithm as artificial intelligence, when it's looking back on the things that is basing its future decisions on, that it’s not just the dominant systems that got us into this mess.

Ian Garrett is Producer for Mixed Reality Performance collective Toasterlab; and director of the Centre for Susta...

To go to a farm and take a carrot out that’s covered in dirt and wipe it off on your pants and eat it on the spot. It's something that most people don't have access to anymore. So that loss of contact with the natural world is having a radical impact on how people view it, how they value it, and how they seem to be willing to let it go. Not realizing that we depend on the natural world. We are part of the natural world, and if we screw it up, we're gone.

I had the pl...

We're all going to be affected by the same outcome. When I went up to Svalbard (Norway), I went with the intention of also capturing the beauty and the terror of the reality of these changes and how they can be at once fascinating to listen to, but also devastating to the environment.

You’ve just heard an excerpt from composer and environmental sound artist Mary Edwards’ Everywhere We Are is the Farthest Place composition, an ode to the transforming Arctic landscape, climate vulnerability, elemental sensuality and Terrestrial Space Analogues. 

Mary kindly shared a compilation mix from this...

This is an audio from a short video recorded on June 22, 2024 on an inflatable kayak outing where I thank conscient podcast listeners (and a calm presence readers) and let you know that there are many new conscient episodes coming in the next few days and to please take your time (in particular if you are a regular listener). Please don’t feel overwhelmed). 

This amount of volume and diversity of voices is part of my ongoing research. 

One trick is to listen to the opening seconds featuring a key quote from that episode and see if i...

I luckily managed to move from a space of ‘I have to save the planet or else’ (and we talk about that word ‘save’) to ‘I choose to commit my life to climate change in the best way I can’ because everything that matters to me in this world stands to be lost in a climate crisis, especially one that would play out in a very severe and apocalyptic way. (Katrine)Having this I would say a calm perspective from artists, helping us get in touch with our feelings, simply, I found it to be a stabilizing force. (Sébastian)

This is a s...

It is taking far too long for us to acknowledge the damage we have done to the world's water and to indigenous people and to take action : truth, reconciliation, change. Scientists have discovered that some whale songs actually evolve over time. It is my hope that the choirs who perform this work with me and all those who hear it will refuse to let what the whales are saying be lost in the ocean and will join their song in calling for respect and reciprocity. (Deantha Edmunds, May 19, 2024, Podium 2024)Stay humble, keep listening and keep learning. That is how we...