lectures and talks

delivering regular lectures and talks on the subjects around located sound / field recording as a contemporary creative practice, the act and art of listening, sound art, intuitive composition, explorative musics and photographic scores. These have also included specific talks titled;

choreographies of perception

faulty borders

invent nature

ink botanic (listening to plants)

soil horizons (listening to soil systems)

audible silence (listening to architectures)

the bright work (listening to fluid resonance, aquatic environments and species)

undusting the lens (corrected histories)

watering concrete (located sound arts)

for institutions including:

Paradise Air, Japan

Royal Danish Academy of Arts, Copenhagen

RMC (Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium), Copenhagen

Aarhus University

Huddersfield University

Royal College of Art

Goldsmiths

Newcastle University

Leeds Beckett University

Hull University

Lincoln University

Leeds University

Sheffield University

Oxford Brooks University

CRiSAP, London College of Communication

Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus

SIM, Reykjavik

Manchester University

Chelsea College of Arts

Association of Motion Picture Sound

Leeds School of Contemporary art & Design

EMS, Sweden

Hull School of Art and Hull School of Art & Design

I always encourage discussion as a fundamental element of talks and am more than happy to supply suggested listening / reading lists in advance or following events. These can focus on various aspects of sound culture, drawing on extensive knowledge and interaction with various fields including:

contemporary sound art practice

the presence of sound in soundtrack / takemitsu, tati & beyond

place as material in sound, performance and film

tape music / musique concrete / experimental music in education

phenomenology of auditory filters
situational acoustics & their effects on sense connectivity
micro listening
audible silence (inc. architectural elements)
structural responses to sonics
orders of listening & durational listening
the invention of nature (distortions of imposed perception)
interference of elements
the impact of recording media on declining auditory sensitivity
the gendering of sound
dissolving landscapes and structures

tradition based music as an element of locales

indeterminate / graphic & text scores

'other' musics - the joy of music from the edges of recollection

post new wave expanding and expanded

in 2018 I was one of the invited artists for 'What we talk about when we talk about work', held at The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester. Here is some text about the talk from the 'This is Tomorrow' website:

'Jez Riley French produces beautiful, rippling recordings of architectural elements, often in places that hold a strong personal resonance. For him listening is a personal, bodily experience, and in the talk, he draws a strong distinction between active listening and mediation. However, by making inaudible sounds, such as the vibrations of a lightbulb or the humming of a gallery floor, audible, he gives us a heightened awareness of the world around us. Oliveros would argue that active listening is mediation. These field recordings, and the process of listening to them, makes us feel more connected to the world, which is where the political potential of sound lies.'

Looking through the files on an old, faulty hard drive, all now identified with only numbers, added to most recently around 2004, amongst the folders I find a list of some other talks / lectures given up to that point, including some that were rejected for various events;

Atsuko Tanaka - Bells Eclipsed
Yayoi Kusama - Walking with Sound
Ellen Fullman - Walking with Sound
The Radical (female) History of Field Recording
Women Writers of Japan 1900-2000
(16mm) Artist Film from Japan
Performance Art in Contemporary Japanese Art
Gutai and the role of its Female Artists
Detail in Japanese Film & Architecture

jez riley french