Hilary Kleinig, Illuminate Adelaide and Vitalstatistix. Vitalstatistix, Waterside Workers Hall. 9 July 2026

 

The smartphone has come to dominate our lives, even to rule us. We use it for communication, and it connects us to social media which structure our relationships. We use its camera to record and upload our lives. It’s an information source; we use it transact business and so on. It is also a surveillance device.

 

Composer Hilary Kleinig has been concerned at the way in which the smartphone has permeated our lives and changed our listening habits and apprehension of music and sound. She says:

 

“Initially inspired by Anna Goldsworthy’s article of the same name, The Lost Art of Listening began by undertaking research into the history of music and sound in society, its role and reason for being, where music has power and meaning and why this is. Further research has been undertaken into the connection between deep listening to nature, wellbeing and its role in climate action.”

 

Kleinig’s highly innovative and insightful project, The Lost Art of Listening, has resulted in a musical performance that interrupts and interrogates the normal use of the smartphone. The Lost Art of Listening concert involves a piano performance by renowned composer and pianist Erik Griswold, which is accompanied by pre-recorded sounds broadcast over the audience’s phones.

 

Prior to the concert, audience members are instructed to download onto their phones the Listen app produced for the project by Steve Berrick. They are each given a large, numbered paper cup, and proceed into the auditorium to sit at a seat corresponding to the cup’s number. Their phone is then placed in the cup, which amplifies the sound, and is tuned to the cup’s number so that it plays a sound recording corresponding to that number — up to 32 different recordings are broadcast in sequence or simultaneously.

 

The audience sits in concentric circles around the piano, so that sound emanates from around the space. Griswold then begins his piano performance and the broadcast begins.

 

It is at this point that audience members lose control of their phones — the app takes over and relays not only sound but a range of colours that appear on the phones’ screens and form part of Geoff Cobham’s complex and evocative lighting design that illuminates the otherwise darkened space.

 

The prerecorded sounds range from industrial noise to children playing, electronic music and field recordings of birdsong, so that the phones convey the typical sounds of the modern world to stimulate the audience’s imagination and reflection on the nature of our environment, our place in it and our responsibility for it.

 

Griswold plays a prepared piano, which has rubber strips and other objects inserted between the strings, and he also uses mallets to play the strings, bounces rubber balls on them and pulls lengths of fishing line through them to generate a range of intriguing sounds. Sheets of paper lying on the strings vibrate slightly and are then screwed up and dropped to the floor, creating almost inaudible sounds. Griswold’s performance is hypnotic, as he hovers over the piano, part conductor and part sonic magician.

 

All the sounds produced by the piano and the phones combine to create an extremely rich and complex sonic tapestry. The performance encourages what legendary American composer Pauline Oliveros called ‘deep listening’, whereby the listener enters a heightened state of awareness of sound. It is this state of attentiveness, to sound and to the world around us, that we are prompted to try to regain, not only during the performance but in our lives generally.

 

The lighting design is subtle but complements the sound. A small mirror ball placed inside the piano reflects light from a spotlight hanging above the piano to create star patterns on the ceiling, and reflective panels on the floor around the piano also reflect light. Colours gradually change. Participation in the performance greatly stimulates sensory awareness in various ways.

 

The overall experience is very powerful, not only as an immersive, multifaceted artwork, but also as a comment on the way in which we use and appreciate music and on the nature of our sonic world. We are challenged to consider our relationship with our phones and with those who control our media, and we become more aware of the sounds of nature that we so often ignore.

 

The active engagement of the audience in this manner is an essential component of the work—broadcasting the recorded sound on a public address instead of the audience’s phones would have created a less challenging experience.

 

Hilary Kleinig’s The Lost Art of Listening is a significant project, and the excellent concert performance should be repeated for wide audiences. It should also stimulate further development and consideration of the issues it raises.

 

Chris Reid

 

When: 9 to 11 Jul

Where: Vitalstatistix, Waterside Workers Hall

Bookings: Closed

More info: hilarykleinig.com/the-lost-art-of-listening