Listening as a Portal: Imagination, Consciousness
and the Next Step in Music Engagement
My PhD sits at the intersection of art, science, technology and philosophy where I challenge fundamental assumptions about consciousness and perception. My research explores altered states of consciousness through immersive sound. I create soundscapes, play them to different people and see how they respond. I am interested in the ways sound, deep listening and communal experiences shape perception, imagination and connection. In particular I am drawn to the idea of listening as a portal, an entryway into dreamlike states where sound becomes a vehicle for introspection and transformation.
At the core of my practice is an intuitive approach: field recordings; improvisation; and experimentation with acousmatic sounds, including those produced with the Buchla Easel. Rather than imposing structure, I allow the sounds themselves to guide me, revealing patterns and possibilities beyond my conscious control. This process has been humbling, as I navigate the boundaries of my technical skills in composition. What I once saw as a limitation I now embrace as a form of creative freedom, an opportunity to explore without the constraints of convention or expectation. My work is not about virtuosity or complexity, it is about presence, feeling and the synthesis of knowledge drawn from diverse disciplines. This journey has become one of deep introspection, self-reflection, and honesty; an attempt to listen not just with my ears, but with my whole being, exploring where the sound wants to take me.
This deeply intuitive process has also made me reflect on the broader ways we construct knowledge. It has led me to question dominant scientific paradigms, particularly materialist approaches to consciousness, which often overlook the validity of subjective experience. I come from a scientific background, and I deeply value the insights science has given us. Yet I find myself questioning whether materialist science is the best framework for exploring consciousness. The dominant materialist paradigm often reduces experience to mechanistic processes, prioritising intellectual analysis over direct perception. It tends to dismiss intuition, subjective states and non-rational ways of knowing as unreliable or irrelevant. This causes me to question my own lived experience simply because a group of scholars deem it less valid than empirical observation. This is demeaning. I am also concerned by how materialist science portrays nature as an unconscious machine, separate from us, a view that, in my opinion, conveniently aligns with a worldview that justifies the exploitation of the natural world as something to be controlled, commodified, and extracted for the benefit of specific groups.
While I deeply value scientific inquiry, I resist a version of science that dismisses personal experience in favour of so-called “objective thinking” or one that upholds a capitalist logic of domination over nature. I hope to live long enough to witness, and perhaps contribute to, a shift toward a post-materialist framework, one that acknowledges the limits of reductionism and embraces a more expansive understanding of consciousness.
I do not claim I will have a fully formed alternative framework by the end of my PhD; rather, I approach my work as an exploration, an open-ended inquiry into ways of knowing that extend beyond the materialist paradigm. Through deep listening and immersive sonic experiences, I investigate whether and how subjective, intuitive and embodied modes of perception might contribute to a broader understanding of consciousness. My work is an invitation to listen deeply, to move, to dream in community, and to reimagine our relationship with ourselves, nature, and one another.
At the core of my practice is an intuitive approach: field recordings; improvisation; and experimentation with acousmatic sounds, including those produced with the Buchla Easel. Rather than imposing structure, I allow the sounds themselves to guide me, revealing patterns and possibilities beyond my conscious control. This process has been humbling, as I navigate the boundaries of my technical skills in composition. What I once saw as a limitation I now embrace as a form of creative freedom, an opportunity to explore without the constraints of convention or expectation. My work is not about virtuosity or complexity, it is about presence, feeling and the synthesis of knowledge drawn from diverse disciplines. This journey has become one of deep introspection, self-reflection, and honesty; an attempt to listen not just with my ears, but with my whole being, exploring where the sound wants to take me.
This deeply intuitive process has also made me reflect on the broader ways we construct knowledge. It has led me to question dominant scientific paradigms, particularly materialist approaches to consciousness, which often overlook the validity of subjective experience. I come from a scientific background, and I deeply value the insights science has given us. Yet I find myself questioning whether materialist science is the best framework for exploring consciousness. The dominant materialist paradigm often reduces experience to mechanistic processes, prioritising intellectual analysis over direct perception. It tends to dismiss intuition, subjective states and non-rational ways of knowing as unreliable or irrelevant. This causes me to question my own lived experience simply because a group of scholars deem it less valid than empirical observation. This is demeaning. I am also concerned by how materialist science portrays nature as an unconscious machine, separate from us, a view that, in my opinion, conveniently aligns with a worldview that justifies the exploitation of the natural world as something to be controlled, commodified, and extracted for the benefit of specific groups.
While I deeply value scientific inquiry, I resist a version of science that dismisses personal experience in favour of so-called “objective thinking” or one that upholds a capitalist logic of domination over nature. I hope to live long enough to witness, and perhaps contribute to, a shift toward a post-materialist framework, one that acknowledges the limits of reductionism and embraces a more expansive understanding of consciousness.
I do not claim I will have a fully formed alternative framework by the end of my PhD; rather, I approach my work as an exploration, an open-ended inquiry into ways of knowing that extend beyond the materialist paradigm. Through deep listening and immersive sonic experiences, I investigate whether and how subjective, intuitive and embodied modes of perception might contribute to a broader understanding of consciousness. My work is an invitation to listen deeply, to move, to dream in community, and to reimagine our relationship with ourselves, nature, and one another.
Life without music would be a mistake. Friedrich Nietzsche