Interview with Flavien Gillié

Created: Fri Sep 05 2025

Flavien Gillié is a practicing sound artist for the past 25 years. He has done installations and performances but his practice now is focused on field recordings of urban places and workshops through BNA/BBOT.

When I was looking at field recordings of Geneva on Aporee, he had a few posts. In particular, he had a couple on the Arve River. Since I was going to be in Brussels for holidays, it aligned perfectly that I could meet him in person.

We met at Smart Cooperative, a co-working space near the Gare du Midi. I was able to learn why he was compelled to create a recording of the Arve and where he is now with his practice.

Note: Below is a transcribed interview using MacWhispher with very minimal editing. If I were to include this in my thesis, I'll select quotes or tidy up the interview.

Interview

Flavien: Well, yes. It is busy, yes. Or maybe in the conversation, I'm also working in an organization in Brussels. And we are a small team with a lot of projects at the right moment creating like the sounds of the vessels.

Peter: Yeah yes I saw, I forget what the name is, you’re like archiving the sounds of Brussels.

F: Yeah, creating a sound memory of the city, yes. Actually, it dripped a lot. I'm going to take something to it.

P: I’m not sure how that happened.

F: Yeah.

P: Thank you for meeting me, I really appreciate it. I know we can always do like virtual calls but like since I'm in the city it's nice to meet in person and I feel like you lose something when you're like talking to a screen so I've been trying to meet with people whenever I can. For my master's research I'm studying at HEAD-Genève in the Media design program and my master's research has been around environmental aesthetics and how we can appreciate Nature and a lot of philosophers have been talking more so about through an art lens and through a landscape model so what you see but not a lot of people have been talking about sounds so that's where my interest came from and a friend of mine actually sent a post on Instagram that was about aporee and then I went on there to see like oh has anyone actually put any recordings and that's That's how I discovered you. So I will just kick things off. I want to know what compels you to go to Geneva, why did you decide to record something at the Arve and upload it to Aporee.

F: So it was in 2016 and it was really a cultural trip I would say. I come from France initially, I've been living in Lyon, not far from Geneva, so I went in the past, but I've been living here for 20 years now, 20 years in Brussels. And actually it was my, well, it's quite personal, but it was my stepdaughter, she's an actress, and she was playing in the comedy journey in a theater play. So she was staying there for a long residency and then having the play. So we went to see the play at Comedie Genève.

And wherever I go, I've always been recording. This is something that comes from really far away. I've always been interested in sound. I would say it's my first memories when I was a child and I had a tape recorder, like a small one. It was not a play school but something like this. I could record some sheeps in a farm and I just had the opportunity to listen to it again and again and again and this really came from here. I started sound after I've been involved between music and recording.

And Aporee, I started I think, this is a project that started in 2008 or 2009 if I'm not mistaken. And for me, it's immediately been making sense to upload all my recordings on this sound map because I was quite making a lot of field recordings already, but kind of creating personal archive that I was using for sound installations, making music of it with electronic treatments. But I missed the fact, the idea to create something common and to be able to share it for free. So there was really this idea of creating a common audio sound scheme and Aporee was the perfect tool for this because it's a community which is at the crossroads of many things it's used by artists, by universities, whatever people starting field recording. And for me it's really been a way first to have a backup outside of my own personal archive and I would say personally it's a way for me to create my own memory.

You said you don't always have a good memory, I also have the same. And for me, there is two ideas: this idea to make it publicly available and this idea that it's my own personal journal somehow. So I can always go back to Aporee and have my memory where was I at this specific time, what was I doing. And the choice of the river, it's never... When I'm making the recordings, there is no previous intention, unless I'm on a specific project, like if I'm working in Brussels, I can work on specific records and make something quite intensive in terms of recordings. But for this, it was just my daily routine, I would say. I'm on a trip and let's go and explore. And the Avre River, I would say, I'm somehow interested in interactions between... I'm not... I wouldn't say I'm a recorder of nature things. I'm not a naturalist. I'm always interested in, I live a lot in the cities and I make trips to cities mostly and I always like to record the interactions between people and everything else living somehow. So I try to find the liminal places, I mean going to the bank of rivers, you're in the city but somehow you have to be a bit outside. I found a walk on a bank and I just had a long walk along the bank of the river. It was close where we were just living at the moment. And I first decided, it was just Sunday morning if I'm not mistaken, I was looking for this quiet place, a bit to be in Geneva, but a bit out of Geneva somehow. And this is not on Aporee, but I remember I have... Sorry. I have learned a lot of things from this. And a bit further, there is a bridge, and I went until there, and there was a camp of homeless people who were there. So I was also a bit interested in recording not only homeless people but people in the margin somehow. So this was my intention to find something I wouldn't call it natural because the river is quite... I mean everything is built around so just to see having the possibility to record different atmospheres of the river and if I'm not... I listen back to the recordings I put on summer there was really low by quiet noise because it was in October and I think the river was quite big at this moment. And the possibility to find another way where suddenly I wanted to record a lot more subtilities of the river and I was always interested in the fact that I could record the river but the city was not far not away because I could have this police or ambulance siren. So this is well it's not the river per se but all the interactions I could hear from the bank of the river.

P: Yeah it's also difficult to isolate just like natural sounds especially when you're in a city like you’ll capture whatever is in the vincinty.

F: I think it's useless and I'm not saying all the audio naturalists are saying that even more than the most isolated island, there will always be plane flying by. So you're never... We have to accept the fact that the human being colonized everything and there's a strong input in whatever landscapes.

P: It's very interesting that you mention that because there's a term which you might be familiar with, the Anthroposcene, where it's a new geological period in Earth, and how humans have altered the atmosphere, the environment, and that we're just all connected. It's really interesting that it has also filtered into sounds and that you can't just isolate natural sounds anymore. You'll hear humans produce sounds, so not where you are.

F: And I think this is, for me, I think I would say that recording this is also a way... En Genève, I was here for only one week, but I make it a bit more in process. I think that film recording is important as it is, but only by one, it will be say something from this moment, but the series is important. It’s important to come back a place.

And from this ecological point of view, or at least critical listening of the Anthropocene, of the capitalism. You can have a series and show how the influence of human really makes a strong changes under the soundscape. I have some recordings from 30 years ago.

P: 30 years ago?

F: Yeah, yeah. I'm 53 now and I think I started recording in my 80s. So, and I have some recordings. I can hear lots, lots more birds than I hear now. And when I go back, I just have a few ones that I will never have. Like, for example, I have a lot of old recordings of colonies of starlings. Even in the city, even in Lyon where I was living, and from the people I know that still live here, they just tell me: "No, we don't hear.” They don't come anymore. They have the... The huge numbers of massive birds have been... dispersed and being a group of people.

P: It's very interesting. You've been practicing for 30 years.

F: Yeah, let's say 25. And how has your approach to field recording changed over the years? I think I pay more attention now to the facts. When I first started I wanted to record something singular. I would say: "Oh come on, I'm here to record the bells, the sirens because it's 12 and they're just the sirens from the firemen or whatever, whilst looking for something quite specific and the more I recorded the more I would say I can record wherever I am because I'm sure that at the moment it might not be really important to just be let's say I make a recording here in the court and it will be just something quiet but I know it will tell something from the city because now we have more and more electric cars so it's getting quiet or whatever. So I try not to have... I try to not to disappear but to be the less the more objective. It's not possible because I'm always here and I decide to record. But I try more and more to let something appear.

P: So to that point, now when you aren't doing something that is part of your daily routine, something that's maybe a larger project, is there a planning involved or do you go to a site and then you just try to record and like feel out the moment, listen to things and just go to where you want to go? So like what's your, essentially what's your process?

F: Yeah, it really depends. If it's something I would say I don't record with an intention, I know it will end up on Aporee. And I still have this practice of working on a specific project. For example, at the moment I'm working in Namur, which is a city in Wallonia.

P: I’ll be going there in October for Kikk festival.

F: Okay. I'm working, there is a big cultural center which is somehow on the border of Namur, somehow in the forest already and it's like brutalist building and they are renewing it totally and in two years they will they will reopen it again. It's really hard renewing with a lot of changes like and i've been asked by the architects to make a sound installation in the building of the sound of the forest outside. The rain, mostly the rain, they want to have the rainy things to bring it somehow in the building to make an interaction with what is it when you are going to this cultural center what do you hear from outside. So I go there for two days, three days, sleeping in the reserve it's really a big thing where you can go as a company, organization, go for reflections, preparing something, being in a residency. So I have my place where I can go in residency and I will go for two days. Having my intention to, okay, I need to bring back some rain sounds and something, I'm thinking every season, what is it in the spring, what is it in the summer, etc.

So I still have this practice, but somehow I would say it's not, to me it's not the most important. I know I'm going to create something which will be made by a lot of people, but I don't feel that it's what I want to do. I would say somehow that the... Sorry, I have the word in French, but the minor minoritaires, minoritaires recordings that are on aporee are somehow more important than creating.

P: Is it because on the Internet there's more widespread reach for that or the fact that it's just the recording in its context where for the architect projects it's a little bit more produced in some way?

F: It’s definitely really produced. Yeah yeah, it will be something like 32 channels and spatialization of sounds. It will be something huge but I would say, you will be a designer some day. You will have the contract and you have to do it, and you will do it your best. This is something I’m good at but it’s not something I want to be. I think I prefer to be recognized for all the liminal sound creations because to me, I’m just using natural sounds. Okay, I have my intention but I just use something that everybody could use.

P: You find it more interesting to find those liminal spaces, record people who maybe don't have a voice.

F: Definitely.

P: You find that has more impact potentially in the future even in the current escape where people don't have the platform to express themselves.

F: Yeah, in Brussels particularly I do it a lot on the soundmap, I mean in the organization where I work, we have our own soundmap, but I also put some of the Aporee, and I try a lot to record when I see homeless people, I make interviews with them and I record whatever their interaction in the city, and working with these people also lets, yeah. To give a voice, I don't know, but I don't think it will give them a voice, but for me it's important to show that they have been here. Because these people, you see them someday, they disappear quite fast. And I try to... I don't know if that gives a voice but that gives an existence, a visibility. And you always have a blank... you always forget a lot of things.

I mean the more you try I was in this conversation recently with a journalist I was telling about the fact that I record homeless people and he just told me and do you record because now in the process I mean since four or five years there's been a lot of crack invasion in the city and it's really like not rich people and you get it's a naked time bomb on poor people living in the streets and he just asked me and do you record these people and I just said I didn't even think of it so the more you record the more you realize that even by this idea you forget a lot of people it's so something I have to make a chance also.

P: Yeah, we all have our biases and that's why you talk to people and that's why you can expand your horizons. I think it's really important to get outside of your own framework and try to challenge yourself. Which I think can be difficult because I think a lot of people are comfortable in what they do and stay within their own domain.

You mentioned the word “brutalist building" which reminds me, I read a description, and I don't know if you still use this to describe your work, but you said “brutalizing sounds”, I saw this online, and I'm wondering what do you mean exactly when you brutalize a sound?

F: Yeah, but I think it was from a very specific description. Yeah, I think it's a bit outdated. It's when I was doing concerts with all these recordings. I used to have a practicing concert experimental scene. And, yeah, it's something I wrote, I think, because I wanted not to be too respectful with so I would treat them electronically, use all the... When I was playing live with the sound, I was using also all the errors in my recording, like a microphone goes dead when I record, I was just keeping all these crashing sound. This is what I meant by brutalizing. I don't play live recently. I've been playing live one year ago, but it was after a workshop of field recording with people. So it was absolutely not brutalizing, but also more empowering people to show them what to do with this recording, what was possible to do. So yeah, brutalized should be removed from now. I think it's kind of a young punk attitude.

P: No, I think it's still interesting because it's like, how do you maintain authenticity within the sound? And do you even want to do that with some field recordings? Are you using it more for the medium itself or the content?

F: That's a tricky question.

P: Because as you said, it's hard to be objective. You are making a decision to record something. And then you're also making it like editing. You're also deciding what to put into the forefront for people to hear. So in some way you are distorting the sound. You're not making it like as just like a pure recording?

F: No, no, no, not a lot. On Aporee it should be quite... not... there's a kind of guidelines on Aporee, normally you shouldn't edit it too much, but we all did a bit... trying to make a recording that should be... Ok good to listen for everybody, but there is not a lot of montage. It’s not a piece of art, audio art, it’s editing like a fading effect of different cuts.

Also I think it's linked to the content because I mean in 2010 when you uploaded the same, it had to be in MP3, not too long, and now these things have changed because now on Aporee I can upload everything in wav and it's all mirrored on archive.org. So on Aporee, he will make a translation to MP3 because of his server size, but all the web are mirrored and preserved on archive.org. And there used to be a length limit on Aporee, which I think doesn't really exist anymore. I'm recording a lot of demonstrations in Brussels. Brussels is magic for this because I think as capital of Europe you have like 3 or 4 demonstrations per day. And I used to make a lot of editing like the speeches, I upload, interviews with the people, I upload. Now I can just have 50 minutes recording with everything in one piece, which is more what happened and people can listen and just say whatever they want. So I accept also this limit that is changing. It's more easier to upload a longer recording without editing. The fact that it was edited before was just because of the limits that you could upload and you said okay I have to upload 10 minutes let's make it consistent of what happened this is something that changed.

P: Then going back to workshops, so you teach people how to go about your field recordings?

F: yeah

P: Okay and through the workshops what has surprised you from participants? What have you learned from people going to teaching?

F: It's the organization where I work. We work as an education permanent, we say in French, which is teaching for adults. All along your life you can still learn things.

P: Okay, so continuning education.

F: Yeah, exactly. So this is something we always have, I always have, we really have strong impulse of supposing that the people, you know, we're just here to help them. When I make a field recording workshop, I’m not the big specialist telling to an audience, listen, this is how you have to do. So I always try to work with what people already do know. And the more I know, I mean with smartphone, people know how to make a recording now. Especially with young adults sometimes they know a bit more than because they are more I have my technical things but things change a lot and sometimes I have people making podcasts and they use things I don’t use. So the workshop is more than a conversation and bringing things together and making things maybe clearer for everybody but it's not it's not like a general course where I want to make. So I can't tell you what has surprised me. Yes, probably things that surprised me that I always have to think that people know a lot of things and I'm not there to teach.

P: Yeah, you're there to help them out, to guide them if they have some questions.

F: Yeah, I can make... When I make field recordings, the thing that I usually learn to people is because it’s how the society is going, we are into fast things. With field recordings if personally if I can teach something is that, when you are making field recordings, you have to take times. It’s only really because I was checking one of the recordings of the Arve River.

I usually talk about John Cage and the 4 minutes 33 seconds of nothing and I said to people don't think that you can just make a one minute recording it won't be enough. So I always try to tell people that, yeah, it's time. Because also you’re not limited if you record with your smartphone you’re not limited with time. So, start with making a 5 minute recording or a 10 minute recording and just listen. So, it’s more to teach them to bring collective listenings.

Also, when we are making workshops, I try to be a lot in the collective things and we often start by just going outside, not bringing anything technical, just making a collective listening, coming back and let everybody tell what he or she heard and how these collective things can make emerge new listening because somebody will say "oh" and most of the time somebody will say "oh I didn't hear what you heard”. Voila, this is something how the act of listening and the act of recording, but first the act of listening can bring you collectivities and things. Voila, this is what I try to pass by in the workshops.

P: And you mentioned that you were just listening to the audio recording again, and I was wondering how often do you revisit other recordings that you've done? What sparks you to also listen to a recording? Do you have different thoughts or memories when you listen to it or is it a different experience each time?

F: When I listen back to a recording, I think the memories... The recording is a strong reenactment of the scene. I mean, I'm sure if I had taken the picture, I wouldn't have the same feeling of presence. When I listen back to the recording, it's just like as if I was back again on the bank of the Arve River on this Sunday morning, and I just listen to it, and I could remember the paysage. And it’s strong with voices also, with all the interviews I’ve been doing for my work, if I just listen back to a voice, it’s just like the presence. For me, sound is stronger than image. Well, they’re always interacting.

P: So when you are doing projects, do you do any documentation with the camera? Do you ever take photos?

F: Sometimes yes, but I mostly write. I try to take notes. Also, after I have finished my recording, I let the recorder go on and I talk about what happened. Everything also about my personal feelings, what happened that you maybe cannot hear, but what I felt during this time. Also kind of introspection, something that can eventually help me afterwards by listening to this. And this is something I don't upload on Aporee, I mean this is just side notes as I would take notes also.

P: So yeah, it's more so for you, it's kind of like a journal where you can talk about.

F: And also it helps a lot because sometimes people contact me and ask me for specific sound they need for a project or whatever. So I can find it back.

P: And since you've been doing this for 25 years, I'm assuming you have a very large database of sounds. So how do you manage that? Do you have like external hard drives? Do you have everything on a computer? Do you use the cloud? Like where do you store everything and how do you search for stuff?

F: Well, I search for Aporee, considering that most of my sounds are on a Aporee. I try to go back in my old archive and upload them more and more. So my first way of searching is use it on a Aporee and search. You can search for places but you can search for sounds and I would just type Flavien and children and for example, and I’ll have a list of whatever. I will write my keywords. I have different hard drives and I have some classifications. But mostly, it’s not exactly geographically but by countries mostly.

In Brussels and Belgium where I live it doesn't really make sense to make it just a big folder of Belgium. So I try to have also thematical recordings like demonstrations, concerts, conversations. The more I record the more I try to be exhaustive in my classification. It's not really... sometimes I'm just... I'm sure I have a lot of forgotten sounds. I don't have a personal cloud, so it's only hard drives, and the archive.org, they're my So it's a big time.

P: And do you work with other people or is it just you that when you go out to do like field recordings? Is it usually just you or do you have some people help you as well?

F: I used to, but it's more in Brussels. I used to work with friends but it was kind of geek technical research. We decided to go and make a surround recording with big installations. So it's also a way to have a collective day of thinking how we record, go in specific places and make some recordings where we have a lot of editing afterwards. But most of the time I go alone and I try to make my recordings with no influence.

I try, it's complicated because I'm a man, I'm interested in techniques, so I try not to be too... It's not easy, but I try not to be always looking for new techniques and things. I try to have my setup and stick to it. And also not to consider that a recording I made like 20 years ago with limited material, I try not to say, I try to consider it as something valuable because also the fact that I'm working in a continuous education, I try to empower people, it's also something I have to learn to change from me, because I've been working before that in technical things with men. So I try to consider that if somebody comes with the will to make recordings, not to say "no you can't" because you don't have the correct material. So it's always something and to be able to teach this is something I have to change with myself. So I have to consider that I can go with some limited material and it will be acceptable as well. Because it's just my intention is first before the techniques.

P: Yeah, it's difficult to maybe have the equipment that professionals or artists and practitioners are using. And most people have a smartphone or anything, that's an easy step to recording.

F: For example, at the moment, next week I am in a jury of a student. She is here in Saint-Luc, which is an architectural design. She's in Master's and her memoir is about the landscape of a lieu de memoir, so memorial places. She's supposed to be an architect afterwards and build something, but she wanted to work on the landscape of these places. So we've been in contact for the writing and she definitely didn't want to have big material. She just went with her smartphone, record and analyzed the images. And yeah, this is important to support this kind of thing because it will be important for work afterwards. And not to say "no, you can do it one day with your smartphone". Yes, you can do it. So this is something I have been a man of 50 years old. I have to deconstruct all these things that I have grown and changed my way.

P: Have you ever tried building your own equipment? Have you tried building a microphone or a hydrophone using electronics?

F: Yeah, but I'm not really interested and some people do it well. It's something... I try to stay away from... I've been doing workshops to create amplifers or something like this. And in theory I have the knowledge to do it but it's not what I want to do. I stay away from this.

P: Fair. Yeah, I think just to conclude, I think the last question I would have is, is there anything that you want people to take away from the field recordings? Like, what is the most important thing when someone's listening to one of your pieces or an audio clip? What are you hoping for them to take away from it?

F: I would like maybe for people to realize that somehow sounds are important and it can help them not to recognize but to listen afterwards maybe to have more focus on the act of listening. It can help them, I mean living in the city you can learn from your audio sound, sound environment. What do you accept? Do you think it is normal to have continuous drones from air conditioners where do you live, is it normal? What does it say from our society, climate change? So yeah, to be... If I can help people having more focus on their sound environments, then I think it was worth doing it.

P: And do you have any questions for me?

F: Yes, how did the sound become an interest for you?

P: Yeah, when I was a kid I didn't know I was good at music until my music teacher said like oh you should audition for this art high school in my hometown in Canada. So I did the audition, you go in, you do a blind read of sheet music, and then I got in. So I was like, okay, so I studied music for those four years in high school, not by accident. And then I never went back to music after that, because I did graphic design in my undergrad. And recently in school, there was a project where we incorporated sounds. Actually there was two projects. I was like, "Oh, you know what, I really miss this." And I wanted to see how I can incorporate this into my practice because I do think sound and sound design has been missing for me. And then there's the Junction in Geneva where I go by every day and I was just drawn to it. And then talking to my thesis advisor, he's like, "Okay, won't you start reading about environmental aesthetics?" and how philosophers have talked about how to appreciate nature. And there's only been like three or four people who talk about sounds in nature, which I thought was kind of like a missing point. And that's how I got into the field recordings. And also there was one project at the beginning of the school year. We did field recordings, but for electromagnetic waves. So we picked up radio signals from airplanes and that was really fun. So I was really excited to go out and capture these sounds. Especially those sounds because it's things that you can't just hear on your own. But with at least sonic or sounscapes like natural or urban, yes it's here, but not everyone is focusing on it. We are living our busy lives or we're wearing headphones, like we're already like disconnected yeah it's a way to like bring people back into their environment even though are in it but they're ignoring it.

F: Yeah nice and I was listening back to my recordings and it's funny because I said and this is how you I’m still in contradiction because if you had asked me “which sound I have stronger memory from Geneva?” I would have said, the one I made from Bains de Paquis. There is one where I have one where I have people walking on the small beach talking, and the black birds, I know the French word, foulque macroule, the black one with white. They have a small cry but really small but really powerful. And there is a small waves on the lake and aesthetically it's quite nice. But it's funny because it was interesting to go back and talk about the Arve where nothing happens happens but maybe there is more to say about it than just daily life of Bains de Paquis.

P: Yeah, Geneva is to me a quiet city compared to where I am from Toronto, in Canada, which is like cars everywhere, there's always constant sounds with buildings, like it's never quiet so for me like Geneva is very nice that you can escape that. Do you go back to Geneva often?

F: I went back, no, I went back in, I think it was 2019 for my organization. We made a workshop, a radio workshop with, on... I don't remember this big place where there was a flea market. That's in Carouge?

P: Hold on, it's in Plainpalais.

F: Yeah, exactly. We were invited by a center for disabled people, like Spinitaire, artistic, also creating things, working. So we were invited one week to make recordings of their own, how they live in Geneva. So they made interviews, they made field recordings as well, and we ended up doing a live radio show that was broadcast in Brussels.

P: Ah, okay, that's really cool.

F: Yeah, and so this was the last time I went there, and it was a whole week but I didn't record a lot because I was mostly with them to help them. Also this was important for them because a lot of had psychiatric problems but also anxiety to go and record and most of them past by and don’t want to be interactions with people so I had to help them, going to Plainpalais and making recordings. Of course people will see you when you’re there, this is how we had to bring them something. Now in this case of field recordings was interesting because they had a role, they had a function and they could be accepted as people are just not going to ask me who are you but what are you doing here so it was kind of they could explain what they were doing they were not somehow attacked by people and anxious so this was the last time.

P: And whenever you go to a place, whether it's for work or for vacation, do you always do a recording?

F: Yeah, definitely.

P: Is it the first thing that you like to do?

F: If I was alone, I would say yes, but I have to also, for example, often when I go to a demonstration, This is a talk I have with my wife or with people I go with. I am recording and they say somehow I am not part of the movement. So I try to have discussion. Okay, I will shout, I will bring a recommendation, but then I will record because it's important as well.

P: Very interesting. In some way you are still participating in our recording because you're documenting.

F: Yeah, this is how I think it's important. But it's not...

P: But you're not in the moment, I get that.

F: Yeah, yeah, it's when you are with people you have to have a discussion about it. And yeah, I've been sometimes... the longest thing being alone was in Istanbul. I was in residency for one week, for Europalia, it’s an exhibition in Brussels that happens every year with a specific country invited.

P: What’s the festival called?

F: And in 2015, it was Turkey and I had the opportunity to go one week to Istanbul because they had an apartment for the organization when they were going to meet artists to invite them and they said ok, the apartment is available for one week so you can go and do whatever you want. I was there and made a soundmap of the city and I was really alone. I think this was the first time I was alone for such a long time with only recordings. Did it change things? I don’t think so, because. Well, actually it didn’t change me. I didn’t want to change my life. I’m happy to be in living, I live with people, it’s more important that I don’t I have the chance of having a job where I can do what I like to do and that's it. It's something I am lucky with and I'm grateful of it but I always stay in contact with people so it doesn't go over things or if it goes over I try to I asked people to alert me, not to go too far away. It's easy to go, it's something you can easily go.

I mean, when I had a workshop and people for their first time, they go out with a headphone and microphones, a new world is opening today. I remember a workshop I was with children in secondary schools and it was a school, I would say, where you could consider it's a priority school in a poor part of the Brussels.

So you could say that these children are quite agited. I went for these workshops and suddenly, when we went to school or a small place, and they just starting to explore the place with the recorder on the phone. And it’s just like, the teacher couldn’t recognize them. Agited children that weren’t agited anymore, they just wanted to listen to sounds and find details. Voila. So for me, somehow something you can like a lot, do a lot. But more important is to stay in touch with the people you are with.

P: Ok, I do have another question.

F: Yeah, sure.

P: Why do you think we've lost our ability to focus on sounds? Why do we need, like, yeah, I'll end it there. Why do you think we are more focused on visuals as a culture now, rather than sounds?

F: I think that it goes back to capitalism because visual triggers a lot of things so it can keep your attention. And sound is something that gets you at... if you are... It says a little bit also about how we design cities, for example, in Brussels. It's really clear that even in public spaces, you don't have banks (benches). You cannot sit anymore. The city is just something you have to walk and past by. You really, you go to a point to buy something and to another point. And being in listening somehow gets you out of capitalism is a big one, but it gets you out of activities where you are triggered to do something, when you are listening you can be not doing something, you can just be yourself and listen and be eventually available for what happens. So this is just how our society goes more and more I would say.

Listening is also for human activity I would say it goes on. You've been studying music. What strikes me is how as we in society have lost the way to sing for example. If you sing you have to listen, you have to learn, you have to take time. We don't sing anymore and this is something maybe it was something more popular that got lost.

There is a book I don't know if it translated in English from Alexander Galand I can send you the link here it's uh it's a it's a book about film recording so we've learned in production and then 100 field recording albums but in three categories: The Sound of the Earth, The Sound of People, and How The Sound of Manipulation of This. It's been in French quite famous, maybe it's been translated.

P: I think so in French that's okay. I've been reading some stuff in French just by speaking and listening as part of it.

F: It's really interesting books and I had, because he's living in Belgium, so I had the opportunity to meet him at the conference he was doing and he just broadcast an old recording from the 1910 final piece taken which is a “Paysan” sorry I don't know the word "Paysan" farmer or something like this which was with his cow in the field and he had a song that was in interaction with the cow. So this is something that we could lose. If you didn't have this recording, this is something that would be lost. And yeah, maybe with industrialization, we lost this connection with the living. And to be in connection with the living, you have to listen and you have to take time. This is what we lose of yesterday. That's where we go now.

P: I think that's a great way to end the conversation. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and your insights. If I have any other follow-up questions, I can reach out to you?

F: Sure.

P: Amazing.