Biography

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Dr. Ximena Alarcón is a sound artist-researcher interested in listening and sounding our sonic migrations: the resonances left in between the borders we cross when we tune in and meet others across distant locations. Throughout her career, she has created telematic sonic improvisations and interfaces for relational listening, to understand sensorially migratory experiences.

She is a Deep Listening® certified tutor, with a PhD in Music Technology and Innovation. Her major works are Sounding Underground (IOCT-DMU, Leverhulme Trust, 2007-2009), the telematic sound performances’ series Networked Migrations (CRiSAP-UAL, 2011-2017), and INTIMAL: Interfaces for Relational Listening (RITMO-UiO, Marie Skłodowska Curie IF, 2017-2019). In Bath, with The Studio Recovery Fund 2021, she created the INTIMAL App© for people to explore their “migratory journeys”, exploring sense of place and telepresence.

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Ximena composes hybrid listening rituals (online and offline) with musicians and non-trained musicians, and improvises with spoken word and voice. She has engaged in many artistic collaborations, including her participation in the NowNet Arts Ensemble since 2020.

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She teaches Deep Listening® at the Center for Deep Listening, and independently, with an emphasis on Sonic Migrations. 

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Emerging from her INTIMAL project, Ximena leads the Intimal collective of Latin American migrant women listening to their migrations and expanding notions of femininity, territory and care.

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Details

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Research

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Thanks to a postdoctoral Marie Sklodowska Curie Individual Fellowship (2017-2019) at the University of Oslo, she prototyped INTIMAL, a physical-virtual embodied system for Relational Listening in telematic improvisatory performance, derived from a case study of Colombian migrant women's listening experiences in Europe, and tested it with them in a Telematic Sonic Performance between Oslo, Barcelona and Oslo, on May 7th, 2019. Independently, as a resident at The Studio, in Bath, with The Studio Recovery Fund 2021, she created the INTIMAL App© for people to explore their “migratory journeys”. 

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She has published twenty articles in Peer Reviewed International Journals including NIME, Somaesthetics, Journal of Networked Music and Arts - JONMA, eWic, WI Journal, Digital Creativity, Organised Sound, CITAR, and Sensate Journal. She has written four book chapters as a solo author, and one as a co-author. The most recent being “Breathing (as Listening): An Emotional Bridge for Telepresence” in the Routledge book The Body in Sound, Music and Performance, Eds. Linda O Keefe and Isabel Nogueira. She has also published text, audio and graphic scores, and assorted pieces of multimedia and creative writing.

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She has been invited as a keynote speaker to conferences such as The Body in Sound, Music and Technology (Online, Sound Studies UK Network, 2022), Sonology (São Paulo, 2019), and Irish Sound Science and Technology Association ISSTA (Limerick, 2015). She has presented results in symposiums, at academic and artistic events across the world, and participated in international conferences and Sound Art and Music festivals in the UK, Europe and Latin America.

Artistic Awards

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She has received Honorary artistic mentions such as the Pamela Z innovation award at NIME Conference 2019, for her "INTIMAL, Walking to sense place, Breathing to feel presence" research paper and project; the Award for Circulation of Artists, by the Ministry of Culture, Colombia. 2017, for the project "Deep Listening: rituals for the Colombian post-conflict."; the New Genre Prize for "Sounding Underground", at the International Association of Women in Music (IAWM) Search for New Music Competition, USA, 2011;  and the Honorary Mention for ‘Sounding Underground’, International Festival of the Image, Manizales, Colombia, 2010.

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Teaching

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She teaches Deep Listening® at the online certification programme at the Center for Deep Listening, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and independently, with an emphasis on Sonic Migrations. She has taught the practice in Colombia, India, Spain, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Norway, and the UK. 

She has taught in Higher Education, across disciplines such as Sound Art, Digital Cultures, Human-Computer Interaction, Music Technology, and Performance Technologies, including Telematic Sonic Performance. She acted as a Programme Leader for the MA/MSc in Creative Technologies, at the IOCT, De Montfort University in 2010 and 2013.

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Performance

Ximena is a vocal improviser who explores in-betweeness, using bilingualism, as part of her sonic migrations. She has performed with a variety of telematic ensembles, such as FLO Orchestra and Ars Electronica All Women Networked Jam Session in Ars Electronica.  Currently, she is part of NowNet Arts Hub, directed by the composer Sarah Weaver, and the Raspberry Pi Ensemble, with percussionist Gloria Damjan and cellist Jane Wang. She has trained in reading Walter Thompson’s Soundpainting technique used by Sarah Weaver’s scores. Also, she trains in the use of Jacktrip software, improvisational strategies, and transmission techniques.

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Creating community

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Emerging from her INTIMAL project, Ximena leads a collective of Latin American migrant women – Intimal – who come together to listen to their migrations and expand their notions of femininity, territory and care.

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