With Darkness: a (Slow) listening session
- ‘With Darkness’ is a participatory, after-dark listening session led by multidisciplinary artist Christine Hvidt, based on her essay-contribution to Slow Technology Reader
- The event is organized as a dialogue with the publication Slow Technology Reader
What: With Darkness: a (Slow) listening session
When: Saturday 28 March, 18.30–22.00 hr
Where: Zone2Source
Organised by: Christine Hvidt, Slow Research Lab, Valiz and Zone2Source
Entry: Free, but spots are limited. To RSVP please send an email to marieke@valiz.nl
Language: English
'With Darkness'
In her essay-contribution to this new book, Hvidt writes of Darkness as a technology — where ‘Darkness’ (with a capital ‘D’) is understood as an entity, an ally, and a portal to other dimensions of experience. Her text oscillates between narrating her personal encounters in the dark and theoretical reflections inspired by the likes of Simone Weil and Édouard Glissant. For Hvidt, listening is an act of internal and external sonic attention, a gesture of lending somatic, mindful, and intuitive awareness to the living places we attend to.
After the official closing times…
During the listening session, participants will enter the Amstelpark after dark has fallen, feeling into invitations from particular beings and energies that make themselves known only under the cover of night. These may be sounds that become audible when the city has quieted down or the stirrings of nocturnal creatures who inhabit the park, but also may be expressions of the participant’s own internal shadow landscape that often speaks louder when darkness sets in. The session equally is inspired by ancient Norse shamanic traditions for seeking advice or guidance from spirits during the dark hours — especially the Sitting ritual (in Danish “udesidning”).
Slow listening
The listening session thus encourages to open up to whatever may reveal itself in and through Darkness, giving attention and time to ourselves while sharpening our sensing instruments to attune to those (Slow) facets of the world that normally are obscured—whether by the light of day or by the speed of everyday life.
When & Where
Participants gather at the Zone2Source Glazen Huis between 18:30 and 18:50, with the event starting promptly at 19:00. After an introduction by the book’s editor Carolyn F. Strauss and a short reading from Hvidt’s essay ‘With Darkness,’ the artist will provide instructions for the listening session out in the park. After two hours, all participants will reconvene at the Glazen Huis for warm tea and cookies, courtesy of Valiz. The event ends at 22:00.
About Christine Hvidt
Christine Hvidt is a Danish multidisciplinary artist based in Den Haag and Denmark who works with site-specific sound art, responsive works, and relational listening practices. Her research operates at the intersection of art-science, somatic methodologies, and experimental technology, exploring relationships between humans, other species, and the land, with a focus on ecological systems, interspecies relations, and the forms of knowledge held by living environments.
Her latest projects include As Roots Grow Back Into Us (2025), commissioned by platform Bunker (DK) in collaboration with Bureau for Listening and the Listening Biennial. Her upcoming residency at Sound Art Lab will support the development of the sound installation and art-science project SUBTERRANEAN that centers on acoustic monitoring of the soil ecosystems, machine learning, ecocentric listening, and collaborations with soil scientists. Find out more on her website.
About Slow Research Lab
Slow Research Lab is a transdisciplinary research and curatorial platform that centers Slowness in contemporary theory and creative practice. Contributors to its programming include artists, ecologists, technologists, and activists. Their experimental, sometimes speculative approaches to praxis challenge dominant systems or narratives, encouraging us to see the world through an expanded (Slow) spatial, relational, and temporal prism. Deeply committed to facilitating variable forms and scales of dialogue, as well as to embracing the unknown as a portal to unforeseen dimensions of knowledge, the platform aims to be a fertile, generative space both for charting new trajectories of creativity and for enlarging the boundaries of human consciousness. Read more here.