Nyc RESIDENCY: sound and space ii
september 30 - october 4, 2025
september 30
sublime/minute: an embodied listening workshop with mary edwards
october 1
Workshop Led by Shahzad Ismaily AND Zeerak Ahmed, figure 8 recording studio
guest lecturers: andrew mcgraw and janna levin
evening programming: kaoru watanabe at bloodlines interwoven festival (featuring shahzad ismaily)
October 2
Workshop Led by Shahzad Ismaily AND Zeerak Ahmed, figure 8 recording studio
october 3
1:1 project STUDIo TIME at figure 8
self-led excursions
evening programming: Peni Cendra Rini at Asia Society, NY (featuring Shahzad Ismaily)
october 4
1:1 project STUDIo TIME at figure 8
self-led excursions
WORKSHOP - sublime/minute: embodied listening WITH mary edwards
Image: Amber Cortes
Participants will engage in a Soundwalk of sonic mediations and activations of natural and architectural spaces in Downtown Manhattan (NYC). Through exercises, we will explore aural perspective, sense memory and vibratory listening with the body.
Afterwards, we will discuss how these encounters and observations shape our understanding of temporal shift as part of a documented roundtable discussion.
Meet-up spot
13:00 — Jim Kempner Fine Art (atrium garden), 501 West 23rd Street (entrance on 10th Avenue)
Tour stops
13:30 — The High Line, West 23rd Street (elevator/entrance on 11th Avenue)
14:30 — Little Island, West 14th Street (pedestrian walkway entrance on 11th Avenue)
Final spot for follow-up discussion
16:00 — TBA. There are options for coffee, beer, food if we want to discuss and dine. If not, we can settle back at the High Line where there is an amphitheater. We can also opt to comfortably congregate at a nearby place based on the number of participants.
suggested readings
Toop, David. "Resonant Frequency," essay, Spectres II Resonances (Shelter Press)
Pavan, Gianni. "Listening Underwater," essay, On Listening, Carlyle & Lane, Ed.(Uniform Books)
Bachelard, Gaston. "Intimate Immensity," essay, The Poetics of Space (Beacon Press)
Blesser, Barry and Linda-Ruth Salter. "Auditory Spatial Awareness," Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?: Experiencing Aural Architecture (MIT Press)
Required materials
Comfortable walking apparel
Small notebook and anything to record
Water or preferred beverage for hydration
bio
WORKSHOP - Listening Beyond the Surface WITH FIGURE 8 RECORDING STUDIO
WORKSHOP FACILITATED BY ZEERAK AHMED & LED BY SHAHZAD ISMAILY
Image: Isabel Fajardo Photography
For the second edition of the sound residency at Figure 8 Recording Studio in Brooklyn, NY, we invite participants to explore their layered auditory experiences and the concept of heterotopias —“worlds within worlds.” So often, multiple, complex, even incompatible sounds blend into a single dense soundscape. Bird calls, the wail of an ambulance siren, and music from the radio all merge into one continuous sonic experience. In this two-day workshop, we will closely examine the auditory environments we move through daily and bring into focus the elusive structure of sound that weaves these harmonious and/or cacophonous layers into a unified performance or composition.
Artists and practitioners from all disciplines are encouraged to engage deeply with sound, both as a sensorial experience and as a tool to inform and expand their individual practices. We will begin by activating deep listening throughout the entire body—through the ears, the pores of the skin, the organs within, and even dreams and memories. Participants will collect notes, tones, textures, and volumes, collapsing distinctions between the quietest and loudest, the raw and the highly manufactured. In doing so, we aim to dissolve traditional hierarchies in sound—between noise and music, background and foreground, human and nonhuman—allowing for a more inclusive and equitable sonic field. By the end of the workshop, each participant will present their personal sonic catalog of space and time in the form of a performed and/or recorded piece.
Facilitator Zeerak Ahmed and workshop leader Shahzad Ismaily will guide sessions on deep listening, the presence of artificial sound in natural environments and vice versa, bird songs, scoring methodologies, digital reproduction, and conducted improvisation as both a concept and an expanded method for interdisciplinary dialogue. Recording prompts, exercises, and discussions will be anchored in a variety of shared readings, artworks, and excerpts from audio works, film, dance, and new media. These will include Bodies of Song by Jessie Hess, The Art of Conduction by Butch Morris, The Birds’ World of Song by Hudson and Sandra Ansley and selected writings by Pauline Oliveros.
Guest lecturer Professor Andrew McGraw will join remotely to lead a discussion on the effects of music on the body, particularly within the parallel world of the American prison system. In addition we will invite Professor Janna Levin, author of Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, to talk about the inside story on the discovery of the century: the instrument that recorded the sound of spacetime ringing from the collision of two black holes over a billion years ago.
Note: This workshop will be held at Figure8 Recording Studio (www.figure8recording.com) giving TT PhD students direct access to professional equipment and on-site engineers. Students may independently book recording sessions with Shahzad Ismaily and/or an engineer on October 3rd and 4th—sessions are limited and must be reserved in advance—at a special discounted rate for TT students working on individual or group projects. If you're interested in developing a larger sound project with Shahzad Ismaily and/or Figure8 Studio in Brooklyn, NY, please contact Zeerak Ahmed at zeerak.figure8@gmail.com by September 15th for rates and details.
BIOS
Zeerak Ahmed / SLOWSPIN is a US-based sound artist. She produces voice-based sculptures, meditative installations and uniquely fragile sound collages that explore notions of identity, memory and longing. Slowspin has a distinct sound practice grounded in Hindustaani classical vocal traditions, dream-folk, ambient and experimental electronic music. Poetry and melodies in her mother tongue(s)—Urdu, Farsi, Purbi and English—build new textural soundscapes. She is presently archiving the sonic and intellectual histories of female folk music traditions from South Asia, drawing new visual forms from the poetic and melodic content of her ancestral body. Exploring new ways of listening, composing, and performing the sounding body, her work addresses critical immaterial art.
Shahzad Ismaily is a Brooklyn-based musician, composer, engineer and interdisciplinary collaborator. Born to Pakistani immigrant parents, he grew up in a wholly bicultural household. Exploring improvisation, tonal shifts and rhythmic movement, Ismaily has trained and worked with a number of avante-garde musicians and composers including Laurie Anderson, Anthony Coleman, Milford Graves, Eyvind Kang, Butch Morris and Marc Ribot. Over the last thirty years he has played electric bass, drums, percussion, guitar, synthesizers and all manner of sound-makers procured in life’s travels. Ismaily has done work for dance and theater pieces, such as the film Frozen River (Oscar-nominated and Sundance award-winning) and Inkboat (a butoh crew from California/Switzerland). He has recorded and performed with a diverse crew of artmakers: Yoko Ono “Plastic Ono Band”, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Laura Veirs, Beth Orton, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Marianne Faithfull, Faun Fables, Feist, Bryce Dessner, Dustin O’Halloran, Elysian Fields, Shelley Hirsch, Nels Cline, Bill Frisell, Guillermo E. Brown, Graham Haynes, Keiji Haino, Colin Stetson, Ben Frost, Damien Rice, Ceramic Dog, Laleh Khorramian, Jolie Holland, JFDR, Secret Chiefs 3, Sam Amidon, Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and more.
Dr. Andy McGraw is a Professor and Chair of Music at the University of Richmond in Virginia. He is the author of “Radical Traditions: Reimagining Culture in Balinese Experimental Music” (Oxford 2013) and “Music as Ethics” (Oxford 2023). He has co-edited two volumes on Indonesian music: “Performing Indonesia with Sumarsam” (Smithsonian 2014) and “Sounding Out the State of Indonesian Music” with Chris Miller (Cornell 2022). He has published numerous articles on music and ethics and analytical pieces on rhythm in Balinese, Javanese, and Cuban music. He facilitates community gamelan and string band ensembles in Richmond and runs a music program in the Virginia prison system. McGraw is an active performer and composer, frequently collaborating with leading artists from Indonesia. His discography includes recordings on Sargasso, Porter, Tzadik, Out of Your Head, and New Amsterdam record labels. Recent creative activities have involved collaborations with leading performers and composers from Indonesia, primarily the female Javanese composer Peni Candra Rini. McGraw’s co-arrangements of her compositions have been performed by the Kronos quartet at Carnegie Hall and on prestigious stages across Europe and America, including the Edinburgh International Festival, Big Ears, and the Monheim Triennale.
Janna Levin is the Claire Tow Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University. She is also the Founding Director of the Science Studios at Pioneer Works and founding editor-in-chief of Pioneer Works Broadcast. A Guggenheim Fellow, Janna has contributed to an understanding of black holes, the cosmology of extra dimensions, and gravitational waves in the shape of spacetime. She is the presenter of the NOVA feature Black Hole Apocalypse, aired on PBS—the first female presenter for NOVA in 35 years. Her previous books include How the Universe Got Its Spots, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, and a novel, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, which won the PEN/Bingham Prize among other international awards. Her latest book is Black Hole Survival Guide, which features artwork by Lia Halloran.
Figure 8 Recording Studio
188 Underhill Ave
Brooklyn, NY, 11238