Listening, breaking down, and speaking up is a stochastic algorithmic sound composition that weaves recordings of digestive sounds, including bowel movements and chewing, with improvisational expressions of the transversal flute, sax tenor and soprano. The audio was composed using a call-and-response method whereby I produced a collage of digestive sounds, to which Brazilian musician Jota P freely responded using the three wind instruments. The audio layers were then sent to a generative algorithm that randomized the intervals of each recording’s playback, dispersing the fragments unpredictably across eight output channels wired to speakers embedded within each horn.





In Listening, breaking-down, and speaking-up, I investigate the creativity of the digestive flora in our guts and in the soil by drawing analogies to the creative act of jazz improvisations. 

Digestion breaks down a chaotic mixture of organic material, transforming it into a visually homogeneous mass yet highly complex fertile body. This lends agency to organisms that organize matter through simultaneous consumption and production. And in that simultaneity, I identify a harmony between the cultural production of dissonant and syncopated sounds of jazz and the digestive process. 



The disparate coexistence of chaos and order and the generative musical nature cultivated between jazz ensemble members communicate a similar attunement to intuitive listening (consuming) and sounding (producing). Digestion and jazz are processes that generate a shared meaning between various agents through creative collaboration and non-verbal modes of communication.