Conference Agenda

This invited workshop introduces Dialogical Sonic Self-Portraits (DSSP), an arts-based, practice-oriented method developed within Dialogical Self Theory. Building on Hubert Hermans’ formulation of the self as a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions, the workshop explores how dialogical processes can be engaged at the level of vocal presence itself, understood as the relational ground on which positions emerge, encounter one another, and shift through ongoing processes of positioning and affective orientation.

Drawing on Bakhtin’s account of dialogism as the relational organisation of voices, the workshop attends to the material conditions through which dialogical relations are sustained at the level of voice itself. This orientation is informed by Mladen Dolar’s theorisation of voice as a structural remainder binding speaker and listener, Barthes’ notion of the grain of the voice as bodily presence beyond semantic meaning, and Cavarero’s understanding of voice as embodied address and exposure to the other.

Participants create a short sonic self-portrait by recording I-positions separately and composing them into a single audio artefact using minimal editing actions such as sequencing, overlap, silence, and relative volume. Editing is approached as a dialogical practice through which relations between positions are arranged, sustained, or unsettled within a shared sonic space. Dialogical positions are not assumed to pre-exist the recording process; rather, they are enacted through voicing and listening as these develop in relation to one another, in line with Dialogical Self Theory’s understanding of positioning as dynamic, relational, and affectively oriented.

The workshop is designed as a 90-minute, hands-on session. Participants work individually using their own mobile phones or laptops to record, edit, and listen to their sonic self-ports. Guided listening supports reflection on how dialogical relations become audible in the sonic in-between. No prior technical expertise is required, and sharing of audio material remains optional.