The Art of Listening is a collaboration between Friends of Friends and Danish speaker manufacturer Dynaudio. The series looks at individual approaches to everyday listening.
Three portraits in three cities. A sound researcher in Copenhagen. A DJ in Berlin. A fashion designer in London, whose story became the film.
Nicholas Daley designs menswear from a studio at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in North London. His collections draw on his British-Jamaican roots and his family's musical history. His parents ran Scotland's first reggae club, in Edinburgh, in the 1970s.
A small crew travelled to London for the film. It traces his path into fashion, his work in the studio, and what listening means to him.
Music and fashion are so intertwined. One enforces the other.
Alexandra Dröner listens at home in a loft in Prenzlauer Berg. She was one half of the DJ duo Sick Girls. In her flat the stereo is the focal point.
Music there is a singular experience. Never background noise.
Holger Schulze is a professor of musicology at the University of Copenhagen. He reads a cafe as a set of sound sources. Music, a Skype call, kitchen clatter, people paying.
For him, focused listening sharpens awareness of how other people perceive the world.
Dynaudio builds loudspeakers in Denmark. For The Art of Listening, Friends of Friends produced three photographed portraits, published in spring and summer 2019.
The London story became a film portrait of Nicholas Daley, shot and edited by a reduced crew.