A Slow Down Manifesto

Slow Down session is a proposal for a collective media improvisation designed for people to express themselves, connect with the environment and soak themselves in the room full of sounds, lights, and other sensory triggers.

The hope is to invoke deep meditative states in participants, inspire and relax the busy minds and release what’s piled up. We would like to create a space where at least for the provided 2-3 hours people could let go of worries and enable themselves to be calm and creative.

A sequence of Slow Down sessions spanning several years unfolded at the Studio106LA gallery in Los Angeles a few years ago. In light of the current tumultuous times, this manifesto encourages readers to embrace the practice of listening and playing. Therefore, you are invited to incorporate the tenets of the Slow Down Manifesto into your own artistic endeavors.

A Manifesto

Choose your own voice.Bring something to make sound or art with.Crushing dry leaves, a flute, tablet/computer, synthesizer, guitar, DMX controllers and light sources, video projectors.Anything that lets you make and have some control over the sound/art will do. For electric instruments bring you own amplification, we will just provide the power.We encourage to create any sounds that facilitate the unified texture. Rather than making beats and trying to play in time we’d hope to create the feeling of timelessness.Tonal sounds, small and big noises, short percussive sounds – all are welcome. We want to hear sounds, acknowledge them and let them pass. The same applies to visual elements.No cell phones or talking during the session (unless that’s what you use for making art and sounds). Let’s just be respectful to each other.Everything else is up to you.Sounds can be dissonant or consonant, bright or dim, stay for awhile or appear as a brief spark and disappear forever.No judgments. In fact, it doesn’t matter at all what you do and who you are.Be whatever you want, sound however you want, shine and project whatever you desire. Let’s just see what happens and enjoy.