THE CREATIVE SOUNDWALK

Mikael Fernström Sean TaylorDepartment of Computer Science and

Information SystemsUniversity of Limerick

Limerick School of Art andDesign

Limerick Institute ofTechnology

City Sonic Walk Meditation/Sounding No 1

Listen to the city as you walk, listen to everything,Be aware of how the sounds you listen to affects your body

Find a sound in the city that you like, express it in the place you first heard it,breathe and test for a resonance/echo in that space

Listen, sound again, listen to the resonance of the space, measure theresonance and adjust your sounding to the length of the resonance until theyare aligned and continue sounding. Sean Taylor, Softday soundwalk, June 2011

ABSTRACT

The concept of soundwalking was originally defined byHildegard Westerkamp and has since become an importantpractice for researchers in acoustic ecology. Many havefollowed and extended the method, for example (Cox,McCartney, Westerkamp). While the basic soundwalk can beexploratory, scientific, experiential, etc., Softdaystarted to do Creative Soundwalks in 2010. The creativeaspect is that the outcome of our soundwalks is to usethe collected or experienced sounds to createcollaborative improvisations, as part of a sociallyengaged sound art practice, enabling yet another level ofreflection about soundscapes.

In this paper we describe our current approach to thecreative use of soundwalks as a methodology for asocially engaged sound art practice in relation to abroader discourse on art, society, topography and place.This paper provides a brief chronology of Softdaysoundwalks, from 2010 to 2014 and elucidates our currentresearch methodology, themes and approach to creativesoundwalks. It contextualises a creative soundwalk praxisthat is undertaken in collaboration with specific

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communities of interest. This in turn leads to the design andcreation of collaborative and improvisatory sonic artworks. We are also concerned with current revaluations ofthe broad-range of cultural practices and productionsthat both acknowledge and celebrate the aesthetic of theamateur.

1. INTRODUCTON

Sound is the invasive phenomenon of everyday experiencein that it assists our engagement with, immersion in, andcommentaries with the environment in which we live.Auditory engagement challenges the dominance of thepragmatic visual object and counteracts a prevailing biasor dependence upon a predominantly ocular-centric focusof reading the environment through predominantly visualmetaphors. Jacques Attali stated that western philosophy“has failed to understand that the world is not for thebeholding. It is for hearing. It is legible, butaudible.” (1)

The Softday1 approach to creative soundwalking may beconsidered closer to the dérieve or ‘drift’, defined byGuy Debord and the Situationists as “a technique of rapidpassage through varied ambiences. Dérives involvesplayful-constructive behaviour and awareness of psycho-geographical effects, and are thus quite different fromthe classic notions of journey or stroll”. (2)

We differentiate between the conditions of the dérieveand the flâneur as defined by Baudelaire in that weconsider the flâneur to be a passive observer of the cityand never an active participant in the actions of thecity.

We may also consider that walking and listening is themost natural human behaviour, reflecting our origins ashunter-gatherers. The natural sonic environment affordsaction, for example to escape immediate threats orfinding game or a mate. Sound, we know, is temporal yet

1 Softday is an artistic collaboration between Sean Taylor and MikaelFernström. See www.softday.ie for details.

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omnidirectional therefore listening to any sonicenvironment whether it is within an urban or ruralcontext requires the listener to give priority and trainour hearing to receive all sound around them. Thisapproach to attentive forms of listening is similar towhat composer Pauline Oliveros describes as “thedifference between the involuntary nature of hearing andthe voluntary, selective nature – exclusive and inclusive-- of listening”. In her Deep Listening practice Oliverosencourages a balanced approach to two forms of listeningshe defines as “Focal Attention”, which is concerned withdetail, and “Global Attention”, which is concerned withthe whole of the space/time continuum of sound. (3)

We define the creative soundwalk as a structuredimmersive excursion whose main purpose is to engage theparticipants to become both active listeners and soundmakers. Such sonorous immersions in public space,potentially creates the conditions for spontaneousattentive collaborative opportunities or actions ofcreativity for all participants, i.e. artists, performersand audience. Softday’s approach to the creative publicsoundwalk encourages participants to derive meaning fromthe context of an immersive sonic environment. Thisfurther enables the participants to be positioned withinan acoustic environment, as the collaborative creativeauthors of their own remediated soundscapes.

Another key inherent aspect of our creative soundwalkpractice is playfulness, an essential ingredient thatSoftday feels is fundamentally suited to encouragingcreative self-expression, which may liberate the listenerfrom an over-dependency upon cogent discourse andrationality in relation to music and sound inherentthrough pre-existing controlling paradigms of social andcultural conditioning. While the traditional soundwalk can be exploratory,scientific, phenomenological, experiential, etc., Softdaybegan to explore the potential of applying the creativeturn to the outcome of public soundwalks in 2010. Oursocially engaged approach to working with specificcommunities of interest and soundwalk practice, places

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the emphasis on the collected or experienced fieldrecordings of sounds to further create originalcollaborative sonic improvisations. This emphasis, wesuggest, facilitates an embodied and emotionalperspective for the creative listener, potentiallyleading to more personal levels of reflection in relationto the soundscapes being encountered.

The action of the soundwalk through a soundscapetherefore can be both challenging and therapeutic for theparticipant due to the constant interaction of all thesense modalities, an experience that Gaston Bachelardrefers to as “a polyphony of the senses”, the earcollaborating with the body and the other senses. (4)

The development of soundwalking as a praxis is attributedto R.Murray Schafer and his colleagues in the WorldSoundscape Project in Vancouver, Canada, during the late1960s and early 1970s. Schafer and his team wereconcerned with identifying, recording, archiving andlistening to the characteristics and components of thesonic environment, an environment he considered to beunder threat due to the proliferation of noise pollutionin both urban and rural soundscapes. Schaferdifferentiates between “a listening walk and a soundwalk”he suggests that a listening walk is “simply a walk witha concentration on listening”. A soundwalk he defines “asan exploration of the soundspace of a given area using ascore as a map”. (5)

When Softday have selected a space or place forexploration, the participants experience the sound walkand may record their experiences through note taking andsound recording. Upon completion of the soundwalk thesound sources are mapped collectively, and this map islater considered as a graphic score. The soundwalkerengaging with acoustic space creates a scenario, animprovisational interrupt, and a change of perspectivethat deepens the embodied listening experience, ascenario where each listener is free to interpret andcontribute to a fluid sonic environment at any givenmoment. A soundwalk in this context creates the

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possibility for a multi-sensory experience of everydayinteractions with both space and place and potentiallychallenges aesthetic distinctions between high art andpopular culture

Since 2010 we have experimented and integrated aspects ofPauline Olivero’s Deep Listening practice into our creativesoundwalks. These elements also included sonic mindfulmeditations and Tai Chi/Qigong relaxation exercises. Thenew knowledge gained from the application of thisresearch led us to reflect and re-evaluate our approachto soundwalking. We then set about combining all thosenew elements (both established and un-tested) that wewere interested in, to see if it was possible to create auniquely Acouscenic Listening model that could be mademore accessible to both professional and non-professionalcreative participants and audiences. Our eureka momentensued as a result of numerous experiments with differentforms of creative soundwalks and in particular from thefindings of a soundwalk/listening workshop that tookplace in Harplinge, Sweden in April 14, 2014.

We organised a public soundwalk through an open call tothe public, in the village of Harplinge as part of aseries of socially engaged creative art process thatinformed a Swedish version of our Amhrain na mBeach (Song ofthe Bees) project (2010-14). Twenty-two members of thepublic participated in the soundwalk with us, and one ofthe outcomes of the Harplinge soundwalk was acollaborative sound map of the village, see Figure1.

Figure1: Softday public soundwalk, Harplinge, Sweden, April 2014

The field recordings and outcomes of this workshop thenfed into the uniquely Swedish live performance of Amhrain

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na mBeach (Song of the Bees) which we titled Sonic PareidolicCeromancy, which was performed at the Harp Art Lab,Harplinge, Sweden, on the 5th of July 2014, as part ofthe BZZZ! International Sound Art Festival, see Figure 2.

Figure 2: Softday performing Sonic Pareidolic Ceromancy and Harplinge Soundmap.

On reflection back in Limerick we then realised that thismap could possibly be interpreted and used as a graphicscore for an improvised sound art performance. The‘Acouscenic Listening Model’ thus became the startingpoint for an investigation into a new approach for acreative output of future Softday public soundwalks.

Over a series of recent soundwalks we further refinedthis model. As an exemplar in August 2014 we organisedour first Acouscenic Listening Intensive at theUniversity of Limerick. Through a public call via socialmedia we offered 14 places on the Intensive and 11members of the public signed up for the experience.

Softday hosted this one-day Acouscenic ListeningIntensive focused on the study of listening, creativesoundwalking and the meditative practices of Tai Chi andQigong. The intensive sought to enhance the participants’perception of sound and silence, offering a uniqueapproach for situated soundscapes, as well as offeringmovement/sound/and listening improvisations andstrategies. Acouscenic Listening methodologies weredesigned to enhance the participants’ skills in

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mindfulness, listening, and attuning to place, body andvoice as instruments of creativity and wellbeing. Theparticipants practiced these techniques helping them toreduce stress, in order to quieten and nurture thelistening body through energy exercises and sonicmeditations. The Acouscenic Listening Intensive supportedindividual and group creativity, playfulness andimprovised performance. The Intensive was designed forparticipants to have the opportunity to be with oneselfand to also have the support and camaraderie of thegroup.

The participants were encouraged to consider the soundmapof the soundwalk that they undertook, as a graphic scorefor a live group performance. Preparatory work wasundertaken with the participants for the collaborativeperformance through Tai Chi and Qigong movement exercisesand group sonic meditations. All aspects of the potentialinterpretation of the graphic score were discussed withand agreed by the participants and Softday. A workingtitle for the composition was discussed it was agreedthat the improvised work would be named;’ The LivingBridge’, see Figure 3.

From a creative perspective, it was interesting to notethat the first iteration of ‘The Living Bridge’ compositionresulted in the majority of performers attempting toimitate or mimic the mapped sounds of the environmentfrom the graphic score. After some further discussionamongst the performers it was agreed to abandon a visualliteral reading and sounding approach to the score, infavour of a more flexible and improvised rendition, thatincorporated movement elements and attentive listening towhat the other performers were sounding. This approachsignificantly changed the nature of the performance andopened up a far more engaged and sensitive rendition ofthe score. We recorded the second live improvisation andplayed it back to the participants for commentaries. Dueto time constraints we were unable to perform moreiterations of the composition during this Intensive.

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Figure 3: ‘The Living Bridge’ graphic score, 1st Acouscenic ListeningIntensive, Limerick, 2011

2. DISCUSSION

At the end of the workshop we asked all participants tofill out an evaluation if they so wished. This gave us anopportunity to do a structured qualitative analysis ofour Acouscenic Listening approach. Eight out of elevenparticipants completed and returned evaluation forms tous. The overall experience of the participants AcouscenicListening Intensive was positive. Comments ranged fromgood, challenging, holistic, unique experience to verypositive particularly in reference to the soundwalkelement of the Acouscenic Listening Intensive day.

Participants commented that they found their thoughts andbehaviours to be focused on the listening process; theywere engaged, intrigued, aware, relaxed, attentive, andencouraged. One participant commented that initially theywere tentative to participate at first, but as theybecame familiar with the group they found the freedom tointeract, particularly in the final composition of thesound map graphic score. A small number of participantsfound working on group sonic meditation with partnersdifficult. At the end of the day the participants

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observed that the group performance work was excellent,people felt happy and their thoughts were more open andbalanced. They connected with and enjoyed the group soundcomposition. One participant commented that” by the endof the day I realized what amazing possibilities lies inthis kind of event”.

All participants enjoyed the soundscapes of thesoundwalk. Comments varied from; unexpected sounds,stopping and finding the deeper tones in the soundscape,diverse layered and varied sounds, “the understanding ofthe varied sounds of the geophony, biophony andantrophony on the soundwalk was clearly explained andadded to the experience of the soundwalk”. Oneparticipant stated that “the soundwalk went by tooquickly and more time could have been allocated to listenmore intently to the various soundscapes along the routeof the walk”. All participants stated that they found theexperience of working collectively in a playful and non-prescriptive and engaging process during the AcouscenicListening Intensive both helpful and beneficial. Furtherbenefits included; “learning new ways of approaching thecreative process, that I can apply to my own practice”,and ‘fun and joy of creating together”.

3. CONCLUSION

As discussed above, the Acouscenic approach to creativesoundwalking resulted in a novel and enriching experiencefor all participants. Learning from the experiences andfeedback of the creative soundwalk and for futureAcouscenic Listening Creative Soundwalks we will allowfor more iteration and reflection with participants ofthe creative outcome. For example, this may be done byperforming the soundmap while recording, listening backto the recording and discussing potential possibilities.

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4. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

We would like to acknowledge the continued support andparticipation of all our communities of interest andcollaborators in this work, and in particular JulijanaNemeti and Mikael Ericsson at the Harp Art Lab, Sweden,and Patricia Moriarty, Arts Officer at the University ofLimerick.

5. REFERENCES:

Attali Jacques, Noise, the Political Economy of Music,University of Minnesota Press, 2009, chapter 1, page 3.

2 Guy Debord; Theory of the Dérive 1958, SituationistInternational Online,http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/theory.html3 Oliveros, Pauline, Deep Listening a Composer’s Practice, DeepListening Publications 2005, page 134 Bachelard, Gaston, The Poetics of Reverie, Beacon Press, 1971p.6

5 R.Murray Schafer, The Soundscape, Our Sonic Environmentand the Tuning of the World, Destiny Books, 1977, p.212-213

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