Sound Walk September is a global community event, celebrating outdoor audio, geo-located, immersive performances, sound walks and audio-enhanced walking pieces. It was inaugurated as Sound Walk Sunday at the Made of Walking International Encounters at La Romieu, France on 27 August, 2017, leading to a first map and directory of sound walks around the world, maintained and updated till today.
Each Sound Walk September sees the inauguration of new sound walks, submitted in response to an open call, and created in the year of the call, as well as sound walking events scheduled for the month of September.
On Sound Walk September and beyond we encourage, host and organize events related to sound walking worldwide.
- walk · listen · create maintains a public archive of walking pieces and events in an online directory.
- Sound Walk September facilitates a worldwide network of creatives, institutions and museums to share practices and knowledge around sound walks and walking pieces.
- Sound Walk September facilitates a network of collaborative educative online resources, available to the public, allowing broad groups of people to create their own sound walks.
Sound Walk September runs from September 1st, and continues through September.
Who is the organizing team?
The Sound Walk September organizing team is:
- Andrew Stuck, (UK) – founder of the Museum of Walking in 2007, and Sound Walk Sunday in 2017.
- Babak Fakhamzadeh (BR) – digital artist, co-creator of Dérive app, creator of Sauntering verse, The Museum of Yesterday.
- Geert Vermeire (B/BR/GR) – curator, writer and interdisciplinary artist, founder of Made of Walking, co-founder the Milena principle and Urban Emptiness Network
Sound Walk September is assisted by an Advisory Board.
Who have collaborated and supported
Museum of Walking – It was at the Banff Centre in the Canadian Rockies on a Walking and Art Residency in 2007 that an idea of a Museum dedicated solely to walking and art was developed by Andrew Stuck. The museum would be a showpiece for events around walking. It would promote walking and it would promote art and creativity and bring the two together. We chose to broaden it by inviting Co-creators to work together to create a variety of different walking opportunities. Our intention has always been to encourage people to dip their toes into trying new things, out and about on foot, giving them the chance of being more creative – “the art is in taking part”.
Made of Walking – A global network, forum and nomadic gathering dedicated to walking and sound practices. This has been organized in Greece, Cyprus and France, focusing on (sound) walks and sound & walking collaborative workshops, stimulating dialogues between performance, arts, literature and new media, with artists, writers, creatives, researchers and educators of different fields, sharing their experiences and collaborating on location.
The network extends to various cities and places around the world, and since 2016, next to the main gatherings during the summer, it organized satellite events and exhibitions in Brussels, Athens, Tirana, New York, Portland, Boston, Brasilia, Lyon, Belgrade, Lisbon and in Guimaraes.
NG Bristow (United Kingdom) – award-winning filmmaker and installation artist.
Fred Adam (Fance / Spain) – founder of the GPSmuseum, co-creator of the collaborative mapping platform CGeomap and of the Deep Time Walk.
NuSom (Sao Paulo, Brazil) – Research Center on Sonology at the University of São Paulo – Brazil is a center dedicated to the development of academic research in an interdisciplinary environment integrating disciplines oriented towards the sound studies, the critical reflection on music and sound arts, and the research in the music technology. The NuSom develops academic, scientific and artistic activities based on the following proposals:
- The integration of artistic production, technological research and critical reflection in an unified process
- The creation of collective artistic works focused on an experimental perspective
- The blurring of the boundaries between academic / institutional environment and informal production
- The addressing of sound studies issues through an interdisciplinary approach
hearing places (Melbourne, Australia) is an online umbrella for creative projects which unite sound and place. Its published outcomes include recordings, concerts, installations, performances, exhibitions, cultural projects, books, videos, lectures, events, festivals and reviews. hearing places is the experience of being fully alive in a place with all the senses but particularly the ear. Our bodies situate us physically in space and our radar GPS is constantly active. But the hearing places website is more than this. This site is a place for sound art which engages with place in all its forms: geographic, environmental, enigmatic, telematic, historiographic, electronic, imaginary, psychological, empty, indoor, outdoor, global, micro, cultural, forgotten, endangered. hearing places was founded by Australian sound artists Dr. Ros Bandt and Dr. Leah Barclay in 2012. It now connects artists and researchers across Australia and beyond.
Anderson Acoustics (UK) is a conscious, employee-owned acoustic consultancy with a mission to make an active contribution to a sustainable future and improved quality of life. Expertise include architectural, environmental, building acoustics and soundscapes, spanning education, residential, healthcare, commercial and large infrastructure projects.
Tranquil City (UK) is a research collective helping to embrace tranquillity and best practice design that promotes healthy and liveable places within cities, valuing the context of local areas and the people who inhabit them. They engage with local communities, exploring various urban areas and communities to better understand the concept and use their multidisciplinary skills to help integrate tranquillity within cities for the better.
GPSmuseum (Valencia, Spain). GPS Museum – Geolocation and Creativity. A Locative Media database and a Lab around Location Based Games,Walking Cinema, Walking Documentary and Mobile Learning.
Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Western Macedonia (Florina and Lesbos, Greece). Organizer of Walking Arts Encounters-Conference Prespes 2019 in parallel with activities of Sound Walk Sunday. Co-organizer Made of Walking.
Placecloud – a geo-located place story telling platform produced by George Fort (Chelmsford, UK).
Echoes – a geo-located sound trails platform with which you can make your own sound trail or soundwalk.
Soundtrails – A locative audio platform that anyone can use.
Who is this project addressed to?
Everyone. For instance, artists, sound artists, musicians, poets, architects, performers, designers, anthropologists, writers, wellness professionals, cultural and social professionals, educators, teachers, students and others interested to explore the impact and possibilities of sound walking.
What formats can be submitted?
When you make a submission you will be asked to provide an url from which your entry can either be streamed, downloaded or where participants can follow instructions or book for a live event – it is your choice of format, our recommendation is to bear in mind that as this is a global directory, there may be people who do not have consistent, reliable Internet access or mobile phone reception.
What could a Sound walk / walking piece be?
Read up on what is a sound walk. Here are a few examples.
- A listening walk (a live event) – in which participants listen to the environment through which they walk
- A listening walk – in which you provide instructions to enable someone to take such a walk independently at the time and place of their own choice
- An audio-enhanced walking piece (a live event) – in which participants may be required to speak / sing / make music or sounds or listen to such elements whether live or recorded and transmitted through headphones or speakers
- A sound walk or an audio-enhanced walking piece transmitted through headphones
- A geo-located walking piece in which participants trigger recordings to which they listen via headphones
How can one make a sound walk?
Co-hosted with the British Library‘s digital research team, we ran a knowledge sharing and networking event in London on Friday 7 June 2019 – read more about this here.
Here’s a recording of an online workshop on how to make a sound walk, part of Greenwich Sound Image Festival.
Take a look at the recording for our Open Call Advisory Event from April 2021.
To make your own sound walk, or walking piece, your context, focus and interests matter a lot. You could start at this introduction on how to make soundscapes, this somewhat more technical piece on the same subject or this MOOC on sound sketching. Over at GPSmuseum, there’s a nice list of tools for creating sound walks. A Pocket Guide to Soundwalking, is available on the site of Hush City Soundwalks for SWS 2019.
The British Library have drawn together a list of links to reusable content. Note that most of the material on Soundcloud is in .wav format while the sounds on Wikimedia are mp3s. There may be a little bit of overlap between the British wildlife recordings on Soundcloud & Wikimedia.
- https://soundcloud.com/the-british-library/sets/off-the-map-gothic
- https://soundcloud.com/the-british-library/sets/shakespeare-off-the-map
- https://soundcloud.com/the-british-library/sets/alices-adventures-off-the-map
- https://soundcloud.com/the-british-library/sets/british-wildlife-recordings
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wildlife_Sounds_in_the_British_Library
Is there any submission fee?
No. Support us by becoming a member.
Can I submit more than one walking piece?
Yes. There is no limit.
Who can submit?
Contributor from all backgrounds and nationalities are invited to submit sound walks / walking pieces.
What if my sound walk / walking piece is not in English?
No problem. Make this clear when you submit your piece.
By when must I submit a sound walk or walking piece?
To be included in our media releases, make sure you submit your piece by August 1.
What if my entry includes third party copyrighted material?
Entrants declare that the work submitted is their own and that they have cleared permissions for any recording for which they do not own. Its rights have not been transferred to third parties. Entrants assume all liability for any claim or demand by third parties, administrative, judicial or of other nature, concerning intellectual property or rights of the submitted work.
How will an entry be selected for an award?
Shortlisted pieces will be reviewed by a qualified jury composed of personalities from sound art & design and from walking art, all of whom have volunteered to be on the Advisory Board who will assess the shortlisted pieces and will make the final selection. The jury’s decision is final and it it reserves the right to declare void any entry.
What if I want to correct a mistake I have made in my entry after I have submitted it?
You can edit your submission at any time. Make sure you are logged in using the account with which you first submitted your piece or event.
What is a sound walk related workshop?
A workshop that brings creatives and technicians together to share knowledge and create sound walks and audio-enhanced walking pieces. Such workshops can include analogue techniques and or digital technologies.
Your workshop may take any practical form. If you feel like organizing a workshop in the run up to Sound Walk September or during Sound Walk September we can provide you with a digital kit to do so.
How do I submit a workshop for Sound Walk September?
We want to encourage people to make new work. If you can host a workshop that provides people opportunities to learn / make new work we would be delighted to hear from you. Contact us.
What is the timeline for submissions?
You can submit pieces and events at any time.
In February/March, we send out an open call for existing and new work to be featured in the programme.
Early August, publicity launch of the program.
September is Sound Walk September
Does Sound Walk September cover expenses?
No funding is available for the participating artists.
What does Sound Walk September provide to the selected contributors?
Sound Walk September provides artists with inclusion of their works in its online directory and map, next to promotion to a wide network of press, academic and professional contacts, and for new projects/selected activities, a website presence, listing in the SWS program, and access to a growing community of sound walk artists/creatives, curators, and others working in the field of sound walking. We can also help with letters of support for artists who are interested in applying for grants.
Please ensure that your submission does not include a hazardous instruction or route nor any defamatory language.
More questions?
Contact us or post to our Facebook group.