SWS20
An exciting and varied programme of events taking place around the world during Sound Walk September 2020. Under the constraints of the pandemic, we saw outdoor experiences for individuals, as well as on-line talk shops, and interactive collaborative projects which everyone was able to contribute to during the month.
After early worries due to the COVID pandemic, we were very excited to announce a varied programme of events taking place around the world during Sound Walk September 2020.
Participants were able to listen to stories, get closer to nature, travel to far away places, immerse themselves in different cultures, add their own voice, record the ambience, learn how to make sound walks, and submit their own work, as well as participate in lively debates, and intimate café conversations.
We facilitated online collaboration through 30 Days of Walking and Shorelines.
Sound Walk September 2020 in numbers:
- 65 eligible walking pieces for the SWS Awards.
- 49 events organised by the global community.
- 2 collaborative projects, organised by WLC, with a total of over 150 submissions.
- Contributions from all non-arctic continents.
- Over 250 tickets issued for the online events hosted by WLC.
- 2 winners, 2 honourable mentions, and a special mention, 13 shortlisted works.
Achievements from throughout the year:
- We have extensively grown our library of walking pieces.
- We’ve integrated listings from Echoes, Soundtrails and Guidemate.
- We’ve completely updated the look and feel of our website.
- We started publishing a weekly automated mailing list with the most relevant recent updates.
- We started publishing on Instagram. We’re still not sure if it’s worth it.
- We grew membership to over 1000 individuals.
Help was had
We were happy and lucky to be able to rely on the volunteer work provided by Liam Forrest and James Luce. Thanks!
A massive thanks to the SWS Advisory Board, who were key in identifying the winners and honourable mentions for the SWS20 Awards.
September: Sound Walking Experiments in Haecceity and Allography
The walking arts are often celebrated for the attention they induce on the here-and-now, the particular qualities of things as they are encountered on the walk, the contingencies of experience – haecceity to use the word associated with a philosophical preoccupation dating from Duns Scotus to Deleuze. However, soundwalks often also make use of or
Saturday Sunset Sounds: Walk Listen Dream
Join us on September 5th 2020.
Meeting point at 5.00 pm in Piazza del Municipio n.1, Levice (CN) Piedmont, Italy.
Walking through the old path that lead from the small rural village to the top of the hill (langa), in silence, listening to the sounds emerging from the nature of this special rural area, and feeling the inner changes risen by this experience. Perceptions, emotions and memories might be shared once we rest at the first “listen and talk” session.
City Comparatives: The Bridges of Rotterdam
In this walk we walk through Rotterdam, along the river, stopping at each bridge fish to listen, then to reflect on the differences we can hear compared to the other bridges. The repetition of the bridge form allows us to more acutely sense the contrast between each of them, to experience and appreciate them more
Un passo indietro sulla via del suono – A step back on the way of sound
Il suono è via. La via del suono conduce al suono. Il suono è già qui. La via del suono conduce a ciò che è già qui. Camminare sulla via del suono è andare verso il già. Camminando verso il già si va all’indietro. Stare sulla via del suono significa camminare all’indietro. Ascoltare è fare
Listen and walk to One Circuitous Path with creators
Starting at the Parnell Road entrance to Victoria Park, London, just by the Hertford Union Top Lock No. 1, join the creators and contributors to the sound walk One Circuitous Path as we walk and listen to the sound walk.
Weaving place, deep listening and the Sacred
Exploring the relationship of place, connection, walking the land and deep listening, from a range of perspectives, knowledges and disciplines including: First Nations, Law/Governance, Art, Philosophy, Māori cosmologies and Western Science.
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One Circuitous Path: a retelling of the minotaur myth
Ever wondered what was really at the heart of the labyrinth in Crete? Ever considered what Ariadne might have to say about the betrayal of her father and her love for Theseus? Ever wondered whether you can really control your destiny? Here is your chance to see the minotaur myth in a completely different light.
Walk with Jane Soundwalk
We will repeat a walk around a district in Norbiton to see how it has changed in a year. We will be listening to recordings of interviews from people that live and work there, and who may join us. It will include poetry readings to and about features that may or may not still exist
Drifting to Third Ward
Instructions If you want to walk, try walking on your “Main Street”. Walk toward an art gallery. Go into every room and look around. If you don’t find an art gallery, make one. Continue to move in and out of air-conditioned places. For those of you in the southern hemisphere, central heating will work too.
Losing sight of the familiar
“Losing sight of the familiar” is a 12 minute audio work by Tracey Benson. It describes a suburban walk among the trees and along the local creek which is located in the Belconnen region of Canberra. The focus on the audio is to concentrate on the non-visual elements of the walk as well as memory
Trans-Missions and Resonant Encounters: composing the non-human body
In Insect Media, Jussi Parikka frames his discussion of ‘media as insect ’as a way to foreground media as more-than-technology and more-than-mediation. Insect media do not exist as a site between the natural world and the constructed, built, or human world. They do not negotiate duality. Instead such ill-conceived binary spaces converge in embodied forms
Walking West: a dérive along the “longest, wickedest street in America”
Walking West centres on a dérive by the author along Denver’s Colfax Ave, the “longest , wickedest street in America”, with this paper an account of that dérive and its resulting artwork. Walking West comprised walking the length of Colfax in a single continuous movement while drawing a line on the sidewalk, tracing the route
Unseen Soundwalks: Warsaw Rising ’44
This second series of Unseen Soundwalks takes a look at the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and the Polish fight for independence from Nazi German occupation. Working with the award-winning Warsaw Rising Museum to recreate the most important events of the Uprising, Unseen Soundwalks: Warsaw Rising ’44 recounts tales of honour and defiance, but also of
Percursos-experiência: propostas para rever a cidade
In this audio-paper I intend to discuss the performative project “Three routes and a detour towards the same end”, performed in 2019 as part of the research “Dramaturgies of the Everyday. Speculations on the Fictional Dimension of the Real” developed at the Master of Art and Design for the Public Space of the University of
Sensing Body and City
An audio walk based of the same named film Sensing Body and City (2020). In a 12-minute inner stream of consciousness, elements from different times, reflections and personal memory mesh together with a soundscape. As a poetic introspective a female* voice is moving through a mosaic of her present perception and memory that arise in
Street Haunting: Reflections on staying at home and walking the city
Street Haunting: Reflections on staying at home and walking the city Johanna Steindorf (German/ Brazilian)(Languages spoken: German, Portuguese, English and Spanish) Taking Virginia Woolf’s essay “Street Haunting” and the book “A Journey Around My Room” by Xavier de Maistre as a starting point, in this audio paper I talk about how sheltering in place during
Haunting the Archive
When your work as an artist-researcher is about a response to place, how do you continue to conduct that research when you can’t physically be on site? This is a question that I have been forced to come up with answers to in the last few months. Since Spring 2019, I have been traveling to
