Squeak at the futility of existence

An artist’s method for a sound walk for three people. Mowbray Square, Harrogate. About fifteen minutes.

What the work is

Three people walk one Victorian block and come back to the door they left. They carry a single sheet of paper. On it, one line runs left to right, turns at the bend and comes back. That line is the three of them. Where it opens out they walk abreast. Where it closes to one they walk in single file. Seven numbered circles mark the stops, and each stop asks them to look at something or listen for something. At the fourth stop they cross the road and squeak at the futility of existence, once each, any pitch, no rehearsal.

Nothing is timed and nobody conducts. The pavement does most of the conducting anyway.

The method

I started with a route I already walk, out of my own front door and round the block. I wrote the directions down as plain instructions, the way you would tell a friend to find you. Then I walked it again and watched what the street did to us. Stairs put us in a line. A wide pavement let us spread out. A doorway or a bin closed us up again without anyone saying a word.

That is the score. I notated the formation rather than the sound, because the formation is the part the street is already deciding for you.

The notation

One continuous line, three strands. The width of the line is the width of the group. Wide means abreast, narrow means single file, and the change happens over a few metres so nobody has to break step. A tick and a numbered circle mark each stop. There is no stave, no clock and no dynamics, because walkers reading on the move need one rule they can hold in their heads.

The instructions at each stop are loose on purpose. They ask for attention, not accuracy. Listen to the room through the glass. Watch the ground. Find the moment when the traffic stops being the loudest sound.

Transplanting it

This score will move to any town with a Victorian grid-iron layout, and it needs no permission and no equipment.

Those grids share the conditions the piece runs on. Corners meet at right angles, so a walk of four turns brings you back to your own door. Streets were cut one way for carriages, so traffic arrives from a direction you can learn to hear before you see. Terraces of matching height hold the sound in and hand it back. Pavements are wide enough for three people and then narrow at a lamp post, a stair rail or a shop front. Most blocks take about fifteen minutes at a slow pace, and there is glass at street level to stop in front of.

To move it to your own town:

1. Walk your block until you can say the directions out loud without thinking.
2. Walk it again with two other people and mark every point where the pavement forces you into a line.
3. Draw the line to match, wide where you spread out, narrow where you did not have a choice.
4. Give each stop one instruction about looking or listening, and keep it loose.
5. Put one absurd instruction in the middle of it, and let everyone commit to it.
6. Finish at the door you started from.

If you want the drawing adapted for your street, get in touch and I will redraw it.

What it is for

Three people walking together keep making a decision they never discuss. Who drops back. Who takes the kerb. Who gets left talking to the shopfronts. The score puts that decision on paper and hands it back to you, and it makes an ordinary block strange for a quarter of an hour. The squeak is there so that nobody can pretend this is a survey.

Andrew Backhouse, Harrogate. backhouse.wtf