WHAT IS A SOUNDWALK?
A soundwalk is a walk in which the walkers consciously listen to their surroundings. What does a house or a tree sound like? What sounds do we ignore in everyday life that suddenly surprise us when we consciously listen? And how does this conscious perception of the sound environment change our relationship to our surroundings?
The term Soundwalk was originally coined in Vancouver in the 1970s by members of the World Soundscape Project under the direction of composer R. Murray Schafer and developed into a method of Acoustic Ecology and the artistic-musical exploration of places and their Soundscapes.
In her Soundwalk Workshops, Carina Pesch explores a route in advance that offers particularly fascinating and varied sounds. On the day of the workshop, after a short introductory round and a concentration exercise for the ears, she guides the group of participants to follow her silently and open their ears to unconscious worlds of sound. Such an exploration tour lasts at least one and a half hours.
FOR WHOM IS A SOUNDWALK?
A Soundwalk Workshop is for anyone who is curious to see a place with new ears. For school classes who want to engage with the environment in a new way. For architects who want to rebuild a place and familiarise themselves with it and its qualities. For musicians and festivals interested in the musical quality of the everyday. For people and institutions who want to raise awareness of blind and visually impaired people among sighted participants. For environmental activists and educational institutions who are looking for new approaches to familiar themes or who want to inspire people for their themes in an adventurous and rousing way.
Enquiries, new concepts according to your wishes and topics gladly via e-mail to: mail [ät] carinapesch [pont] de
EXAMPLES:
On 28 July 2019, as part of the exhibition opening Radiophonic Spaces at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, 14 participants followed the two workshop leaders Lena Löhr and Carina Pesch around the Bauhaus campus in Weimar. The aim was to playfully rediscover the familiar area, to perceive the acoustic and narrative qualities of this everyday place. Following the motto “Radio is everywhere, lying in the street”, the participants explored the space and their position in it, first unmediated by their own ears, then mediated by microphone and headphones, and finally relying solely on their sense of hearing and touch, blindfolded.
HERE is a report on it on Deutschlandfunk.
On 20 September 2019, as part of the ZiXP festival for experimental music and sound art in Leipzig, Lena Löhr and Carina Pesch guided music enthusiasts through Probstheida. The district – located between noisy streets, consumer sites and the large, old southern cemetery with its quiet park – invited people to reflect on urban contrasts. Loud and quiet, city and nature, life and death. The focus was on the musical qualities of the place. After an introduction round and a concentration exercise for the ears, the participants explored the place, first simply listening, then blindfolded, and finally the workshop leaders invited them to interact with the surroundings and actively intervene in the soundscape to elicit music from it.
For the Radiolab at the Seanaps Festival in November 2019, Carina Pesch designed a SoundWalk in three AuditoryPaths on the acoustic-musical traces of old industrial culture. Around Plagwitz station, the participants explored the musical sounds of iron gates, fences, flagpoles, goods trains and old customs sheds. The symphonies of the post-industrial heritage mixed with the sounds of the citizen’s park: children playing, gardeners and walkers passing by. Different languages. In addition, voice improvisations made the spaces behind facades audible and clarified the resonance-changing qualities of signboards. The aim was to play with the simultaneity of history and the present and to experience the magic of the place.