097 Walking and listening in the city (Soundwalk?)

Convener: Peter Cant

Participants: MARK TREZONA, DANIEL COPELAND, SHARON SEAGER, GREG WHEAD, Allen O'Leary, Griet Sponhove, Kate Woolmer, Catriona James, Martyn Duffy

Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:

A walk in Plymouth
Walk through mindnight until noon
6 km ramble – noticing what you noticed. Coridoors and light
To make a performance that encapsulates the city at night – a sense of all those lives, machine noise, invisibility.
It sounds like poetry
MARINA AMBROMOVICH made a piece in 80s / 90s started with her lover one at each end of the GREAT WALL OF CHINA and walked to meet in the middle
By the time they met their relationship had gone kaput they knew they had to end it
The walkl in Plymouth mapped the China Wall onto Plymouth by a scale of??? 600:?
Guides took us on the route.

Road signs are pointless when there’s no traffic.

With all that stage lighting from the streetlamps.

The experience of the city through the sounds but also continuing the history and building on that

Start and then have others add experience. Collective memory.
Trusting the city sound
Sound like smell
Short circuits language/ words

Give people time to create their own emotions

An invitation to stop and stare. To wait.
The intense theatricality of contrasting space with sounds that don’t belong there.

The lady who records dolphins above and below water

Beating the bounds – They go around the boundary of the parish, to honour boundaries, to repeat

Time being defined by distance. Something primal.
Ramblers vs performance.
Walks: The London loop
It doesn’t have to be time bound?
Do it on separate tracks?
JUXTAPOSITION
One track at a time, a collection of pieces, that can start at any point, forming a symphony.
A character. A lost soul. Who could be our guide.
Sounds and smell circumvent our response to words.

If you use words to make suggestions you need to allow space. As you make a trail you leave something – people should make non verbal contributions.

Will you look at a map?

How people could contribute sounds during the wwalk. Not necessarily words? And that could be added for the next opnes.

Messages left by opther walkers / participants. Leave messages in chalk on the pavement.

Graffiti Tags. An hourglass symbol
A hermit
The hermit

Moments in which you could confront the city with fresh eyes.
To re-engage Stop and hear and see the layers on layers on layers.
Moments to STOP
But how do you bookend these moments of silence?

They liked the connection with the real wold. The car playing music ‘just for me’

Break walls. You think its ion your head?

Which takes it away from being… ??

Just the experience of walking that walk is RICH
Don’t load it up so full. Don’t cram it.
From the moment it starts, thoughts and imagionation get stirred up.
Breathing in moments. Allow them to land for us.

By looking at a square
Hearing of the events that happened elsewhere, in Yugoslavia, a square in Goldsmiths became that other square. I could see a grey empty square but I was described a student setting himself on fire.

THE EGG TIMER ON THE BENCH. Some minutes just to listen

The group ended with everyone listening to the sounds.
Everyone was so generous helping us with our project, listening, responding, nodding, thinking the thoughts in real time.
Thank you so much

Ps. Beware of the lady who told us she’s recording your conversations on the tube. She will make an entire theatre piece about you and you will end up sending her your pants in the mail