Sound walks︎︎︎
Hildegard Westerkamp is an accomplished sound artist and co-founder of the World Sound Project who leads sound walks for small groups. In a soundwalk, we are guided through an area without talking, only focusing on listening to the soundscape of the environment. After the walk, each participant does some free writing about the experience followed by a discussion. This can lead to projects based on the walk, including mining ideas from the text recorded after the walk and producing sound compositions by creating field recordings of the walk.
Here is a variation from Museum of Arts and Design’s Sonic Arcade:
1 Take a walk on a predetermined route through your school and/or neighborhood. Try to find a path with a variety of soundscapes, quiet and loud, inside and outside, etc. Have students agree not to speak and to focus on the sounds they hear.
2 Discuss the experience. What sounds did you hear? Which sounds caught your attention first, and which did you notice later? How would you describe the soundscapes you walked through? What would you change about them? Why? Do you think this soundwalk would be different at different times of the day, or even a different time of the year?
Variation: Walking Soundtracks
1 Each student determines a walking route within the school or neighborhood. These can consist of written directions and/or maps.
2 Students then develop a playlist or soundtrack to respond to the surroundings and enhance the walk by altering the traveler’s experience along the route.
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For groups of students planning walks for assignments- here are a few potentials:
The walk
1. Decide a duration
2. Decide a balance of nature and urban
3. Places or at times pause during the walk
4. Walk a second time -record the same path
5. Put in ear plugs for 5 minutes of the walk
6. Make a series of sounds on surfaces
7. At night/ At sunrise
Here is a variation from Museum of Arts and Design’s Sonic Arcade:
1 Take a walk on a predetermined route through your school and/or neighborhood. Try to find a path with a variety of soundscapes, quiet and loud, inside and outside, etc. Have students agree not to speak and to focus on the sounds they hear.
2 Discuss the experience. What sounds did you hear? Which sounds caught your attention first, and which did you notice later? How would you describe the soundscapes you walked through? What would you change about them? Why? Do you think this soundwalk would be different at different times of the day, or even a different time of the year?
Variation: Walking Soundtracks
1 Each student determines a walking route within the school or neighborhood. These can consist of written directions and/or maps.
2 Students then develop a playlist or soundtrack to respond to the surroundings and enhance the walk by altering the traveler’s experience along the route.
-----------
For groups of students planning walks for assignments- here are a few potentials:
The walk
1. Decide a duration
2. Decide a balance of nature and urban
3. Places or at times pause during the walk
4. Walk a second time -record the same path
5. Put in ear plugs for 5 minutes of the walk
6. Make a series of sounds on surfaces
7. At night/ At sunrise
Welcome to mapping collaboration, a toolbox for workshopping and creating across disciplines...
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
The inspiration for this project came from faculty and students at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts where BFA, MFA and PhD programs in Dance, Theatre Production and Design, Visual Art, Film, and Music and Sound all work together in studio settings and playfully experiment with processes of art-making.
We wanted to create a database of projects, assignments and theory that we collect inside the studio and from research happening in other places. We are curious about how we collaborate and how structures reoccur, translate and deviate from one discipline to another.
Composition is central to these processes and offers a base for our approaches and experiments. We are excited about what our students are doing and inspired by the new languages in contemporary art and performance we continue to see develop.
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
