What is a soundwalk? Actually we soundwalk every very second of our life. That is to say: we alway hear something. We hear when we see, we hear when we touch, we hear when we feel…and even when we sleep, our brain can detect and decodify sounds.
Therefore, a soundwalk is a practice that help us to become aware of the simple concept of hearing sounds, and transform it into a concious attitude of listening to our everyday world.
In 2011 Lorelei guided some soundwalk, helping participants to delope the “listening attitude” through guiding the perception, and stimulating people to focus their hearing od particular sounds. Our source of inspiration is the beautiful article by a “guru” of the sounscape field and the soundwalking practice, Hildegard Westerkamp.
The first soundwalk has been conducted with the students of the Istituto Nicolodi of Florence, one of the most ancient institutions of Italy run by the Italian Union of Blind People.
Guiding a soundwalk with students has been stimulating and inspiring, and a real challenge. The girls and boys of the group gave me back probably more than what I gave them. More than ever they made me realize how we live in a vision-centred society, and how instead our other – often neglected – sense could give us a lot more in term of emotion and information.
The second one has been organized in the frame of the Florentine Tempo Reale Festival, and was dedicated to kids.
The message was: children can hear everything, and they really do care of sound. It’s in the process of growing in a sound-polluted and vision-centred society that we lose this attitude. Stimulating the awareness of this process, I hope to have contributed a little bit to form more informed and emotioned adults in relation to sound.
The soundwalk ended with a challenge: to draw a “sound map” of the process. Kids much interestingly followed three paths: the use of drawing figures, the use of colors, and the use of onomatopoeia. Something to reflect upon in the discussion of what we call the Sonic sketching process.
Photo by Mario Carovani, Tempo Reale
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Really interesting work. We’ve also been delivering Soundwalks with various community groups over the last few years: http://www.communitymusicwales.co.uk/news185/soundwalk_success/
It would be good to chat and share experiences.
Thanks Adam! Sorry for answering late but we were travelling in SouthEst Asia and couldn’t get back to you. What you do is really interesting – let’s talk a bit more then! Please contact me at sara@loreleiproject.com so we can be in touch!
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[...] Soundwalk as a practice to explore the world Lorelei organizes sounwalk for children, blind people, adults. Source: http://www.loreleiproject.com [...]