Sound-walk; reader; extended listening system

Commissioned as part of Driving the Human: 21 Visions for Eco-Social Renewal, Radialsystem, Berlin

Created in collaboration with Sonic Acts of Noticing (Julia Udall and Jon Orlek) and Soft Agency (Gilly Karjevsky and Rosario Talevi)

Floating –> Radialsystem was an extended listening and reading walk in Berlin that followed the flow of water from Floating University to Radialsystem, an ex pump-house on the bank of the River Spree. The walk engaged practices of collective reading and extended listening as cross-pollinating approaches to engaging with the flows of water. An initial route linking a string of bodies of water and green spaces was proposed by Soft Agency, and sequenced by Julia, Jon and I to provide opportunities for listening and reading. The event began with a series of exercises and activations designed to prepare listening. The central medium of the walk was an extended listening system, consisting of a field recording device linked to a mobile silent disco set-up that by being spontaneously passed from person to person, enabled any participant to guide the listening of the larger group. At particular moments along the route, this recorder was connected to hydrophones and contact microphones to enable underwater and structural listening. A parasitic reader, assembled by the group and edited by Soft Agency set up a spontaneous and parasitic set of reading sessions that took place along the route, with the intention of ‘contaminating’ the listening experiences and discussions. Our listening system became a way to amplify reading, or present what was being read in the context of environmental sounds.