I'll be attending this:
Soundwalking Leeds by John Levack Drever
an event related to the current exhibition Licht auf Licht by Gerhard Kassner and Hans Peter Kuhn. http://www.projectspaceleeds.org.uk/events_unidd21a_page.aspx
Thursday 25 September 2008
5-6.30pm, meet at PSL
A deliberate walk focused on listening to the everyday sounds of Leeds as they unfold around us. Haphazard by-product or conscious design, the walk will expose the atmospheres and rhythms of the city on a Thursday evening from 5 - 6.30pm, probing at how the encounter is transformed as we traverse the city. Opening with a short talk on listening, the walk with end with an open forum to discuss what was experienced.
Bio:
John Levack Drever is a sonic artists and soundscape researcher focusing on human utterance and background noise. Commissions range from the RSPB (2002) to the Groupe de Recherches Musicales, Paris (1999). He is a Lecturer in Composition at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is chair of Sonic Arts Network and the UK and Ireland Soundscape Community (a regional affiliate of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology). He latest CD, Cattle Grids of Dartmoor was released by Pataphonic (http://www.pataphonic.com/).
Drever has recently written a book chapter on soundwalking ("Soundwalking: Aural Excursions into the Everyday") for The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental Music (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), edited by James Saunders [forthcoming, 2009].
PSL [Project Space Leeds]
Whitehall Waterfront, 2 Riverside Way, Leeds, LS1 4EH, UK
info@projectspaceleeds.org.uk
+44 (0)7930 236383
http://www.projectspaceleeds.org.uk/
It was really rather good.
I have done many soundwalks on my own, usually recording binaurally at the same time, so I am used to being very quiet and drifting along through someplace or other with no predetermined route or destination. This particular event was a group of people all following John Drever through the city at a steady pace. I found it quite distracting having to follow others and check that others were following - I find the best way to soundwalk is to have as few distraction as possible.
It was interesting to try it out that way, and of course experience a new soundscape.
Well worth doing these things from time to time.
cheers.
What was it like?