Echo apparatus (invitation for a soundwalk)
1.
We are inside the institution.
Perhaps this is a classroom, auditorium or concert hall. Perhaps even an atrium, designed for focused listening.
I am following a presentation or concert. I am hearing the speaker(s) or musician(s).
Gradually, I am only listening for the gaps. Even the shortest pauses between the sounds or words that are being intentionally performed. I am open to anything that might emerge during these pauses.
Weak. Distant. Unspecified. Unwanted. Suppressed. No longer, or not yet heard.
Inaudible.
Experienced only in the form of silent questions.
I take such questions with me for a walk.
2.
Stepping outside.
Alone or with company; taking some time between the programmed sessions.
Wandering in the space between the different venues.
Human, animal and mechanical presence, entangled deep within a shifting urban palimpsest.
I listen for the impact of this presence. Footsteps, utterances, calls; signals, tones, hums and buzzes; travelling airwaves and floating particles scattering, dissipating or evaporating in the heat.
Around me, there are traces of impact. Cavities and crevices where resonant forces left their mark. No longer audible but sonically encoded in an indefinite or continuous past. Their traces are still visible and tangible, like grooves on a record surface.
Some of them reveal rhythmic, deliberately repetitive patterns. A few are signposted. Public sites commemorated through graffiti or makeshift plaques. Acoustic resonance has given way to voiceless words and static iconicity.
Others remain unlabelled, indecipherable; possibly unknown.
I stay with these traces. While I am in their presence I engage with them through all my senses. Patiently and persistently. I remain on-site as long as possible.
Until my palms and soles become ears.
Every surface in the city is a memory device.
My sensate body becomes an amplification interface.
We form a transient apparatus against oblivion.
§HE07.07-23.08.22*
*Composed on-site / in real time during walks in Athens and off-site / out-of-time in loose conversation with the work of G. Douglas Barrett, Elena Biserna, J. Martin Daughtry, David Helbich, Andra McCartney, Pauline Oliveros, Aki Onda, Michael Pisaro, David Toop and Salome Voegelin.
Notes on performance:
Parts 1 and 2 are best realised in this order, but not necessarily on the same day or in the same area.
This version of the score was composed for listeners attending the IMS2022 Symposium and walking in the areas of Zografou, Kaisariani and Ilisia (neighbourhoods between the main conference venues).
Below are some sites of possible interest for the first performance:
Zografou:
- NKUA campus
Kaisariani:
- Skopeftirio Kaisarianis memorial park
- Building blocks at the junction of Vryoulon / Fokeas / Ymittou / Kennedy str. (Kaisariani)
Ilisia:
- Blocks on & around the junctions of Michalakopoulou / Vas. Alexandrou / Vas. Konstantinou Avenues
- Blocks behind / adjacent to Megaron Concert Hall (at the junctions of Vas. Sofias / Evzonon / Dinokratous and Iatridou or Kokkali str.)
