Walking While Listening

Background The research responded to the isolation and heavy reliance on screen-based communication that we experienced during several COVID lockdowns. Drawing on listening tasks developed by artists Max Neuhaus (1970s) and Hildegard Westerkamp (1980s), together with theories of audio/visual relations by Michel Chion (1990s) and Jonathan Sterne (2000s), my research considered how sensory, multi-dimensional soundwalks might alleviate the stress encountered through time spent in front of the bounded flatness of the computer screen. Contribution Walking While Listening consists of four self-guided outdoor soundwalks that enhance personal listening skills to enable a detailed sensory awareness of one’s surrounding environment. Available as a written guide, online, or as a smartphone download, each walk acquaints participants with different auditory encounters within the everyday world by generating awareness of the sources and causes of sounds, possible semantic content, and the abstract qualities of sounds themselves. Walking While Listening shifts our spatial and visual dependency towards experiences that are auditory and durational. As we actively listen, our walks become revelatory, enabling us to experience the world in new ways, transcending the visual matrix. The artwork renews our engagement with local environments and wider ecological assemblages. By centring the listener as a phenomenological presence moving through the world, the listener gains a sonic awareness of the surrounding energies and agencies that evolve over time across the various pathways. Significance The work was curated in McClelland Sculpture Park + Gallery’s exhibition Site & Sound: Sonic Art as Ecological Practice, with a commissioned catalogue essay. It was acquired by the gallery and is now available both online and in print form, as self-guided tours through the sculpture park, and for on-site education. The project received a substantial story in The Age/Sydney Morning Herald.