Audience Responses to Soundwalking Queen Elizabeth Park

This is a fairly long paper: in order to allow you to move through it more fluidly, I have created links to each major (highlighted) section:

• Sound and Compositional Process

• Interactivity: Concrete to Digitized and the Map Interface

• Different Places

Sound and Compositional Process

On the contrary, this project began with sound--not brief sound effects or MIDI music, but a digitally recorded soundwalk by composer Hildegard Westerkamp and myself (Andra McCartney), which took place at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver, on the evening of August 17, 1997. Westerkamp carried a DAT recorder and microphone, while I carried two still cameras. We were connected by our ears, with headphones linked to the DAT recorder (this, combined with my efforts to take photos, and Hildi's movements with the microphones, created some interesting and precarious choreography, especially when we were recording the creek!) The soundwalk resulted in a 90-minute DAT recording, and three rolls of photos.

When I returned to Toronto, I listened to the tape repeatedly, noting particularly striking moments in the soundwalk that said something to me acoustically about the places in the park that we had visited. These formed part of a soundwalk website. I made a copy of the soundwalk tape, and gave it to landscape artist P. S. Moore. He began producing a series of drawings, paintings and sculptures, based on his listening to the sound.

At the same time, I began to work with the recording, by excerpting interesting gestural moments where Westerkamp used the microphone to highlight relationships between sound sources, and to create new sonic relationships. Two of these discrete segments were used directly in the installation, named 'Creekintro' and 'Planefan'. Another, "Drumfalls', became an important part of one of the composed pieces. Rebecca Kroeger notes that the waterfall sound "seems to manipulate the images" in this piece.

The next step was to attempt to condense the whole experience so that I could work with it within the restrictions of computer memory and presentation format (a 90 minute soundwalk is not only too big to fit on a CD-ROM, it is also too large to present in concert or conference situations--even though I felt the soundwalk itself was an integral piece, with a constant flow that was hard to break).

First, I focused my attention on four areas of the park: the Conservatory, the Sunken Garden, the Lookout and the Creek. Notice the capitals: as soon as I did this, these four places started to take on symbolic meaning (two on high, two below; the mountain above, the water below). I decided to use chance operations to choose segments of sound, in order to avoid becoming overly polemical, and to maintain a focus on what we had actually heard (here is one example: I had started to become obsessed with the ironic fact that the Conservatory in the park contained an enclosed miniature tropical rainforest, and that it had been built by Bloedel, British Columbia's largest lumber company). I rolled dice to choose ten-second segments of sound, one from each minute of the walk in each area.

A piece associated with each location, called 'Frames' on the map, plays each of these segments in order, linking one still image with each sound segment. The sound selections are framed by an equal amount of silence, with the aim of encouraging listeners to listen to the sound environment in their present location. Some composers in the graduate seminar found this part of the project to be somewhat disturbing: they wanted the sounds to continue longer, the silences to be less regular, and the relationship between the still image and the always-moving sound felt strange. INFA 2930 student Christopher Neylan also found this disconcerting.

Next, I rolled dice again to choose particular segments to focus my attention further, meditating on the sonic relationships and producing compositions that highlighted certain aspects of the sound. I used classic tape techniques such as changing tape speed, filtering, and equalizing. As with Hildegard Westerkamp's approach to composing, I wanted to avoid changing the sound completely, with an aim of intensifying the listening experience rather than creating something unrelated to the original environment. This process resulted in the pieces Plant, Train, Hello and so on. In these cases, I worked with the images in similar ways to my processes with the sound. For instance, when I slowed a sound down, I would create close-ups of the images, getting closer and closer as the sound became slower. These more composed pieces were played more often than the Frames during the installation opening. At the graduate seminar, composers were interested in this compositional process and its relationship to self-control and intention, as well as the effect of the interaction between imagery and sound.

Several students in INFA 2930 noted that the installation did heighten their listening experience. Cheryl Proc says: "Your installation got me thinking about how to be more aware [of sound and noise]." Tara Sinclair-Day notes: "the sounds were quite clear, and made you stop and realize how often you don't pay attention to those sounds." Natasha Hunt likes the way that the sounds create a sense of movement, and integrated 'naturalistic' sounds with some that are more processed. Yun Suh says: "what I found amusing was how we don't notice such sound around us and pass by easily without noticing. People's laughter, whisper, children's giggling, beautiful and refreshing sounds ... such a powerful sound of water flowing ... Details of nature--trees, splashes of waterfall, tiny shapes of birds ... These are the ones we easily miss in our everyday life and the ones she captured to remind us of their beauty and great presence among us."

Interactivity: Concrete to Digitized and Map Interface

I appreciate your recognition of the space around you, not only within your multi-media exploration, but of your occupation of the gallery space itself. The connection of the objects, images and studies which you have introduced into the 'environment', and their evidence on the walls in markings, etc., serve to heighten the levels of interaction and communicative exchange on levles which refer back to and heighten and expand those issues of space, landscape, experience and communication addressed in the video and multi-media work. I am far less isolated in the space than I expected to be.

Some people did not perceive an interaction between the concrete and digitized work. One of the guestbook comments noted that it was an interesting juxtaposition, but "seems somewhat like two separate shows, combined to create one." Miguel Santos also mentioned this. Another guest said: "the connection between the triangle-lamp and the shell, and the plane fan was made after a little looking, as well as the pics by the entrance and the jungle, but what does it all mean?" Christopher Neylan also said that he did not completely understand the relationship between the concrete imagery and the piece on the computer. I apologize to those who would have preferred to have an artists' statement. However, had we influenced people's perceptions with our own ideas, we may not have had the diversity of interesting interpretations that occurred. I hope that the explanation of compositional process in the section on sound will have cleared up any confusion.

For instance, two people had fascinating responses to the map of the park that formed the main interface. Angie Arduini saw this page as a brain, while Theresa Tran says "The mainpage (soundmap) looked to me like the interior of the ear, showing how sound was leading from point A to point B, the ear drum." While we did not intend either of these interpretations of the interface, each adds a new, and quite valid, dimension to the installation that the artists themselves did not anticipate.

Different Places

Tara Sinclair-Day says that the installation "made you feel as if you had really visited Vancouver and the park." Several people at both the York University and the New York versions of the installation said that it reminded them of visits that they had previously made to Vancouver. Marcia Iwasaki's comment is interesting: she says that she would like to visit the park some day "to see how my perceptions of the second visit differ from the first." Here, she is referring to her visit to the installation as a visit to the park itself. Wendy Vicente makes an important point when she describes this as "a unique experience of a day at a park ... that enables the viewer to be there with her" (my emphasis). It is important to remember that this construction of Queen Elizabeth Park is one based on a particular recording made at a certain time by two individuals. As Hildegard Westerkamp points out frequently, the recordist's unique perspective determines how a soundwalk recording will be created, and how it will sound.

Some people focused on the parts of the installation that brought them closer to Nature, away from the stresses of urban life. Two comments in the guestbook described the "ideas portrayed with the sound in relation to nature" as "comforting and relaxing" while another said "very meditative." Yeun Hwang says, about the "Jungle" piece: "Even with the abstract image I thought it was like big leaves overlapping, so layer by layer I was entering the jungle getting deeper and deeper into the sounds." Natalie Tso found the water sounds particularly relaxing. Sam Cerullo (a site with beautiful imagery) describes the installation as "a journey through wilderness, surrounded by lush gardens, tropical plants, exotic sounds and blissful dreams ... no worries, no concerns no problems, no stress! A destination that exists far beyond the realms of technology, chaos and power."

Of course, this installation exists at least in part because of technology. Some other audience members wrote about the installation as futuristic. John Fiorucci describes it as portraying "a normal and serene setting in a particularly futuristic manner ... you can experience what it feels like to be in a place without really being there." He continues by adding "This idea bothered me a little." Although Fiorucci does not elaborate about why this idea bothered him, perhaps it could be because virtual worlds can seem a replacement for physically going somewhere. At the same time, a virtual project like this can increase people's awareness of the world, heightening their experiences. The viewer can be "taken into a world that stimulates the senses" (Tanja Rilling). Issues such as this continue to concern composers such as Westerkamp, as she says in the liner notes of her recent CD, Transformations (produced by empreintes DIGITALes):

"These compositions are now on this disc, an altogether abstract place, far away from the places in which the sounds originated ... A forest piece in an apartment by a freeway... can it draw the listener back into the forest? An urban piece in quiet country living... is it necessary?"

Michelle Lavallee suggests a practical application of a visit to a virtual place: "someone who isn't able to travel could view the sights and listen to the sounds on the computer."

Andrea Milcic speaks of the "technological presence" of the show. She makes an interesting interpretation which was not intended by the artists, when she says "some of the works were parts of the human body ... hinting at an evolution of the human form to that of a more 'wired' one." This striking commentary, while not an intentional result, gets at an important issue in technological work which uses ideas of Nature and organic forms as sources. If we celebrate nature or the beauty of organic forms using technological tools, it is hard to see these concepts or systems as opposites or antithetical to each other. Technology seems embodied in the organic; nature--and the body--seem somehow wired, as Westerkamp and I were wired to each other throughout this soundwalk. Where does nature end and technology begin? Can we use technology to escape to Nature, like when we leave the city by car? Can we use technology to protect Nature, in the way that the Kayapo Indians use video to make people aware of the devastation of the rainforest?

What do you think?