Beginning meanderings for “Walking Music”, a successor to last two Summer’s “Rock Music” events; outdoor listening in public parks with a participatory sound system. “Walking Music” brings the sound system on the move. Bringing mp3s on a walk.
The medium of an mp3 player, radio transmitter, receivers and bluetooth speakers makes it possible to create a large, immersive and partipatory sound system that is also light and portable. With our radio transmitter and receivers we ask members of the public to bring their own bluetooth speakers to participate in the sound system.
Sonic particularities: generally a low fidelity with radio transmittion, general planetary and electrical disruptions of the audio signal, creating noise and effect. Spatialised as in: spread in space, outside, blending with soundscape. The audio signal is in mono due to the unorganised and moving spread of speakers. Each speaker’s particularity creates another kind of spatialisation: different textures from people’s personal devices. In “Rock Music” we had a central sound emitter, a boom box, creating a centre to gather around. The centre of “Walking Music” is the inaudible transmittion of a signal, spread unevenly by participants.
What to play? “Music” is suggestive. I would like to reach out to composers to compose audio pieces, that can be played as we walk together with this moving sound system. The composers are only instructed with the path of the walk. The compositions will not be shared publicly afterwards. This means there is a temporality to the composition, only played once, outside, listening together. This is the promotion of lived time in opposition to the linearity of chronological time. This brings the digital music file into lived time with others, questioning patterns of consumption, streaming and individual listening.