WFoS 2021 Opening Event & Performance / Transference

The Covid-19 pandemic changed the way we walk and listen. Some have argued that our shared soundspaces have radically metamorphosed during this time of change. In addition, the ways we now experience our soundscape has also been transformed.

Transference, the opening performance of the Walking Festival of Sound, takes the audience for simultaneous walks in Kraków and Edinburgh, two cities historically bound by a twin city partnership. Separated by a distance of approximately 2000 km, two soundwalkers embark on unscripted strolls in their respective neighbourhoods.

While walking in isolation from each other, network technology brings their visually and aurally mediated movements together. It assembles them on one screen, accessible via a live-stream for the viewers and listeners who could technically be located in any possible proximity to the soundwalkers.

Sounds from the walkers' mobile phones are processed in real-time by two other people separated by a distance of approximately 1800 km. The resulting soundscapes are transferred back into the video stream from the soundwalkers.

Doomed to fail, Transference attempts, somewhat naively, to entangle human, infrastructural and technical agencies in order to transfer the twin towns'

union from the virally destabilized world through the intrinsically uncertain web of network technologies.

Ronda Bautista is a painter and multi-media artist. Her works concern the immediate environment, and the need to document, archive, analyse and articulate changes of urban landscapes in diverse geographical areas. A walking practice is the essential part of her process. During her walks, she observes and collects photographic and audiovisual material in order to transpose them into paintings, drawings or spatial installations. Her recent work brings attention to ephemeral constellations of objects spontaneously set up by the city residents in various spaces. Bautista is interested in how artificial, makeshift and formalized elements of landscapes contribute to the urban fabric of Kraków, and how the city landscape is subject to transformation due to the air pollution. She graduated from the Castilla - La Mancha University and has resided in Kraków since 2011.

www.rondabautista.es

Sepideh Karami is an architect, writer, teacher and researcher with a PhD in Architecture, Critical Studies, from KTH School of Architecture, Sweden (2018). She works through artistic research, experimental methods and interdisciplinary approaches at the intersection of architecture, performing arts, literature and geology, with the ethos of decolonization, minor politics and criticality from within. She has presented, performed and exhibited her work at international conferences and platforms, and is published in peer reviewed journals. She has been a Lecturer at KTH School of Architecture since 2018, and is currently a Simpson Postdoctoral Fellow at The University of Edinburgh, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, where she develops her research project "Decolonizing Infrastructures: Architecture in an Ecological Era".

www.sepidehkarami.com

Tim Shaw is an artist working with sound, light and communication media. Presenting work through musical performances, installations and sound walks Tim is interested in how listening environments can be constructed or explored using a diverse range of techniques and technologies. He works with field recordings, electronics, video, modular synthesis, sound objects, self-made hardware and DIY software. Shaw has been lucky enough to work with Chris Watson, Phill Niblock, John Bowers, Dirty Electronics, Tess Denman-Cleaver, Tetsuya Umeda, Jacek Smolicki and Sebastien Piquemal.

www.tim-shaw.net

Jacek Smolicki is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and soundwalker. His works brings historical, critical and ethical dimensions to recording practices and technologies in diverse contexts. Besides working with existing documents, archives and heritage, Smolicki develops alternative modes of sensing, recording, para-archiving, and mediating stories and signals from various sites, scales, and temporalities. His work is manifested through soundwalks, soundscape compositions, site-responsive performances, experimental para-archives, audio-visual installations, and diverse forms of writing. He is currently a postdoc researcher at Linköping University exploring the history and prospects of soundwalking and field recording practices from the perspective of media arts, environmental humanities, and philosophy of technology. He has exhibited internationally and in 2019 co-founded the Walking Festival of Sound.

www.smolicki.com

Walking Festival of Sound is a transdisciplinary event exploring the role of walking through and listening to our everyday surroundings. It combines a number of free and public events including walking performances and walking seminars. Walking Festival of Sound facilitates a meeting point for an international network of practitioners and researchers interested in sound and walking. Through diverse events we explore how walking and listening practices can augment and challenge the way we perceive, navigate through, and care for our shared environments.

The Walking Festival of Sound 2021 is kindly funded by the Culture of Solidarity Fund.

The program of events is organised and curated by Jacek Smolicki and Tim Shaw.

http://wfos.net/

A YouTube link will be sent to participants shortly before the event.