Soundwalks

Soundwalks are a mode of fieldwork and a form of collective attention. Participants move through a site — a river, a street, an overgrown lot — guided by a score: a set of written or drawn instructions that prompt specific acts of listening. The score does not prescribe what to hear but shapes the conditions under which hearing happens.

In our practice, soundwalks function as research tools, performance scores, and community exercises simultaneously. Each walk generates material — field recordings, written responses, embodied memories — that feeds back into other works: books, exhibitions, sound installations, and further scores.

We have organised and participated in soundwalks along the Mur river in Graz, in industrial peripheries, on construction sites, and in forested corridors. The walks are often collaborative, drawing in other artists and practitioners who contribute their own score and their own way of listening.

The score is not a fixed text but a proposition — a temporary reorientation of attention. It can be a single sentence: Walk until the wind changes. Stop. Listen backwards.