Walking Festival of Sound Art, 2023

The last time we did a live, fully public Noise Awareness Day was in 2018. Now, we're back, addressing the subject of confinement and containment with sound and art. Maria Gaspar is a Chicago-based artist whose 96 Acres Project "deconstructs" the social impact of Chicago's notorious Cook County Jail. She gave my sound art (AVT 3740 students sounds recorded from actual prison bars recovered as one of the units was being demolished. They have used those recordings to collaboratively create a liberating art. Their mid-semester composite soundscapes are also a part of this walk.

Welcome to Sound Walk Tour's first tour! This is a pilot program developed by a history graduate student so if you find it and like it, send me an email! Not recommended for children under the age of 13 The first stop is at Q St NW & 27th St NW, Washington, DC 20007. To get there, I recommend taking the red line to Dupont and either walking or taking the D2 bus to that location.

Like in August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Thousands of people gathered in Washington DC for the event that commemorated the 1963 civil rights March on Washington and in protest at police violence. Called the Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks - a reference to the death of George Floyd, who died in May after a policeman knelt on his neck for several minutes - it follows renewed protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

​Hydrology explores the diverse sonic properties of aquatic ecosystems that cover over 70% of Earth’s surface. The sounds have been recorded using hydrophones (underwater microphones) in freshwater and marine ecosystems across the planet. The featured soundscapes include snapping shrimp on coastal reefs in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve of Mexico, melting ice in Norway’s Kvina River and Humpback Whales along the Queensland coastline. This piece also connects with the voices of water protectors and river communities across the world. Hydrology in Washington, DC has been created for the Earth Optimism Summit, April 21-23. Earth Optimism celebrates a change in focus from problem to solution in the area of global conservation with an unprecedented gathering of thought leaders, scientists, environmentalists, artists, civic leaders and international media. Hydrology is created by Leah Barclay Tweet @LeahBarclay for questions

After a severe storm surge in the future, the elevated water table has turned the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden into a marsh habitat. The sunken garden has been colonized with new cacophonous forms of life, making trouble for the garden’s caretaker who maintains the sculptures amid the destabilizing changes. Join the caretaker on this GPS-located fictional audio story that overlays the presently well-groomed Sculpture Garden with the dissonant sounds of future disruption.

CANARIAS DC SOUNDWALK explores the sonic ecologies of the Canary Islands, a volcanic archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Northwest Africa, within the geographic region known as Macaronesia. CANARIAS DC SOUNDWALK presents an itinerary with seven compositions for headphone listening geolocated across chosen locations in Washington, D.C. Each piece is composed with environmental sound materials from each of the islands: El Hierro, La Gomera, La Palma, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, and Lanzarote. This project investigates the vitality of more-than-human entities and realities, aiming to promote less anthropocentric ways of being and thinking. Through different listening strategies and audio technologies, the work concentrates on what usually remains hidden or unnoticed, on the limits and thresholds of perception and attention. The project focuses on the voices and audible presence of animal and plant species, air, soil, water, weather, and landscape formations. Furthermore, it acknowledges the affective power of sounds themselves. CANARIAS DC SOUNDWALK embraces listening as a creative act, a form of attention, and a tool to investigate the world. The project attempts to cultivate intimate sensory encounters that favour affectivity over signification and representation. CANARIAS DC SOUNDWALK is a permanent public invisible artwork available through the Echoes app from September 2021 onwards. **LOCATIONS** Throughout Washington, D.C, the seven chosen locations to experience each piece of the itinerary are: Theodore Roosevelt Island ~ HIERRO The Fern Valley at the US National Arboretum ~ GOMERA Dumbarton Oaks Park ~ PALMA Potomac River Belvedere Viewpoint ~ TENERIFE Glover Archbold Park ~ GRAN CANARIA Kenilworth Park Aquatic Gardens ~ FUERTEVENTURA Rock Creek Park ~ LANZAROTE **INSTRUCTIONS** CANARIAS DC SOUNDWALK is a location-based sound work. You will need a smartphone with an Android or iOS operating system. 1. Download the free ECHOES app on Google Play or App Store. 2. Plug in high-quality headphones. We do not recommend the use of wireless Bluetooth headphones as the compression degrades the audio quality. 3. Within the ECHOES app installed on your phone, navigate to the work CANARIAS DC SOUNDWALK. The audio artwork can run in real-time using your data plan. However, for optimal listening, we recommend that you pre-download the entire project to your phone before setting out to the locations. 4. Follow the map feature to arrive at your chosen destination. 5. Upon arriving at the destination, the audio will begin automatically, and you can listen while walking nearby or find a spot to sit down, relax and listen fully. CANARIAS DC SOUNDWALK is meant to be a screenless aural experience. Explore! Enjoy. **CREDITS** A project by [pablo sanz](https://pablosanz.info), commissioned and produced by the [Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C](https://www.spainculture.us). Fieldwork and production assistance: Palma E. Christian Martínez. Additional support from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI), the Swedish Arts Grants Committee (Konstnärsnämnden) and the Visby International Centre for Composers (VICC). Special thanks to Garajonay National Park, Teide National Park, and Timanfaya National Park. https://www.spainculture.us/city/washington-dc/canarias-dc-soundwalk/

This is a GPS-aided audio tour that seeks to enhance visitors’ experience of Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens with insights into the social and environmental history of the neighborhoods that surround them. This Down to Earth Residency project might, at first, appear to be a familiar instance of "site-specific" public art. This characterization, however, eludes the fact that the "site" under consideration is a virtualization of Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens as it exists, today. The voices gathered here have used KAG as a focal point for discussions that span the distant past of this unique green space as well as its endangered future. While KAG is at the center of the first-person commentaries assembled for our walk, our multi-vocal discussion of families, water, land, and climate necessarily appeals to familiarities and memories unique to each participant, and common to us all. And so we find, for example, that a simple designator of direction -- South -- might here point towards the Southeast quadrant of DC, the Piscataway communities of Southern Maryland, a starting point for migrations out of the Carolinas, or even to a yard and house on a remote Caribbean shore. We are all connected, through and in the Earth. These social connections are richly interpenetrated by a non-human community. Justice, we discover, is a measure of balance across human interactions and justice is the best standard for our interaction within the ecologies out of which our lives emerge. • There are a total of 12 zones that are contiguous with the walking trails around the ponds and the trail that follows the boardwalk. • The audio program associated with each echo zone will play until it ends or until you leave its zone. • Because the audio content will abruptly terminate and/or change as you leave a zone, it makes sense to watch your map and remain within a zone until its program has completed. • After a program concludes, simply continue your walk away from the zones you’ve already visited. If you reenter a zone, its audio content will not replay. • As a courtesy to other park visitors, please enjoy your audio-enhanced walk with headphones or earbuds. Thomas Stanley, Mark Cooley, and Malik Thomas were the artists in the 2021 Fall Down to Earth residency, and they created this interactive sound walk and its signage. The interview with Tayo Agyemang was conducted in 2019 by David Drawbaugh and Maya Douglas. It is a part of the DC Oral History Collaborative and is used under an in copyright - non-commercial license.

Downtown Columbia is being reimagined. The innovative ideas that put Columbia on the map, literally and in the history of urban planning, are being matched by today’s developers. While the built environment is employing the tools to be resource-efficient, healthy and cost effective, a large portion of land is preserved open space where stream beds are being stabilized and reforested. Rain gardens, and other stormwater management tools will lessen the effects of development on the environment. What does public art add to the equation? Public art humanizes the built environment. It provides a connection between the past, present and future. Enjoy this Art Tour either in person or on the app from home. Narration written by Barbara Kellner. Voice Actor: Kathy Marshall Audio Editor: Robert Neal Marshall