Awake and lift their heads in all their prismatic glories

Tandem Running utilizes both synthesis and manipulated audio recordings to portray the involvement of invertebrates at every stage of plant life from pollination to decomposition. It specifically recognizes invertebrate species typically seen as scary and/or unappealing, such as wasps and worms, whose contributions to the ecosystem may go unappreciated, but are nonetheless critical for allowing human-planned natural spaces like the Boston Public Garden to thrive. Different species found in and around the Public Garden are represented both literally, with manipulated recordings of the sounds they make, and metaphorically, with melodic and rhythmic elements that become denser and more musical as points of interest along the route are approached.

Instructions: Enter the Garden through the gate at Arlington and Commonwealth Ave. Proceed to the space right between the two fountains in front of the George Washington statue and begin. (Tip: the instructions will guide you around the Garden, but if you are ever at a loss on what to do next... just follow the line) Description: As children we often look at the world through the lens of play - sidewalk cracks invite us to avoid stepping on them under perilous threat; trees for climbing stand out amongst the rest; we determine which house hides the terrifying monster and walk on the other side of the street. However, as we reach adulthood, we often lose this lens of play. This soundwalk invites listeners to adopt a playful attitude toward their natural spaces and the people around them. For fifteen minutes, as listeners stroll around the lake in the Boston Public Garden, we will create the space for a playful interaction with the world. Together, we will explore the positive psychological benefits of play and how a playful attitude affects us and colors our lived experiences. We will hear stories of designers who seek to create playful moments in daily life - designers such as Bernard DeKoven who spent his life inviting others to participate in what he called “the infinite playground.” Finally, by exploring some of the aesthetic elements of play (including imagination, playful objects, flow, and the magic circle), we will create opportunities for playful attitudes towards nature, others, and ourselves.

Imagine the pond is a stormy sea. The closer you get, the more intense the gale becomes. Take cover behind monuments—listen to what speaks in their wake—and dare to glean what lies in the eye of the storm.

A data sonification piece based on five poems written by female poets who lived/worked in Boston over the course of its history: Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), Ellen Sturgis Hooper (1812-1848), Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward (1844-1911), Gertrude Hall (1863-1961), and Jadene Felina Stevens (1947-2013). Each poem is tied to a prominent monument or landmark within the Public Garden, over a walking path covering approximately a half-mile from its southeastern to the northwestern points. In addition to recorded readings of the poems, two selections of modern-day sound recordings made in Boston accompany each poem, with varying pitches determined by word and letter frequency data within each poet's body of work, and within the overall English language. Surrounding the monuments/poems, ambient music from each relevant time period plays in the background. 18th Century:"Sodgers Return", by Sturbridge Colonial Militia; Early-19th Century:"Home, Sweet Home (Folk-Song)" by Martin R. Lucas (Producer); Mid-19th Century: "Alexander's Ragtime Band" by Miff Mole And His Little Molars; Late-19th Century: "In a Blue Summer Garden" by Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, & Joe Shulman; 20th Century: "Crystalline Neurons" by PrimalHouseMusic. (All music in public domain/Creative Commons.)

“Sonder” is an ancient viral hit — a 2010s neologism coined by John Koenig to describe “the realization that each [...] passerby is living a life as [...] complex as your own”. They’re All Talking repurposes Koenig’s now-cheesy term into a soundwalk, merging it with language and the chronology of Boston. Samples of Native American languages, English and the various languages spoken through waves of immigration are specifically tied to locations around the pond, building a linguistic timeline in the city. The incredible language diversity in the Boston area fuels a phone-in-pocket soundwalk that only allows eavesdropping on languages a listener speaks. The multilingual soundscape leaves one very simple impression of most of its conversations: that everyone, just like you, is talking, talking, talking. Presented at the ICMC 2025.

: This SoundWalk brings into hearing the fragile and often imperceptible bio-acoustic ecology of Boston’s Public Garden. This experience invites participants to attune their senses to the spectral presence of species that live here in the present and the past

This roughly 1/3-mile sound walk should last around 15 minutes, but can be longer as desired, and listeners may pause at any point of the walk, as all sound events are looped (except the last one). Listeners will start at the Ether Monument, following a path from there east towards the pond and then south along its bank. Listeners are invited to take this path as slowly as they like. The action picks up a bit on the bridge over the lagoon, then walk east to finish the walk at the Bagheera Fountain. Bat walking is by necessity an active form of listening: When I’ve participated in bat walks, using my bat detector to make the animals’ calls audible, the other participants - often including young children - looked up in wonder whenever they heard a call, knowing a bat was about to flit by and would only be visible for a few moments. Bats don’t creep into, or come crashing into, your auditory attention. This sound walk is designed to suggest the feeling of a bat survey on foot. Normally a nighttime activity done with ultrasonic detectors, Bats of the Public Garden can be experienced any time of day. Rather than an attempting to be “realistic,” the soundscape is layered, shifted, and processed to communicate the urgency, mystery, and musical rhythm that arises from the joint improvisation of animal and human rhythms. At various points, the sounds of the bats will be combined with sounds from other ephemeral occupants of the garden - frogs, crepuscular birds, amphibians, and fish - along with voices of mythical, imagined, and other-than-nonhuman beings.

Soundwalk based on sound ethnographies from the Magdalena River Basin in Colombia, by Carlos G. Román (LSU) and Alejandra Osejo (Rice University).

River Listening is an interdisciplinary project that invites participants to explore the hidden acoustic ecologies of waterways through an immersive, technologically mediated listening experience. Drawing from a decade of hydrophone recordings and scientific research, this soundwalk transforms the site into a dynamic sonic environment that reveals the rich life beneath the water’s surface. Hydrophonic Discoveries is an immersive soundwalk that reflects on the project’s last decade of work and unveils the hidden acoustic ecologies of river ecosystems through cutting-edge underwater sound recording technologies. This interdisciplinary project transforms scientific research into an artistic experience, inviting participants to explore the soundscapes of global river systems. Drawing from over 300 hours of hydrophone recordings collected from global river systems, the soundwalk bridges art, science, and environmental awareness. The artistic outcomes from River Listening are central to our public engagement efforts, which include soundwalks and live-streaming hydrophone arrays. These artistic projects have contributed to the advancement of scientific recording techniques and ecoacoustic methods. The River Listening project has presented over 35 soundwalk projects on the Echoes platform since 2014 and was an early adopter of this platform. Created by Dr Leah Barclay and Dr Toby Gifford for ICMC Boston 2025 www.riverlistening.com #RiverListening