for Rob

A Short Soundwalk of Forest Hills

Welcome to The Queer and Now, a geolocative audio tour of Northeastern’s LGBTQ history! In this experience, you’ll travel through time and listen to Northeastern students from throughout the decades recount their experiences. Hear interviews with former students, an overview of the time period by a historical expert, and even popular music from the period. Each group of echoes is placed in what was an important location during the students’ time on campus. To experience the full historical narrative, it’s recommended that you begin the experience in front of the YMCA building on Huntington Avenue, in the 1890’s echo, then follow the timeline. If you wish to jump around, or want to complete the experience in multiple pieces, simply click on each echo in the map, and the time period will pop up. Then navigate to the location of whichever echo you want to hear, and the audio will begin automatically.

imagine you are a pigeon, flying through a snowy afternoon, looking around at the people bundled up and the warm glow emanating from the row homes.

I recorded this on a rainy day in Boston while walking from NEC to the Christian Science Center. The rain had just begun to fade, so the sound includes both rainfall and the quieter atmosphere afterward.

You realize you've lost your wallet at some point between last night and now. You were at a party last night, so you start your search at the host's, Claire's, apartment, on Columbus next to Ruggles Station.

This soundwalk traces a path from resonance to routine. Church bells emerge first at a distance, blurred by space, then become increasingly present as the listener moves closer. The walk continues into MUJI and Lady M on Newbury Street, where curated indoor sounds replace reverberation with intimacy and control. Moving between these spaces, the piece explores how sound shapes our perception of distance, atmosphere, and daily movement through the city.

DESIRE PATH is a sonic walk by Kelly Chen to prompt a reimagining of mobility through interactions with vibrations. This geolocated audio tour is in conversation with themes of public/private, self/other, inside/outside, image/text, and other transgressed dichotomies presented in M’Kenzy Cannon: PLEASE LET ME IN at the Boston Center for the Arts. It explores the body’s relationship with city infrastructure with choreography and gesture. The sound walk combines elements of spoken “scores” and guided listening for the streets around Boston Center for the Arts in the South End, up Tremont Street, including interactions with Berkeley Community Garden and Peter’s Park. DESIRE PATH considers how silence, noise, and mobility function as social conditions by taking part in the sounds and motions produced by organic and industrial processes of South Boston. To plier over fences, saunter across curbs, and relever from pillars to the sounds of construction, cars, fountains, stop lights, and passersby, participants interpret the public dimensions of the space. What does the infrastructure allow you to do? How does it allow you to assemble? How doesn’t it? DESIRE PATH is created on Echos, available for mobile download on the App Store, Google Play, or the web. The walk will also be transcribed and mapped as a downloadable Google Maps coordinate set for accessibility. The walk can be performed in groups, or by oneself.

By : Scot Gresham-Lancaster and Sharath Chandra Ramakrishnan