Going on a Soundwalk

“Her Long Black Hair” by Janet Cardiff was the first soundwalk I went on.

Walking through Central Park with headphones on, I was experiencing reality with another layer painted on top of it. Instead of simply taking in my immediate surroundings, I felt the presence of Janet beside me, her footsteps matching mine. I saw through the portal of my headphones her own reality: the honks and sirens, the murmurs of passersby, the singing of musicians. What really felt wondrous was the blurred line between my and her realities. During the walk, I heard honks and sirens, murmurs of strangers, and music playing nearby in real life, though a bit muffled by my headphones. With sounds coming from both the audio track and the physical world, I could not tell which was which from time to time. The two layers were blending together to form my whole experience.

I could see shadows of Janet’s world in my own world. When Janet described a man walking towards me while touching his face, I overlayed that image on a woman walking towards me. When she described polar bears kicking off from the windows to swim around, I pictured them even though I did not see any movement behind the glass windows at the zoo. With the crowded nature of Central Park, it was easy to imagine the different people and actions in my head on top of what I was actually witnessing.

A particularly interesting aspect of Janet’s soundwalk was the fact that she (the narrator) was on a journey to find the reality of the woman in the photographs. She was walking around the park to see the places where the photos were taken and wondering about what the woman with the long black hair would have been thinking, feeling, and seeing. At the same time, I, as a participant of the soundwalk, was on a journey to find Janet’s reality. Throughout these embedded versions of realities, the physical setting, Central Park, perseveres as a constant. Janet’s instructions and directions in my ears were perfectly timed and accurate, even after all these years. I never felt lost even though I did not have a map open.

Apart from nuances of its content, the soundwalk was well thought out and executed in its techniques. The sound of her footsteps in the background served to keep the participants at the correct pace throughout the walk. The 360 stereo sound was very convincing. I hope to integrate these elements into my own soundwalk as well.