Sounding Public Space
A collective research project
Sound (audio) is a medium that can move from inside to the outside. Artists and researchers can use audio in exhibition spaces, theatres and concert-halls, in public spaces, virtual spaces and the private space of the home. The form of an audio-walk can move through all these kinds of spaces. The audience moves through a place while listening to an audio soundtrack. This can contain spoken text, music, sound effects, field recordings. It can be pre-recorded, interactive or streamed via internet or radio, but in effect the sounds are always located, “mapped” onto the city or landscape itself. In the city, a text can be spread out all along a street, or an abandoned lot can be filled with a virtual sonorous ritual.
Jubilee is developing the audiowalking app Tracks in collaboration with other partners. This allows a listener to explore content of very different kinds made for specific locations. For the artist / researcher / musician it forms a tool for spatial composition, for archiving and linking sounds or spoken texts to specific buildings, or to the movement of the listener. In addition to this individual form of presentation, Jubilee is interested in reflecting on more collective forms such as group walks.
The research considers the existing sonic environments of public space in relation to artistic research and interventions in public space. This research can involve local experts (inhabitants), urbanists, architects, policy makers, sociologists, ecologists as well as artists, writers, performers, musicians and field recordists. The idea is that not only artistic work but also research and reflection can be mapped back into public space itself.
In May 2021 Jubilee hosted Listening in the time of Corona an public online discussion between sound artists based in Brussels, Flanders and The Netherlands about the impact of the pandemic on the soundscape and, through listening, on the life and work of the participants.