Tactical Soundwalking in the City: A Feminist Turn from Eye to Ear

The histories of walking in art are both male-dominated and visually oriented. This is most clearly expressed in the 19th century figure of the “flâneur.” Building on the history of both the flâneur and Guy Debord’s psychogeographic “dérive,” Michel de Certeau’s “Walking in the City,” published in 1980, suggests walking as a tactical act of resistance to the alienation of the modern city. While de Certeau begins his essay with a critique of visuality, or the scopic drive, he misses a crucial opportunity to move from eye to ear. In alliance with the sonic philosophy of Salomé Voegelin, this paper argues for listening as a mode that, counter to the objectifying uses to which visuality has culturally been put, offers a mode of engaging with the world that is relational, ecological, and feminist in orientation. Through a discussion of the practices of soundwalking and Deep Listening, and analysis of soundwalking projects by Suzanne Thorpe, Viv Corringham, and Amanda Gutierrez, a new story emerges about listening in public space as a tactical act.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Stephanie Loveless

Conference

Publication date: August 2019

Publication date (Print): August 2019

Pages: 189-194

Affiliations

[0001]Department of the Arts

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

110 8th Street, Troy, NY 12180

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/RESOUND19.29

SO-VID: a61c94c7-92db-4af8-b227-a8ff11f297c4

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: RE:SOUND 2019 – 8th International Conference on Media Art, Science, and Technology

Conference acronym: RE:SOUND 2019

Conference number: 8

Conference location: Aalborg, Denmark

Conference date: August 20-23, 2019

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Media Art, Science, and Technology

History

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/RESOUND19.29

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

H. Balzac 1886 The Works of Honore de Balzac K. P. Wormeley 2010 Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ 14 September 2019
G. Debord 1956 Theory of the Dérive Situationist International Online Ken Knabb Bureau of Public Secrets https://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/theory.html 14 September 2019
M. De Certeau 1980 The Practice of Everyday Life S. Rendall 1988 Oakland, CA University of California Press
L. Elkin 2017 Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London New York Farrar, Straus and Giroux
L. Elkin 2017 The Case for the Flâneuse A. Adhikari The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ 14 September 2019
V. Fournel 1867 Ce qu’on voit dans les rues de Paris Paris A. Delahays
A. Gutierrez 2016 Derivas de Girona Tumblr https://derivasgirona.tumblr.com/page/2 14 September 2019
A. Gutierrez 2019 Flâneuse>La caminanta Sounding Out! https://soundstudiesblog.com/ 14 September 2019
D. Kahn 2001 Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts Cambridge, MA The MIT Press
P. Oliveros 1974 Sonic Meditations Sharon, VT Smith Publications
D. Kahn 2001 Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts Cambridge, MA The MIT Press
I. Rogoff 2003 From Criticism to Critique to Criticality transversal / EIPCP multilingual webjournal http://eipcp.net/transversal/0806/rogoff1/en.html 14 September 2019
S. Thorpe Resonance-Resembance Artist website https://www.suzannethorpe.com/ 14 September 2019
S. Voegelin 2013 Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art London Bloomsbury Academic
S. Voegelin 2014 Sonic Possible Worlds: Hearing the Continuum of Sound London Bloomsbury Academic

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[1] H. Balzac 1886 The Works of Honore de Balzac K. P. Wormeley 2010 Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ 14 September 2019

[2] G. Debord 1956 Theory of the Dérive Situationist International Online Ken Knabb Bureau of Public Secrets https://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/theory.html 14 September 2019

[3] M. De Certeau 1980 The Practice of Everyday Life S. Rendall 1988 Oakland, CA University of California Press

[4] L. Elkin 2017 Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London New York Farrar, Straus and Giroux

[5] L. Elkin 2017 The Case for the Flâneuse A. Adhikari The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/ 14 September 2019

[6] V. Fournel 1867 Ce qu’on voit dans les rues de Paris Paris A. Delahays

[7] A. Gutierrez 2016 Derivas de Girona Tumblr https://derivasgirona.tumblr.com/page/2 14 September 2019

[8] A. Gutierrez 2019 Flâneuse>La caminanta Sounding Out! https://soundstudiesblog.com/ 14 September 2019

[9] D. Kahn 2001 Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts Cambridge, MA The MIT Press

[10] P. Oliveros 1974 Sonic Meditations Sharon, VT Smith Publications

[11] D. Kahn 2001 Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts Cambridge, MA The MIT Press

[12] I. Rogoff 2003 From Criticism to Critique to Criticality transversal / EIPCP multilingual webjournal http://eipcp.net/transversal/0806/rogoff1/en.html 14 September 2019

[13] S. Thorpe Resonance-Resembance Artist website https://www.suzannethorpe.com/ 14 September 2019

[14] S. Voegelin 2013 Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art London Bloomsbury Academic

[15] S. Voegelin 2014 Sonic Possible Worlds: Hearing the Continuum of Sound London Bloomsbury Academic

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