Mid-side recording (1 hour, 4 minutes)
This work traces the presence of footsteps throughout an hour long walking meditation. By positioning a mid-side microphone at ground level in the centre of the walking path, the physical line of the path becomes rendered spatially into sound, allowing us to discern it in our sonic imagination as we perceive each step back and forth. Starting off at a regular pace, the walk gradually slows down as the meditation progresses, resulting in a gentle disintegration of the walker’s sonic footprint. In an inversion of Richard Long’s (1967) piece ‘A Line Made by Walking’ which emphasised the tangible impact of the artist’s physical presence, ‘A line disappeared by walking’ instead draws the listener into the experiential dissolution of the walker’s sonic existence, shifting the focus of temporal attention from the isolated sound of each footstep into the durational unfolding of time as continuous, unbroken and indivisible. The setting where this process unfolds is the forest, an environment ‘full of enigmas and paradoxes’ (Harrison, 2009, p. X), with a long history as a place of seclusion in which ‘to engage in psychological introspection’ (Ibid. p. 93). Robert Harrison tells us that in the Western tradition ‘the forest appears as a place where the logic of distinction goes astray. Or where our subjective categories are confounded’. During such perspectival shifts afforded by the forest environment, ‘latent dimensions of time and consciousness’ (Ibid., p. X) are revealed to us. This work hopes to spark a sense of curiosity about undertaking such practices by pointing towards a unification between hearer and heard, blurring the boundary between internal and external worlds.
References:
Harrison, R.P. (2009) Forests: The Shadow of Civilization. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr.
Long. R. (1967) A Line Made by Walking [Photograph]. Tate, London.