Soundwalking and Algorithmic Listening
Miguel Carvalhais, Rosemary Lee · Electronic workshops in computing · 2019
Soundwalking is a listening and composition method that focuses on the exploration of the envi-ronment. With roots in the 1970s, the artistic practices that sprung from soundwalking engage both with the unmediated soundscape as well as with multiple approaches to its augmentation or the augmentation of the human sensory apparatus. Soundwalking emphasises the listener’s active and participatory role in the construction of dynamic compositions, shaped as much by the environ-ment as by their presence and actions. Given the increasing relevance of computation in physical and public environments, the omnipresence of the metainterface, and how hybrid environments emerge from physical and virtual spaces, this paper discusses how principles and methodologies of soundwalking may allow the exploration and, ultimately, the understanding of computational environments that are increasingly sonic. This paper explores how in these contexts soundwalking can be used as a poetic and aesthetic resource, leading to the development of a listening that em-phasises computation and procedurality, an algorithmic listening.