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Jacek
Smolicki

Footbook for Soundwalking (2018)

Footbook for Soundwalking is an experimental hybrid-media publication developed during an artist residency at Arc in Romainmôtier, Switzerland in October and November 2018.

The book (to be released in 2021) comprises notes, reflections and instructions based on a series of soundwalking, listening and field recording exercises conducted daily in the vicinity of the Arc.

While walking through local mountains, woods, pastures, and villages, I experimented with different listening positions and perspectives: from the underground system of bunkers, surface of foliage and its diverse ecosystems or high-hanging human-made infrastructures. While some experiments focused on critically rethinking Swiss alpine soundmarks by listening through and beyond the pleasing sonority of cowbells, music boxes and automatons, other interventions included lending an ear to electromagnetic pulses of the local ATM machines and their ubiquitous network. Besides field recordings, field notes and images, each exercise resulted in a set of instructions for others to engage in similar reflective and critical explorations of multiple aural dimensions of one's vicinity.




The Footbook was developed during a custom-made residency, one of several, fully funded artist-in-residence programs offered by Arc






Excerpts of a soundscape composition based on an exercise in listening from the perspective of farm animals