Pause II - A Deep Listening Soundwalk

In Johannesburg, as in most urban settings, space is inevitably regulated and ordered by the built environment, access control, the rhythm of work and the legacy of spatial segregation. It is also a city that is built and experienced largely along the dimensions of the motor vehicle creating a decentralized city. Walking, not out of necessity, can then potentially be an act of protest by subverting the forces of control imposed on how we move through the city.

Pause (2022) is a series of sonic compositions for headphones made by walking in Johannesburg. It can be for an individual or a collective, guided either by the attractions of the terrain or led by one person. Any recording may be chosen. The aim of the piece is to activate a re-sensitization of the habitual auditory ambiances of Johannesburg through the act of playful drifting, navigating by ear and allowing oneself to pause. Furthermore, each piece is realized through a process of co-authorship between the recordist, the listener, and the environment. The listener's surroundings are situated in the present moment of bodily experience, the panoramic field of view and orientation, in contrast to the spatially dislocated and anachronistic environment in which the recordings were made. As one walk is superimposed onto another, both co-evolve in a peripatetic choreography of simultaneous space-time geographies. In this sense, the listener walks vicariously in the footsteps of the recordist.

Please click on the link above to listen to the sonic compositions