Sounds of walking: Can sound re-present the embodied experience of movement time and distance in the landscape?

Martin P Eccles

In this thesis, having introduced my research questions, in Chapter 2 I present a layered analysis of the important contexts of my practice—walking, sound, walking poetry, and place. In Chapter 3 I present and discuss three works that together explore how it is that I know the world as a sensate embodied walker. In Chapter 4 I develop what I came to call replicated walks—walks made more than once in the same place. Begun in order to re-configure time, they also led me to extend my consideration of place beyond that defined by geography, to place defined by biological phenomena or socio-cultural coherence. In Chapter 5 I describe my emerging ideas of human-scale of place and my underlying ideas of island-ness. Initially I worked on real islands, walking circumferential routes and those defined by chance procedures. From this I developed an imaginary island in the foothills of Northumberland’s Cheviot Hills; made from the human-scale of my embodied walking this led to my creation of an imaginary pandemic island of containment, created in a city, in my locale, made, and made real, by the traces of my embodied walking. Together my works constitute a body of work that represents a contribution to knowledge with specific contributions of: the use of Replicated Walks as a method of experimenting with time and place; Walking Words – the presentation of poetic text in forms (concertina-fold books, scripta continua, scrolls) that requires walking to engage with it, and that also function as metonyms for my original walking act; Walking Islands –the use of human-scale walking to imagine an island into existence, and then invoke the island as a lens through which to continue to pursue the idea. My work also contributes knowledge to the methods of how to record the sounds of the world whilst walking through it, over extended distances and time.

3.2 ‘trace no trace’

From the consequences of walking in fast moving air, it’s impact on my body and senses, I continue my examination of walking and my embodied senses, how they are used, highlighted, or blunted. ‘trace no trace’ comprised two linked works—N^o. 1: ‘trace’ and N^o. 2: ‘no trace’. Taking Ingold’s idea of the trace, the walks allow consideration of the presence and absence of a walker’s (my) trace and the impact on walking of profound disruption of my senses (vision, hearing, balance).

3.2.1 N^o. 1: ‘trace’

N^o. 1: ‘trace’ took place inside and above Smallcleugh Level, a drift-style former lead mine in Nenthead, Cumbria.1 The work examined walking in the context both of moving inside the mine and on a second walk, following the same route of the underground passages but this time on the fell above. N^o. 1: ‘trace’ was composed from stereo recordings of two walks. The first was an edited, sequential, composite of static and walking recordings made whilst walking in Smallcleugh Level.2 The second was a field recording of a walk over moorland above the mine and that traced the route walked in the underground tunnels of the mine below.3

For each walk I wrote a set of verses in the style of a renga (below). I also recorded a series of spoken word recordings. I recorded my reading of the rengas that I wrote for each of the walks. I also recorded the names of the route inside the mine and formatted two versions of these—the first played with a two second gap between each name and the second played with no gap between them so they sounded like a single rapidly spoken sequence of words.

N^o. 1: ‘trace’ at Allenheads Contemporary Arts

The work was presented in the ACA (Allenheads Contemporary Arts) Gallery as an ambisonic octagonal array playing a pre-formatted durational sound piece and was also, on two occasions, presented as a live mixed performance piece.4 I produced a catalogue that had a cover printed with the title of the work on the front and an image based on the mine names on the back. It contained a bound sheet of tissue paper, a ‘trace no trace’ essay, the two rengas and a version of the composite map.