Sunday 23 June 2019, 4pm, Off-site
Desire Lines: a sporadic series of wanderings, exploring sites of interest, curiosity or obscurity, to be found alongside, or deviant from, the well trodden path. All walks are led by Helen Frosi (Founder of SoundFjord / Visible Near Midnight Recordings), often in collaboration with artists, musicians and other enthusiasts. This series, commissioned by Cafe OTO, incites encounters with the more-than-human-world, foregrounding multiply modes of listening within the polyphony of our sounding world.
Location: River Lea / Lee Navigation
Meeting Point: Hackney Wick Overground Station
Date: Sunday 23 June 2019
Time: 4pm start
Duration: 1.5-2 hours
An interactive, guided sound walk along one of the largest rivers in London.
Originating in the Chiltern Hills the River Lea's journey ends, emptying into the Thames at Leamouth as Bow Creek. The river, set in the Lee Valley, is a chalk stream and a source of drinking water at its upper length and tributaries, whilst towards the Thames its history has been shaped by the industrial revolution and latterly by leisure. Nearby marsh, grassland, wooded areas and man-made reservoirs have created inviting locations for flora and fauna to flourish, especially within its many forgotten corners and crumbling concrete structures, such as those to be found at the Middlesex Filter Beds (originally constructed to cleanse water for consumption, it is now a nature reserve).
Inspired by the capricious nature of the river, its ebbs and flows, this sound walk, led by Helen Frosi (SoundFjord) and Stephan Barrett (Littoral Transmissions), will encourage participants to tune in to the river's voice and that of its post-industrial and peri-urban surroundings through listening and recording exercises, sound making activities and quiet contemplation.
This event is suitable for ages 14-years upwards.
All children under 16 should be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
NB. the route will feature uneven ground, which may be muddy.
Wear suitable shoes and clothing for the weather and location. Bring a bottle of water with you.
Helen Frosi is a holobiont whose art practice pivots around ecological thought, poetics, and the environmental, creative, social, and political enmeshment of sound, hearing and listening. Her practice embodies epistemic pluralism, is facilitatory, and necessitates collaborative, cross-disciplinary work, communal projects and collective activities.
Helen is co-ordinator and co-curator of auralpluralities, a project that troubles accepted norms in audio technology, sound culture and Western epistemologies, questioning the extent of human perception, our relation in and through the vibratory world, and whether hearing is ever an individual act, and is curator of EnCOUnTERs, an interdisciplinary project that encompasses art, ecology and the sonic imagination.
Other long-term projects include: SoundFjord, a nomadic curatorial platform focused on sound-related research and practice (2010-present); Visible Near Midnight Recordings, for works that fall between the genre gaps (2012-present); Longplayer Day (2017-22). She is a workshop facilitator at the British Library, and Honorary Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London (Dept of Music).
Stephan Barrett is a London-based pianist, field recordist, improviser and sound editor. Stephan performs as a duo with Helen Frosi under the moniker Postcards from the Volcano, and with Adam Kinsey as Littoral Transmissions. Both projects focus on the creation of site-sensitive works, the former working with materials gleaned walking London’s peri-urban landscapes, whilst the latter explores the sonic resonance of objects and the aquatic imaginary.
As an improviser, Stephan has performed at Arch 1, A.P.T, Iklectik, Full of Noises Festival, Harts Lane Gallery, Hundred Years Gallery, and New River Studios amongst other locations, and has created transmission works for amongst others: Radiophrenia, SonicaFM, Threads and Wandsworth radio. He has released albums with Colliding Lines, International Ephemera, Minimal Resource Manipulation, Steep Gloss, Visible Near Midnight Recordings, and currently produces Lee Navigations, a monthly radio show for Resonance Extra.
https://extra.resonance.fm/series/lea-navigations
