Sway, one of the three dozen sound installations you’ll find hanging around SoundWalk this Saturday.
There’s no place on Earth like the Black Rock Desert during that one week out of the year they call Burning Man. But as Black Rock City residents get ready to burn the Man Saturday night, those of us here in the default world of Long Beach will be able to channel a bit of Black Rock City, as the East Village Arts District will be transformed into the multifarious audiovisual spectacle that is SoundWalk.
I was already a veteran of multiple SoundWalks when I lost my Burning Man virginity in 2010. And so Long Beach immediately came to mind when I wandered into the first of the many sound installations you can find on the playa, installations that would be every bit as at home in SoundWalk as they are at the Burn (and vice versa).
While Burning Man is far more ambitious than SoundWalk (covering square miles instead blocks for a week and not an evening) the two events share the concept of transforming a preexisting space—be it desert or urban—through art, as well as providing an immersive experience.
“One can say the difference is once you leave Burning Man, it’s no longer there; it’s just a memory,” says Marco Schindelmann of FLOOD, the arts group responsible for curating SoundWalk. “Whereas with SoundWalk, especially for people who work and live in the neighborhood, suddenly you have a different relationship with the area. [Burning Man] is a pilgrimage, whereas SoundWalk is sort of a reconfigurement so that people are able to appreciate it in a new way throughout the year.”
For those unfamiliar with the concept of sound art, think of it as any intentional shaping of the sonic landscape (large or small), with music being a specialized subgenre of sound art. At its abstract best, a work of sound art will draw your attention to auditory phenomena that otherwise you might have taken for granted or missed entirely—including the aural ambiance in which you are immersed wherever you go.
Thus, during SoundWalk, your attention often drawn to the everyday rattle and hum of East Village life, to the point that you find yourself wondering whether this or that sonic element is a preplanned part of a particular installation or of SoundWalk in general. The point is: it doesn’t matter. It’s part of your experience in that given moment, part of the multi-block indoor/outdoor sound-art gallery through which you’re taking a tour.
Speaking of taking a tour, a new feature at this year’s SoundWalk will be a panel discussion with various sound artists held at Fingerprints, followed by a docent tour of SoundWalk. The discussion, titled “Performed Art: The Fluid Roles of Spectator and Artist in Sound Art,” will be led by Mark Weidenbaum, publisher of ambient-music Webzine Disquiet and contributor to the scientific journal Nature. Like all of SoundWalk, the panel discussion (which begins at 7PM) and tour (8PM) are free.
Augmenting the nearly three-dozen fixed installations scattered throughout the East Village will be three roaming installations, which will unify the overall experience with a spontaneous fluidity.
“Generally [the roaming installations] will be covering different portions of the neighborhood,” Schindelmann says, “but at certain moments they may converge, in effect manifesting the idea of the overlap zone. […] Kamran’s [i.e., Kamran Assadi, one of FLOOD’s founding members] original idea for SoundWalk was of a larger installation comprised of smaller installations. Most of these smaller installations are static, which could somewhat contradicts the idea of sound art, in which there’s a dynamic space. These roaming pieces help realize that idea.”
Saturday will be the ninth iteration of SoundWalk. Although FLOOD has yet to run out of inspiration, they know that nothing lasts forever—and so it may be wise for us to get while the getting’s good.
“Every year I think we approach SoundWalk with a certain amount of apprehension, thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, will it be stale?'” shares Schindelmann. “But it hasn’t happened yet. We’ve always been pleasantly surprised that each year, as much as we kind of except some sense of déjà vu, it doesn’t really happen, which is good. Usually the day after we go, ‘Okay! It went even better than expected.’ […] We do feel that this incarnation of SoundWalk will probably last until the 10th year, at which point we’ll probably rethink it and go in some other direction.”
That, however, is a topic for another day. Presently, SoundWalk will make its annual glorious visitation, giving Burners and non-Burners alike a little taste of the playa, with a lot less dust.
SoundWalk takes place Saturday, September 1, from 6PM to 10PM within the East Village Arts District (borders: Long Beach Blvd.-4th St.-Linden Ave.-1st St.). What to expect: trippy, fun, bizarre, compelling, curious, interactive, artsy-fartsy, meditative, stimulating, playful. Admission: FREE! For more information, go to SoundWalk.org.
Soundwalk Map (click to make larger) and video documenting one of the installations is below:
