Walking Sounds
Sound walk with Maria Balabaș and Daria Ghiu; concert with Maria and Mihai Balabaș
“Walking sounds” with Maria Balabaș and Daria Ghiu – sound walk in the Filaret-Unirii neighbourhood
Saturday, 7 June 2014, 12-2 pm
Concert with Maria and Mihai Balabaș
Saturday, 7 June 2014, 7 pm
Meeting point for the walk and concert venue: tranzit.ro/ Bucureşti, Str. Gazelei nr. 44, sector 4
Visually speaking, we can say we started to get used to the City in a perpetual and sometimes chaotic development; the details which buildings offer are, under an optical zoom, more and more significant; we know the signals and the corners of the metropolis; gradually we even become more attentive to the influence that public space has upon collective mind. Although we become more sensitive to the visual impact that the city has upon us, urban sound education is still in an embryo state. There are only a few who think of sound in other sense than noise, concert, aggressiveness, iPhone. There are, however, a few methods to learn how to phonically appropriate the city, in order to recognize it, even to protect it. One such idea, which also encompasses sound activism is the sound walk, initiated in the 70s in Vancouver, by Murray Schafer.
This is a creative and research practice which requires listening and sometimes recording during the walking move from one place to another. What is desired is the creation of a strong relationship between the “soundwalkers” and the surrounding phonic environment. Crucial for such an activity are the decisions concerning the place, the style (interventionist or not), the content, due to the emphasized political, social and ecological consequences.
Maria Balabaș and Daria Ghiu have organized so far sound walks in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Tulcea, under the title „Walking sounds”. This time, together with tranzit.ro/ Bucureşti, they invite you to rediscover the Bucharest sound space in the area Filaret-Unirii. To be part of the group you have to be on time, to dress casually and to train a bit your patience before.
The concert that Maria and Mihai Balabaș are performing in the space of tranzit.ro/ Bucureşti after the walk will be complementary to the experience of the sound walk. Recently returned from a residency in Brussels – by the initiative of Q-O2 – the two brothers propose a set in which music is embodied from some of the recordings made during the sound walks. It will be a live sound collage which recontextualizes the experience of listening and perceiving some songs or of the necessity to participate in a concert.
Maria and Mihai are the brothers from the project Avant'n'Gard, an artistic collective dedicated to improvisational music; they have worked together for sound installations and collaborate with artists from various musical and artistic backgrounds. Avant'n'Gard has launched so far 4 albums and were invited to participate in festivals such as Sibiu Jazz and More, the International Week of New Music, Street Delivery, etc.
