From my home in Amsterdam to my friends home who live in the forest in Driebergen-Zeist.
They are a small family who are living in a fairly socially and culturally isolated area, at least compared to their previous home in the city Utrecht. I decided to visit them and make a small domestic sound performance in their living room.
I have been wanting to go for a walk for some time now. Just using my own body and feet. Experiencing the transition of place through walking speed, leaving the city, the "border" with the outside of the city, passing through villages and towns etc. Approaching the whole as one and incorporating the way there, the movement between one static space to another, within the sound performance.
During the walk sound recordings were made with my portable recorder and
contact microphone. The recordings were used in combination with my
self-made mallets and small domestic objects (paperclip/elastic
bands/tape/glass cup) that functioned as unconventional instruments. I
brought my autonomous audio system and needed one of their old cardboard
boxes to make my speaker.The walk was in total 55 km, I managed to walk 42,5 in 12 hours up till Hollandsche Rading. From there I took the train and bus for the last 12,5 km. The whole walk was a full sensory experience, including attentive listening within a flux of soundscapes, till the point where I became so sensitive to my walking surface I was avoiding any concrete or stone pavement/road.
On my way back I walked the remaining 12,5 km from my friends house to Hollandsche Rading and took the train back to Amsterdam. To complete the whole, I made another sound performance the next day at home, just by myself.I didn't use a map and only wrote down names of streets and roads on a piece of paper and asked people for directions. This way I had some social interaction and met some interesting people along the way. I would like to thank everyone that took the effort to take a picture and send it to me by email.
