Stepping in Sound and Listening, with Elena Biserna

Since the 1960s, the act of walking has provided a way for artists and musicians to escape the formality of the concert hall or institutional venue, engaging with shifting public spaces, natural environments, and the social and political sphere. Walking redefines notions of composer, performer, public, and music itself, while opening new modes of perception and action. This talk provides an introduction on the relationships between walking, listening and soundmaking — from the first soundwalks and itinerant performances in the 1960s to today's manifold ambulatory projects — addressing a long legacy of interdisciplinary experimentations and a broad field that resounds with urgent issues in critical spatial thinking and practice today.

Elena Biserna is a researcher and curator based in Marseille, France. She writes, talks, facilitates workshops or collective projects, curates events and sometimes performs. Her interests are focused on listening and on contextual, time-based art practices in relationship with urban dynamics, socio-cultural processes, the public and political sphere. She currently serves as artistic director of LABgamerz and Lips festival, Aix-en-Provence. Her writings have appeared in several international publications (Les Presses du Réel, Mimesis, Le Mot et le Reste, Errant Bodies, Amsterdam University Press, Cambridge Scholar, Castelvecchi, Bloomsbury, Routledge, postmedia, Electa, Silver Press, etc.) and journals. She has recently edited two books: Walking from Scores (Dijon: Les Presses du réel, 2022) and Going Out. Walking, Listening, Sound-Making (Brussels: umland, 2022). She co-edits the feminist column wi watt'heure of Revue & Corrigée with Carole Rieussec. She has collaborated with or presented her projects in different venues/organisations, such as Errant Sound (Berlin), LUFF (Lausanne), Tavros and Fondation Onassis (Athens), La muse en circuit and Sonic Protest (Paris), Festival Plataforma (Santiago de Compostela); Oscillation festival, CIVA and Q-O2 (Brussels); City of Women, TO)pot festival and Cona (Ljubljana); ar/ge kunst (Bolzano), GMEA, Albi; festival Parallèle, Manifesta 13, Unité d’Habitation Le Corbusier and La Friche la Belle de Mai (Marseille); Padiglione Italia, Venice Biennale; 3bisF-centre d’arts contemporains, LABgamerz, Locus Sonus and Fondation Vasarely (Aix-en-Provence); soundpocket (Hong Kong); Standards (Milan); NUB (Pistoia); Radio India (Rome); Sant'Andrea degli Amplificatori, Xing, Radio Città Fujiko (Bologna); Saout Radio; p-node. She has taught at ESAAix-École Supérieure d'Art d'Aix-en-Provence, Aix-Marseille University, the Academy of fine art of Bologna and Paris 8 University.