Ulice Warszawy (streets of Warsaw)
Having been invited to take part in a street festival in Warsaw, I thought of expressing this quite literally — an art piece based on the street names of Warsaw, and vocalised by inhabitants of the city. On the map of Warsaw I marked out a section that was divided into 30 sectors of approximately one square kilometer each.
Inhabitants were invited to select a sector, choose their own route, and to take a walk there for 30 minutes.
Each participant was given a simple tape recording device and a 30-minute continuous cassette. They were asked to switch on their recorders at the beginning of the walk and to hold it in their hands as they walked. In this way, the recorder picked up the sounds of the immediate environment along their route.
Every time they came to a street name, they were asked to hold the device to their mouths and to clearly speak the street name into the in-built microphone. I picked a peaceful spot in a small public park in the center of Warsaw where I prepared an audio installation consisting of 16 walkmen. The walkmen were connected to 16 loudspeakers in cut-away PVC pipes that functioned both as stand and loudspeaker box.
The loudspeakers were arranged along the grass close to a number of benches.
From the first day of the installation, the number of cassettes handed in by the walkers increased.
In the event, what was to be heard was the faint background noises of the city, with here and there the names of streets permeating through: a miniature city landscape of Warsaw.
year | 2000 |
location | Warsaw, Poland |
brief description | audible city scape created by Warsaw residents who collected street names during walks |
performed by | residents of Warsaw |
curator | Marek Sulek |
photography | Toine Horvers |
project or event | 'Sztuka Ulicy' (street-art festival) |
technical | Toine Horvers |