GO YOUR GAIT
Press Conference
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Someone’s gait—the way he or she walks—is highly individual. The particular pattern of movement is audible in the sound of the paces themselves, their regularity, how a person puts one foot in front of the other; the result is a unique rhythm. These patterns are now being scrutinized by the GO YOUR GAIT project running May 14-August 15, 2009 in Linz’s Wissensturm.
In Linz and 15 of its sister cities, project staffers identified locations conducive to studying pedestrians and recording their movements. In each city, staffers produced a 5-10-minute audiovisual work whose theme is the gaits and walking rhythms of local inhabitants. The acoustic score is a multifaceted composition; its variables include the type of space/location, the flows of movement, and gait patterns. The subjects of this investigation are strictly individual pedestrians, since couples and groups tend to coordinate the way they walk.
At each site, a specific “city sound” serves as the foundation—for example, the roar of the surf or the humming of the air conditioners in Albufeira, the squealing of the e-bikes in Chengdu, the trolley car ballet in Halle, the temple bells or the seaweed toasters in the markets of Gwangyang. A travel diary and photos document the visits to the respective sister cities and shed light on the process of selecting the sounds and locations.
Go Your Gait! subsumes a steadily growing series of projects that articulate the individuality of our gaits and the impressions they leave in public spaces.
www.linz09.at/gangarten
