THE IDEA
The initial impetus for SoundWalk arose from a certain ennui with the physical environment in which we function on a daily basis. Thus a question was born out of the experience of sameness with a familiar environment spawning numerous more questions. How could we make this interesting? What would make this place different? How could a change be challenging to the residents and visitors to this area? What if it sounded differently than it does? The questions lead to the modern concept of estrangement which the German playwright Bertold Brecht explored for new twists in the theater experience. His expectation envisioned reflection as a part of the response to his plays which in turn would induce a fresh understanding of familiar concepts, even hackneyed concepts. Reflection would compliment the pleasure of watching the play unfold, the sentiments felt through the characters in the play. It would be a richer experience. In this sense, the change of the sound ambience within an otherwise familiar and utilitarian environment will couch unexpected encounters, unaccustomed relations between the sounds of the city and the installed interference with the everyday perceptions.

THE PROJECT
How does one then go about to make such changes happen? At first Flood envisioned the concept to be not only developed but also executed by its members. Looking at the area in Long Beach that has been designated the Arts District, we imagined installations in a number of indistinct places such as sidewalks, alleys, lobbies, and alcoves created by buildings. In other words, places that would rather be ignored than observed for their appeal. As we were talking to people we thought to be receptive to the idea we met with enthusiastic responses from artists who wanted to sign on to the project. Word of mouth led us to a heterogeneous community of artists who embraced the opportunity to participate with their work in the event. We were overwhelmed by the response. What had started as a rather modest concept has grown to an artistic enterprise of a much larger dimension.

THE LOCATION
Long Beach is a port city. Not too many years ago it was clearly the sailors’ playground spotted with sleazy bars, tattoo parlors, and adult movie theaters. Container shipping and the closing of the naval station eliminated with the clientele, which had been the economic base for the seedier branches of business. The city reinvented itself as a hub for international trade with a centrally located convention center and a downtown arts district. It promotes the establishment of galleries, sponsors public art and attracts the residents as well as out-of-towners to the area by facilitating a monthly “Art Walk,” an evening of art openings and performances in a compact two-block area. For the staging of SoundWalk, we have extended the parameters to a four-block area. The installations are as eclectic as are the sites the artists have adopted for their installations. From a rather conventional exhibition space, to participating galleries, the sites also include a community garden, some alleys, a parking garage, various restrooms, obscure stairwells as well as an art park equipped with a stage for out door performances.

THE AUDIENCE
What made the initially simple question evolve into a major arts event? The optimistic answer is first the number and quality of the artists, and secondly the audience for whom the event is ultimately organized. The Long Beach down town area has been designated as the official arts district. So within this assigned space we looked at sites that would lend themselves to installations. In our selection we viewed and envisioned the streets with their quotidian bustle, with people on their way home from work, walking their dogs, getting a coffee at the corner coffee shop. We saw shoppers passing through the area, tourists who wondered where to see or experience something new and different, residents who notice the occasional piece of trash and don’t seem to feel the need to look around. There is the motley array of young people in search of stimulation by art, music, people, or some event worth talking about. But beyond that we anticipate the visitors who would come for the express purpose of being surprised, entertained, enchanted, or challenged by the installations. What we did not see or hear as of yet where the sounds and sights the artists would add to the environment: the art.

THE ART
There is little that can be said about the actual work, which the artists will contribute since they will be creating site-specific pieces for the event. The genre of sound art itself assembles in the term a greatly disparate body of art production. One of the most prominent pioneers of sound art is unquestionably John Cage. Yet much of his work is categorized as performance. Even at that, there is an aspect of anti-art or happening associated with his challenges to conservative art practices. Art is familiarly found in designated places like museums, plazas, or lobbies among some other places. It presents itself as special, tasteful and often costly. Art is defined by taste and taste is acquired by careful introduction to art. This is the cerebral aspect of art. The eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant mused on the subject for a full volume of dense philosophy. Ensconced in his century’s obsession with classification, he was seeking an irrefutable argument that would define art in absolute terms. The tradition of classification and his particular specification have haunted the field of the arts in critical texts, art history books, and in cultural performances. One of the key elements of art in the case of painting, according to Kant, is the frame that sets the art object off against utilitarian objects such as walls and curtains. Art serves no other purpose than the esthetic pleasure. In turn, art is defined as that which gives esthetic pleasure in pure form not mixed with any personal interest. This form of pleasure is derived from taste, and taste is developed by exposure to good art, which is the only form of real art. The standard art history books such as Gardner, Jensen, et al reflect this form of art appreciation as development of movements in painting, drawing, sculpture, and architecture chapters. Hybrid art forms do not have a place in this nomenclature-oriented history of art. Unlike Cage, many artists have worked outside of the set of academic parameters at the price of not getting acknowledged in their time. They constituted an avant-garde who pushed the parameters and forced new definitions to expand the discursive field of art. Every new form of art forces critics and art historians to find an adequate vocabulary that not only describes it but also groups it. An easy analogy may elucidate the conundrum these new art forms pose to the institutional work associated with art in some unprecedented form. A foundling left on the church steps is given an arbitrary name so he or she will not have to be referred with the iteration of his or her fateful tale. Genre in art functions like a family name that reveals a particular relationship of the members to each other. Painting evokes a flat surface to which color has been applied. Paintings hang on walls, often in ornate gilded frames, in their modern versions they may remain unframed altogether. The rejection of the frame is one way artists adopted to question assumptions about art in particular the elitist esthetics as defined by Kant. Sound art does not yet have an established tradition that allows for reliable assumptions about the kind of work, which the viewer may expect to encounter. Without parameters of expectation the field is wide open for a whole range of possibilities. Acoustically as well as electronically produced sounds may find combinations in elaborate or minimal installations, performances and/or sculpture.

THE FRAME
Kant articulated the frame for painting the paragon – taken from Greek – which he sees as an adjunct to the work of art, which at same time belongs and doesn’t belong to it. It functions as a mediary for the viewer so he or she may more effectively enter the aesthetic pleasure in the encounter with the work of art. The contemporary French theoretician Jacques Derrida scrutinizes the concept of the parergon or frame. His analysis leads to a reflection on the frame not just as the physical object around the canvas and Kant’s stated purpose, but metaphorically as the context in which art occurs. He considers a wider interaction between institutional and cultural practices, which define what we understand as art. With a focus on the institutional parergon the museum becomes a frame, which frames art in the full sense of the word. It presents as well as defines what is to be viewed for aesthetic pleasure. An example from the Museum of Modern Art in New York makes this clear. Put on display there, a chair changes its function from an implement that provides seating comfort to a rarified objet d’art. Design is in our lives so multifariously that we pay little attention to it. In a home we sit on a chair designed by Eames, at the museum we contemplate its form. The institutional apparatus however includes beyond the museum a wide range of organizational forms. Art is collected by those who love certain works, by galleries and museums, and by investors who often don’t even want or need to see their purchase. In this game there is definitely an economic factor, which makes the news when a rare painting by a great master comes on the market and catches a fantastic price. Art is taught in every educational institution to some extent while some schools devote themselves to graduating artists. Critics and art historians, who publish in books and journals, articulate Art. All of these aspects make up the frame that allows us to see Art as separate from other forms of production. With SoundWalk we create a dynamic between a functional space and the exhibition. The neighborhood itself, already labeled Arts District, becomes the frame within which an aesthetic experience by the visitors is certainly part of the plan. On the other hand, the activities frame or set up an ordinary neighborhood as an arts district in a direct and active participation by artists, residents and visitors.

THE SOUND
Unlike permanent works of art, sound is temporal and fleeting. It happens only at the night of the performance. There will not even be a comprehensive recording since it is impossible to capture all the simultaneously ongoing pieces in a representative medium. We will attempt an approximation of the kind of sound experience SoundWalk offers with excerpts the artists have provided for the compact disc.