334 Locative media soundwalks A rhizomatic approach to urban public space sound art Dana Papachristou PhD candidate Paris 8 – Ionian University Paris - Corfu ntaniela@gmail.com Abstract. Soundwalking and audiowalking as artistic practices encourage conscious listening and interaction with the sound environment. Often related to the theoretical approach of promenadology (Burckhardt) and flânerie (Baudelaire and Benjamin), soundwalking artworks invite the walker / listener into a wandering within an “aurally augmented” urban public space - whether through a redefinition of the hierarchized sensorium or through technological means of aural augmentation. This artistic practice uses field recordings and soundscape or music composition, and creates new spatio-phonic routes that question the concept of linear urban planning in order to escape from the model of the -prominently visual- panoramic city. noTours, which will be used in this paper as an example of an interdisciplinary approach on audiowalk composition, uses an open-source platform that combines locative media (gps), music/ sound compositions and performance arts by applying them onto a mapped area. The roles of the artist and the listener often coincide, both in cases where sounds are recorded while crossing the area and in those where the path chosen by the walker / listener determines the artistic result. Through such artistic practices a citizen-centered approach is being suggested, which gives the walker (both the creator of the soundwalk and the listener) the possibility to use technology as a medium of interaction between public space and its inhabitants. The first and most apparent reason is the open source character of the software in use, which offers the potential to use the editors and the downloadable applications freely, while sharing the code between users is encouraged. Secondly, the inclusion of people’s narratives and stories, stresses the importance of their involvement on the mapping process of an area. Thirdly, the choise of the wandering route is made by the walker rather than the creator of the soundwalk, which puts forth a cultural and social conjuction of spatio-phonic routes and people. Lastly, the walker is encouraged to wander freely in the city and re-establish a connection with the physical and aural environment, as well as to contribute to the soundwalking process. In this approach I will suggest that soundwalks establish rhizomatic maps and lines of sound/audio routes in negotiation with the city, as perceived and aurally captured by the artist. I will connect such contemporary artistic practices (soundwalks, site- specific sound compositions and geo-located sound interventions in urban public space), with the concept of rhizome, as introduced and explained by Deleuze and Guattari. The principles of a rhizome will be traced within the properties of these artistic practices, demostrating that all aurally augmented parts of the city can potentially integrate into a new millieu despite their heterogeneity; during their synthesis in space-time they form a millieu qualitatively different from each of their signs separately, due to the multiplicity of these individual signs; they do not consist of points or locations but of directions between millieus, and of many dimensions that are shaped by their relationship and movement within a specific frame; the connection of their signs cannot be interrupted, and if they are, the links between them remain the same; they create a new cartography onto an already rhizomatic map of an urban territory; their temporality is circular, random and alternating -as are the routes themselves- rather than linear, and a model of linear growth or dichotomy is not applicable within a complex as such. All the above highlight the relevance of the rhizome concept with the practice of soundwalking as an artistic gesture. Keywords: rhizome; soundwalk; locative media; site- specific; geo-located; soundscape; public space; promenadology; flknerie. I. INTRODUCTION In this paper I will attempt to connect contemporary artistic practices of site-specific sound compositions and geo-located sound interventions in urban public space such as sound walks, audio walks and listening walks, with the concept of rhizome, as introduced and explained by Deleuze and Guattari in the introduction of the second book of Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Mille plateaux. I chose this specific piece, instead of references to be found throughout the work of Gilles Deleuze, because it is written together with Felix Guattari and because it contains a detailed analysis of the rhizome concept, its applications and principles. My goal is, firstly, to demonstrate how HYBRID CITY 2015 | DATA TO THE PEOPLE