[ISEA2022] Artist Talk: Amanda Gutierrez — Xeno Walks, An Augmented Reality SoundWalk on Collective Feminism

Artist Statement 

June 14, MACBA – Convent dels Àngels. Session: Art, Interactivity and Participation

Keywords: Augmented Reality, Feminism, Soundwalk, Collectivity, Sonic Agency

Xeno Walk is an Augmented Reality audio walk, featuring the voices and audio works by activists and sound producers who embrace the collage as a tool of aural exploration. The sound walk features the artworks of #VIVAS, a Latin America-based collective producing sound works from field recordings of social demonstrations and Viv Corringham’s Shadow Walks, Collages Féministes & Féminicides Paris and Montréal created from embodied experiences in the public space. The walk’s sound design takes the form of a collage mixing their soundtracks and their interviews. The listener can choose to experience this walk using headphones; however, this AR project is meant to be heard as a collective soundwalk with two or more persons. For the premiere of this project, the artist organized four aural participatory performances, inviting the public to amplify and occupy the streets with the interview’s voices and #VIVAS soundscapes.

  • Amanda Gutiérrez, Trained and graduated initially as a stage designer from The National School of Theater (Mexico City). Gutiérrez uses sound and performance art to investigate how these aural conditions affect everyday life. Gutierrez is actively advocating listening practices while being one of the board of directors of the World Listening Project, formerly working with The Midwest Society of Acoustic Ecology. Currently, she is a Ph.D. student at Concordia University (Canada) in the Arts and Humanities program and a research assistant at lab PULSE and the Acts of Listening Lab. http://www.amandagutierrez.net