Among their propositions was the idea that rural soundscapes were high fidelity or hi-fi; they had a higher signal-to-noise ratio than urban environments, meaning that a sound was more legible against the backdrop of the total soundscape.

In 1974, Westerkamp wrote a seminal essay on soundwalking, which suggested that the practice could help attune our ears to help extend our relationship with nature beyond the merely visual. Kits Beach Soundwalk is a composition that begins with a 1989 field recording of Kitsilano Beach, which is colloquially referred to as ‘Kits Beach’ or ‘Khatsahlano’, after a Squamish chief. Westerkamp eschews the conventions of field recording as empirical practice, opting instead to design an artificial soundscape that might compel the listener to better recognize and protect the hi-fi environment.

In Kits Beach, Westerkamp dampens the influence of the unwanted aspects of the cityscape through her recording technique and in studio—a fact that she makes transparent in voiceover. Instead, she focuses on the acoustic realm of barnacles and their dreamlike associations, from the chatter of women in a community of weavers and the ‘twinkling’ sound of bullets, to a composition by avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis. For Westerkamp, the premodern soundscape is a vehicle for psychic healing, and its survival is inextricable from our own.

Body of Water is premised on the deceptively simple task of examining what makes swimming so pleasurable. Veronica Simmonds and Katie MacKay sought out all the lakes of Halifax—a city that’s more commonly associated with the ocean—and asked subjects to describe the feeling of swimming in a lake. The result is a phenomenological approach to the subject of swimming that generates an embodied response for the listener.

The plurality of narrative voices offer multiple entry points to conjure a physical memory of being in water. As one narrator plunges into the water, we too are quite literally immersed in the sound design, into a torrent of bubbles, only to emerge further away in the sound field. The sonic environment is tightly calibrated in order to appear as naturalistic as possible.    

The act of simulating as seemingly mundane an experience as swimming brings its ritualistic quality to the fore. Swimming can generate a meditative effect that’s similar to walking or running, but water isn’t our dominant environment. We don’t go to water to get somewhere, we just go to water. The recognition of this phenomenon makes water appear almost mystical, as it might if it were more scarce. The narrator recalls the feeling of “infinite fingers” sliding through her hair, while contemplating what it is that shapes the substance into its various forms. Body of Water begins with a plunge into a lake—into this entity we understand as distinct from ourselves—and ends in a far murkier space.   

Phoebe Wang’s in search of the miraculous (bas jan ader) takes Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader’s mysterious death at sea as a metaphor for the life of the artist. Bas Jan Ader set sail from Cape Cod on the 9th of July 1975, with the intention of sailing across the Atlantic ocean to Ireland in a 12-foot boat, alone. This was to be the first in a three-part part performance, and he estimated that it should take roughly 2.5 months. Nine months later, Spanish fishermen found the boat floating almost vertically in the water.

Phoebe calls in search of the miraculous an “artist manifesto of sorts”—the “of sorts” part perhaps gesturing to the fact that manifestos tend to be declarative; a collection of intentional statements, while Phoebe’s manifesto captures intention in the process of being formed. Through a fragmented collection of scenes and textures, intimate conversations, art critiques, skype calls, wafts of breath and near-imperceptible hum, we hear Phoebe grapple with the mythical weight of Bas Jan Ader’s death on her life and work.

We never hear the sound of the ocean directly. Instead, we hear it through a collection of references: a swim meet, or a traditional Irish song about the sea. The rhythm of the piece itself is akin to catching fleeting glimpses of detritus beneath buffeting waves that bury them. The limitless expanse of the ocean is managed through human attempts to enclose it as a swimming pool, or to memorialize it in song.

Lazaro’s Dream is an audio walk that’s inspired by the novel In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje’s fictional account of the lives of the immigrants who helped build the city of Toronto in the 1930s, but whose contributions were never formally acknowledged. The book focuses on the construction of the Prince Edward Viaduct commonly known as the Bloor Viaduct—an arch bridge with a five-lane roadway that connects Bloor Street to the west with Danforth Avenue to the east. It begins with a John Berger quote that reads