This work was inspired by a radio conversation between Morton Feldman and John Cage, in which Feldman expresses his frustration with the cacophony of multiple radios playing on the beach. John Cage responds with his characteristic humor that he made his piece for twelve radios so that every time he finds himself bombarded by the sound of radios, he was pleased to think that he was listening to his own composition.

I share a similar frustration with Feldman each day as I walk to my apartment near Istiklal Avenue, the most crowded street in Istanbul, filled with countless shops, cafes and nightclubs. Unlike most people who are there for shopping and socializing, I am just interested in getting to my apartment. Therefore, the endless flow of bodies and sounds that define the usual experience of the avenue become obstructions in my personal situation. This is a simple project/ thought experiment/state of mind to channel my own frustrations with Istiklal Avenue and turn external stimuli into a soundtrack over which I have some agency. In this instance, I record the sounds around me continuously as I walk from one end of the street to the other.

The essential aspect of this project for me was to treat movement as a defining element of the sonic experience. Considering the music from the stores, and the sellers positioned at various places along the avenue, most sounds around me is actually stationary. So it is my displacement as a performer/listener that triggers the flux of sound. To highlight this transportational aspect of the work, I also recorded my geographical position as I walked. To help with the recording of audio and the geographical data simultaneously I developed an Android mobile application that can also playback the recording with the route displayed on the map. You can reach the free app here.