Janet Cardiff, 'Forest Walk,' 1991

Janet Cardiff, Forest Walk, 1991
Digital audio file on iPod or streaming; 16:36 minutes
Collection of the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies 
CdJ.26.01

The walk begins at the edge of the woods, adjacent to Walter Phillips Gallery. The audio indicates to “Go towards the brown, brownish green garbage can,” which is no longer there. The path cuts up from beside the driveway off the main road, with a feminine voice instructing the listener to “Take the trail, it’s overgrown a bit. There’s an eaten-out dead tree. Looks like ants.” With such a landmark within the forest transient as subject to forces of decay, this point of reference on the trail is now also absent.

These changes in surroundings are not solely a feature of this audio walk, the first that artist Janet Cardiff produced in the form, but in subsequent works that are situated in cities where the pace of construction and urban change can also result in a disjuncture between what’s heard and seen. As one follows the path through the forest, the disappearance of different landmarks referred to in the audio can make the exact route difficult to discern. These changes also heighten an uncanniness of the experience already present for listeners encountering phrases, sounds or music that punctuate the audio which differ from the voice’s immediate reflections on their surroundings, instead seemingly fragments of a story or drama that the listener is not fully privy to.

Other reflections are so attuned to the experience of certain listeners who undertake the audio walk that they can conjure a sense of strangeness, not in their suggestion of an alternate narrative, but for the way in which they could have emerged from the listener’s own head. “I haven’t been in this forest for a long time…it’s good to get away from the Centre, from the building noises, to idyllic nature.” Farther along the trail high above the Bow River, the woman’s voice describes the kind of encounter that could have taken place along the path towards Bow Falls today, or any other through the decades that the land has been understood by some as tourist destination. “Someone’s standing across the river, watching the rapids. Oh, he just left. He’s got a blue shirt, long grey hair, and he’s walking up the path towards the Banff Springs Hotel.”  The sound of water, so present on the trail, comes through both the headphones and the air.

In writing on Cardiff’s audio walks, curator Kitty Scott, who experienced Forest Walk when the artist first produced the work while on residence at Banff Centre in 1991, notes that in taking part, “it is necessary that you maintain a high degree of consciousness, but simultaneously you must also navigate a parallel universe of your own imagining.” [1] In a place that many visit to unburden their days and make the space to dream, those who undertake Forest Walk can experience the pleasure of both the grounded reality of breathing, moving, thinking, and listening while also being fully present in a kind of mental elsewhere. A result of space and time and work and of accident and chance, it is in the forest that dream begets dream.

Forest Walk is available for streaming at the link below and is recommended to be experienced using AirPod earbuds. The work on iPod with headphones can also be borrowed from the Front Desk at the Professional Development Centre by appointment. Please click here to reserve an iPod.

[1] Kitty Scott, “I want you to walk with me,” in The Missing Voice (case study b), London: Artangel, 1999, 4-16 (book and CD), as republished in Janet Cardiff: A Survey of Works Including Collaborations with George Bures Miller by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, edited by Anthony Huberman. Long Island, NY: P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, 2001, 65. Exhibition catalog.
 

THERE ARE INHERENT RISKS ASSOCIATE WITH PARTICIPATING IN THE DESCRIBED ACTIVITIES INCLUDING SERIOUS INJURY. PLEASE READ THIS AGREEMENT CAREFULLY.

Definition – Activities.  The term “Activities” refers to Banff Centre’s self-guided, unsupervised, forest walk throughout the Banff Centre campus on an unlevel and unmaintained trail while listening to an audio recording on a personal device or an audio device provided by Banff Centre.  

Assumption of Risks.  The Activities involve risks, dangers and hazards including the risk of personal injury.  These risks dangers and hazards include, but are not limited to: slips, trips and falls, cuts, abrasions, strains, fractures or concussions; failure of equipment or structures such as stairs, railings or bridges; failing to engage in the Activities safely or within one’s own ability; loss of balance, overexertion or lack or fitness or conditioning; shock, stress or other injury to the body; interaction or confrontation with wildlife including but not limited to bear, cougar, coyote, deer, elk or wolves.

By streaming Forest Walk (1991) you acknowledge that you are responsible for ensuring your own safety during the Activities and that you accept the risks associated with your participation in the Activities.  You have the obligation to become informed about the risks, dangers, and hazards of the Activities including, but not limited to, hazards related to wildlife and are encouraged to provide wildlife with adequate space, alert Banff Centre security or staff of any dangerous or aggressive wildlife and cease participating in the Activities if you feel unsafe for any reason.