We Must Walk: A conversation with Lise Olsen on her 12-month artist in residency with The Moray Way Association

A conversation with Lise Olsen on her 12-month artist in residency with The Moray Way Association, a charity organisation established to promote a 100-mile long circular walking route called The Moray Way. An essential part of her process is to walk and record sound as an opportunity to focus attention on liminal moments, for example, everyday feelings, memories, and atmospheres. These things are so fleeting and familiar they are often missed. The main aim of the residency is to walk, observe, record, and documents the journey along the paths that make up the Moray Way. The walk allows Lise to connect with people along the route, collect stories from the community and capture the changing seasons of a dramatic Scottish landscape.

The perception of in-between experiences is the main focus of her practice-based research. Lise believes the in-between has an ambiguous status. However, she considers it a dynamic space for creative possibilities. Towards the end of her residency, Lise aims to deliver soundwalk events and create a GPS sound-activated map using immersive 3-D sound technologies to explore the inter-relational relationship between the body and technology. She questions, can in-between experiences enable a deeper level of engagement or even create a happening of truth within an immersive soundscape?

The Moray Way Artist-in-Residency Website: https://www.morayways.org.uk/category/artistinresidence/

Bio
Lise Olsen is a Scottish-based artist who works in-between a sphere of space and the sonic. Her work aspires to uncover the traces of what is hidden and reveal ephemeral moments using stories, sounds, and images. Lise is a Ph.D. candidate in Sonic Arts at the University of Aberdeen. Since starting her research journey, she has presented her work at many events/broadcasts including, Gwaith Sŵn's Sonic Dart, Resonance FM, 2021. Radiophrenia, 2020. Mind the Gap: Trinity College, Dublin 2019 and XR at Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2019. In July 2021, she gained a one-year artist residency with The Moray Way Association. Her art practice involves facilitating community sound projects, soundwalking events, and creating immersive sound compositions. Lise is using her work to create a platform for social participation and shared experiences. She aims to explore new media development and immersive 3-D sound technologies to encourage people to think about our connection to place, nature, and society.

Personal Website: https://liseolsengenerates.com/