NOTES ON BLANCA BY JULIA ECKHARDT In November 2022, I spent a month as an artist in residency at Centro Negra in the small town of Blanca in the South-East of Spain. I undertook a daily protocol of walking without plan or destination which took me into the wide, majestic, and slightly intimidating hills outside the town. Each day, after a set amount of time I stopped to make a field recording and a detail photo, and upon my return to Centro Negra, recorded an improvisation on the viola echoing the energy of that accidental place. Recording, image and improvisation became three ways of creating imprints of memory. Improvising felt similar to walking into the unknown; adventurous and slightly fearful at the same time, with the wind in the wide and karstic landscape, unhampered by the sparse vegetation, being a constant presence. Eight of these improvisations became the compositions on this release in which the wind patterns of Blanca are a guiding presence. Blanca1 air2 patterns, slow3 clouds swirling4 levity5 wind (figures)6 circular7 starling murmurations8 wind again INTERVIEW WITH JULIA ECKHARDT You describe the process of going for a walk, taking a photograph of a detail from the scenery you found yourself in, making a field recording, and then recording a solo improvisation when you got back to the centre where your residency was taking place. Is this a process that you have used before, or was it somehow inspired by something particular to the situation at Blanca? Yes, I have tried this protocol before, but never brought it to an end. My life can be very fragmented by moments and I’m quickly distracted generally. I probably needed that dedicated time of the residency in Blanca to realise it. Such a protocol requires some consequence, to also carry out the task when you don’t feel like it. If you carry on with it, eventually you go into depth and into new questions and directions, but in the moment, on the way, the repetition often feels pointless. I have done so