As a director and in particular as a cameraman, you are used to working visually. What motivated you to create this ‘acoustic image’?

There is a story by Jean Rouch, the famous French documentary filmmaker. He had accompanied an African tribe on a hippopotamus hunt and then added dramatic music to the film at the climax of the hunt. After the film was shown, the hunters pointed out to him that hippos have very fine ears and that it should therefore be very quiet when stalking them. From that moment on, Rouch only used original sounds that belonged to the respective action. For me, this story is an example of how important sound is for any kind of cinematic expression. When I'm out and about, it often happens that I suddenly ‘switch off’ my vision and concentrate entirely on sounds. It could be the squeaking of an escalator, or a combination of sounds on the street, or you hear music coming from a shop and the clattering of shoes suddenly joins in time with it. I have always been fascinated by reacting only to sound. If you consciously do this while walking around, you can walk through any place in the world with different impressions and suddenly perceive things that would otherwise remain hidden.
That was also the approach to this project: I often walked along Barkhor, a street in Lhasa, like you would along a promenade in Italy: a quick round in the evening to see what's new in the shops and to enjoy simply immersing myself in the crowd. While walking, I noticed that a lot of sounds come together here. A lot of exciting things happen in terms of music. These walks include changes in rhythm and mixtures of sounds. For example, there are exciting compositions created by the combination of a cassette recorder from the left and a video cinema sound from the right. You hear the ‘old’ sound of horns being played by monks, and on the other side the ‘new’ sound of a motorbike comes rattling in. That is interesting from a purely musical, purely rhythmic point of view. For me, it's not necessarily about associating images with it, but rather it's interesting for me from the point of view of sounds, how they overlap, mix or even contrast with each other in a compositional principle.

You consciously use dramaturgical elements by pausing at certain points.

The compositional principle results from two factors. The first: at first I didn't record at all, but instead I often walked and concentrated on sensing these rhythmic changes during the approximately twenty-minute walk. The second: when recording, I tried to trace these rhythms. This meant stopping and turning my head slightly to create a slight change in the soundscape. The microphones were attached to my ears. For example, there was a place where three pieces of music from different devices came together: from a video recorder and two cassette recorders, one from a tea house and one from a sales stand. Here I walked back and forth between them to mix these different impressions together. Or, you approach a pilgrim who is prostrating himself and making scraping noises with wood, then you leave him again while walking, then you catch up with him again and then leave him behind again – this is how a motif is repeated. That is also a compositional principle. Or the sound of the pilgrims prostrating themselves, making these grinding noises, which is left at the end for a long time, because only after listening for a long time do you notice how different personal rhythms flow into each other. These were conscious compositional decisions while walking. Then it was important to me not to emphasise any particular sounds. If you walk the route really often and are already used to the sounds after a longer stay in Lhasa, you can deal with them ‘as a matter of course’. In addition, there is the advantage of the headphones that are stuck in your ears, so you are not conspicuous. You can just mingle with the crowd. And if you go there often, you are somehow accepted in the circle, you are not constantly begged or approached by the traders. It was an important factor that you walk around normally and are not conspicuous, or rather, not particularly conspicuous.

It is a composition of existing material?

I had the feeling that the clash between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ world with the different sounds created a composition of its own. Of course, my principles of walking slowly, stopping and turning heads are the compositional ones in the recording. The real tension arises from the alternation of old and new sounds, which can also be assigned: the ‘new’ technical sounds coming from the cassette recorder and video recorder, and then the ‘old’ sounds like walking, praying and talking. And on this tour, this is extremely condensed. There are moments in ‘Barkhor round’ that have a lot of this tension between old and new that you wouldn't experience in any other place in Tibet.

What reaction do you expect from the audience?

It's not specifically about listening. For me, the important thing is to take time, to engage with something long and unusual. That's what I also like about film work: engaging with feelings, with the senses, with a topic. I'm addressing a specific audience that is also willing to invest a lot of calm and sensory power to take in something new. This works in ‘Barkhor round’ when the listener slowly allows themselves to be captivated by the sounds and noises and the special atmosphere.

Manfred Neuwirth in conversation with Walter Hiller