EN

by Irune Serna

statement

Aldapeko sagarraren adarraren puntan puntaren puntan txoria zegoan kantari. Txiruliruli, txiruliruli nork dantzatuko otedu soñutxo ori. Txiruliruli, txiruliruli nork dantzatuko otedu soñutxo ongi.

I rescue the murmur of the river, the lullaby of the wind and the rustling of the leaves. I cradle them on my piano and warm them until they grow and can fly swayed by the breeze and the sun. The whisper becomes a song, the trill becomes music and inspiration vibrates in the heart of the artist to create a dream of life, hope and love.

Past and present, memory and consciousness, soundscapes born from time where the earth merges with the woman and the language of sound travels again to the stars, because sometimes I am here, other times I am light, other times water and other times I dream... What wouldn't I give for a dream?

abstract

This project consists of a digital musical intervention in the soundscape of the Gorbea Natural Park through a wireless speaker placed on the left bank of the Undabe River at a location with latitude 43° 0' 20.74" N and longitude 2° 38 ' 46,908" Or with music composed expressly for that place based on the sound and sensory data collected previously.

This natural area is made up of some 20,000 hectares of protected area, which are home to important forests of beech, oak, willow and ash trees, as well as abundant faunal elements (falcons, deer, martens, etc.), which give it a unique natural wealth. The specific location to carry out the sound intervention is the beech and pine forest between Ubide and Otzarreta, next to the Undabe and Zubizabala rivers. It is about offering the forest a digital human musical creation through a wireless speaker that blends with the environment without creating a disruptive soundscape for those who inhabit it. The objective is to achieve a symbiosis between nature and technology in which nature is not damaged by human sounds, but rather the harmony of music enriches the soundscape of the forest.

The intervention has been recorded on video with shots from land, from the air using a GoPro camera adapted to the extendable base of a microphone and from inside the water with a phone placed inside an airtight Seawag case.

concept

This project is a tribute to nature, to the sounds of the forests, without distortion. In light of the environmental problems that human beings generate, and inviting us to do a reflective exercise on the noise produced by electrical devices in any environment and the alteration it entails for any form of life, this work has managed to create a soundscape resulting from the symbiosis between electronic music and natural sound.

The project is based on two questions: are human beings capable of improving a natural environment? And, if we are not, at least, will we be able to not harm it?

In response to these questions, several visits to the natural environment were made in order to capture the sensory stimuli of the area to create, through this perception, a musical theme that fit with the natural soundscape of the chosen location.

The result of this process can be seen in the work, which contains images and natural sounds of the context where the intervention of the soundscape has been carried out, in a clearing in the forest where the Undabe river runs, near the Otzarreta beech forest, in the location with latitude 43° 1' 38.4" N and longitude 2° 43' 14.742" W of the Gorbea Natural Park, together with those coming from the wireless speaker placed near the river that, through Bluetooth technology, emits the sound of the music that sent from a phone.

The melody with which the soundscape is intervened has been composed without editing programs that modify the natural sound to harmoniously bring it closer to the musical theme created and has been created with the same means that can generate noise pollution, an electronic piano, a computer and a speaker, but the result, due to its sound characteristics, achieves a harmonious symbiosis between nature and human beings, a balance between natural and digital sound.

The images present the natural environment from various perspectives, the land, the air and the interior of the water, to show the different approaches that those who live in the forest or humans can make to this soundscape.

These different approaches, from the earth, air and water, along with electronic devices, which represent fire and music that alludes to the ether and is present in everything created, refer to the five phases or five movements of transformation. between natural phenomena and their interrelationships according to Pythagorean philosophy. The five elements in their harmonious version nourish and contain each other, but in their destructive version they annihilate each other, from there we can extend this philosophical concept to the importance of harmony between humans and the natural environment or any other form of life.

The project was carried out in spring when the sound of Nature begins to increase the volume of its decibels due to the greater solar radiation, as a sensory metaphor for a new form of more respectful relationship between human beings and the environment where the coexistence without domination and harmonious fit acts as a backdrop to this process.