This Project is an soundscape immersion

I walk around paying attention to the sounds that surround me

Working with a hand recording I capture sound impressions of 4’33’’(four minutes and thirty-three seconds)

By listening to the recordings, I generate an intersemiotic
translation from the sounds to marks on paper and digital images.
With the help of a scanner and image-editing software
I put together an audio waveform impression.

This audio waveform is divided into 16 sections

Each section has 17’’1ms

This image is printed as a 16-page booklet (cordel)

Each cordel has an relief print illustration on its cover

Also to each cordel is then generated a video that brings together
the sound with the waveform impression in movement

All the material created virtual and analog become pieces for
an interactive installation which aims to invite the participants
to perceive the present moment through their senses
with an emphasis on sound.

I would like to mention my admiration for the practice of the Brazilian artist Rosa Laura and our mutual interests influenced and inspired my project and I would like to sincerely thank them for that.

Youtube experiments

- My first attempt to explore polyrhythm and chance operation ( John Cage) was through having simultaneous youtube videos open and using the platform as a dj table. This gave me a lot of insights on the possibilities to play with sound and how different tempos and melodies could work together. Chance became very important to me because the more I would play with youtube more and more I would notice moments in which sounds would alight and create interesting atmospheres. Initially all the youtube experiments were aimed at how to feel high without any drug but just by the usage of sound.


Vinyl and print making

- after Playing with youtube I thought it would be interesting to explore the possibilities of the same concept but analog on vinyl by having many records playing at the same time. I came to realise after researching a bit more into the manufacturing of vinyl that the process to get it done is pretty similar to print making. Vinyls are made on a press which embosses the vinyl creating the grooves that contain the sound information for the turn table needle. I find this connection with print making really beautiful, through one method you can see but through another you can listen to the marks. I never passed this stage on the research but it was really inspirational for my research.


A Capoeira game between me and my perception of the space

- Capoeira is a very singular manifestation, it has its roots in Africa and its trunk and fruits in Brazil. A definition of Capoeira that really inspires me is by the musician Nana Vasconcelos in which he defines Capoeira as an event where the souls meet. Capoeira is a game played by two people and traditionally accompanied by three berimbaus ( viola, medio e gunga), pandeiro ( tambourine ), an agogo (bell) and an atabaque drum. In this game the movements of the players are influenced by the music and the music is influenced by the players, in this way creating a micro cosmos in which all the elements become one, and one becomes the group. I got really inspired by the mutual influence of the game and the music and I started to create performances with using sounds in which I would perceive myself as a space facilitator in which the sounds I would generate would be influenced by the “vibe”/ atmosphere of the room and the people in it. This way I aimed to create an environment that would feed itself in terms of the “music” influence the room and the room influence the “music”, this way creating an micro cosmos.



Spaces and Perception of realities

– initially on my research I started to pay attention on spaces through the lenses of Zen Buddhism, by allowing time to settle my thought permitting my perception to be calmer and more susceptible to perceive the subtler stimulus present on the space. In this way, our awareness of the present moment impacts the perception of the space and the more time I allowed myself to perceive the different layers of spaces within my body and the relation of my body to the external more I realized that there were more lenses to explore the present moment that can just be seen through patience and allowing time to act.



Virtual and analog

– the more stimulus we are able to perceive in the spaces that we find ourselves present, more we have the ability to choose our directions. This thought came into my head because the duality in transiting between virtual platforms and the analog side of life makes us not fully present and aware of the many stimulus that surrounds us in any of them. The thing that strike my perception is that those virtual spaces that we may visit (Instagram, Facebook, twitter, etc.) are generated by algorithms that in many cases are design to collect our data and present us with an experience that will more likely makes us want to buy or will just keep us hooked by dopamine stimulus. Both analog places and virtual spaces are built with a complex mesh of algorithms, the more we are able to find ourselves present more likely we will be able to navigate and don’t allow ourselves to be hooked by stimulus that doesn’t match the direction we are trying to take on life



Loop pedal

- The loop pedal has been a powerful and important tool on my research and Reggie Watts became my point of reference in the usage of this instrument. My experiences with this pedal were very based in how Watts uses the loop to bend our perception of the logic of the space through sound and also gave me the opportunity to analyses patterns/ algorithms through the repetition of sound.
The more time you allow yourself to experience a loop, more and more your perception of that audio pattern change and become malleable, the beginning and the end of it can become indistinguishable and suddenly it is possible to appreciate the same pattern from different entry points.
Repetition allows you to become aware of pattern within pattern becoming an semiotic exercise of perceiving your perceptions which I find very necessary in our contemporary time in which analog reality and virtual reality coexist.




African rhythms

- Through the studies of Malinke rhythms and rhythms from Ghana I started to feel rhythm as an sensation and perceive it in all the aspects of my existence, while making movements with my body or communicating ideas. I’m really grateful for this opportunity because now I can pay attention on rhythms present around me.



4'33''

- Four minutes and thirty-three seconds is a piece by the composer John Cage in which he engaged the perception of the listeners to the silence of the room showing that every silence has a sound or all spaces have an distinct silence. The reason why all the videos have the time length of 4’33’’ is to pay an homage to Cage composition as it was a piece with big impact in the way I relate with silence. Another work of cage that had a big impact on my work is his book silence once the book itself is treated like an medium to talk about time and space, using its pages as passage of time in some chapters.



Polyrhythm and soundscapes

- the study of john cage, African drumming and the loop pedal made me perceive all sounds that surround me, suddenly a walk to school was an amazing soundscape experience and I started to perceive life as a polyrhythmic experience, everyone and everything is in a different rhythm and all the rhythms come together in the city soundscape.



Sound as a tool

- The essay Buddhism and Music by Ian W. Mabbett was one of the most important pieces that I read for my work, because the author talks about how sound is used in many Buddhist traditions as a tool to tune the body into other frequencies present on the universe.



Julio Plaza and intersemiotic translation

- Studying Julio Plaza theory of intersemiotic translation I started to perceive my body as an semiotic tool capable to translate stimulus from on order to another. Semiotic translation is to translate for example an dance movement to an gastronomic dish, or a piano piece to an ceramic object, it talks about the capabilities that we as humans have to translate from one language system to another.



Bruno Munary influence on my process

- I found Bruno Munary very inspirational to this process because his very playful approach to many experimentations on image syntax and how to use the technologies we have in a creative and non-orthodox way to generate images, patterns and create language through the medium.



The press and the scanner

- because of the many syntax experimentations using the scanner and the print press I started to notice the bridge between them. The analog press made information viral, this possibility of dissemination from an information contained on a fisical object is possible on the virtual platform through the usage of the scanner. I perceive the scanner as a press to the virtual realm through digitalization.
As a response to that idea I started to experiment and instead of generating prints only through the analog press I started to scan the lino cuts and laser printing the images.



Helio Oiticica

- When I started to incorporate performance to my work Helio Oiticica became a great inspiration because most of his work wouldn’t separate the viewer from the artwork turning the interaction between the two the art itself. This evocative suspension from the everyday life to the realm of letting yourself be one with the artwork makes me believe to be a very great way to tap the ludic capabilities in ourselves.



Cordel Literature

– Cordel is an popular literature manifestation from the northeast of Brazil, it means “string literature” and it consist in small publications/ pamphlets most commonly telling stories from popular folk tales but also news, novels and songs. The cordel would most likely be sold on the street markets hung by strings. To capture the public attention the sellers would sing the stories creating a performance in order to sell it.
I really like cordel as a concept because it reaches the literate and the illiterate, it is an performance, it unites print making publication and sound. Now a days cordel are not as common on street markets as it used to be but are also more valuable as a literary movement.



Cordel de Som

- Cordel de Som (Sound Cordel) came to my mind because I was constantly paying attention to sound and trying to use my capabilities to translate those sound into images (intersemiotic translation). I think that by uniting the performative elements of the cordel manifestation I could incorporate my visual experimentations on a booklet by uniting sound, publication, polyrhythm and closing the circle on a concise concept that could hold all the things I had been researching and exploring.

R
E
A
D
I
N
G
S