FIELD RECORDING | SOUND ARCHIVE
“I am a composer. I recycle sound. I recycle sound that is ignored. Sound that passes unheard. That is not listened to. I pick up the pieces that have not been heard. The child’s voice and the traffic. The music and the muzak. The melody and the word. I take the sounds in because they enter relentlessly. Listen to them carefully. And find meaning in them…”
– Hildegard Westerkamp, Fragmented Thoughts on Radio Ecology.
I offer workshops dedicated to listening, recording and tuning in to environmental sound for beginner and advanced levels. Have taught in DIY spaces like Refuge Worldwide (Berlin, DE), Couvent Levat (Marseille, FR) as well as institutions like Hasso-Plattner Institute Potsdam (DE), Universität der Künste Berlin (DE), Technische Universität Berlin (DE).
SUDAMERICA 2024
a collection of recordings made by diane barbé & selu herraiz in 2024, starting in Valparaíso, Chile (hosted by the Tsonami community), continuing in the Atacama desert via Copiapo, Pan de Azúcar, Socaire, and San Pedro de Atacama, and moving through Bolivia via Oruro, Cochabamba, and the Parque Nacional Madidi.
All sounds are licensed CC BY-NC-SA, which means that we are happy if people download them and use them if you give proper credits (BY) only for non-commercial use (NC) and in the same terms (SA, meaning that through your project, others may also then reuse the sounds freely for non-commercial purposes, and so on).
EL FIN DE LOS DIAS
El fin de los días is a project of deep listening by Diane Barbé and Selu Herraiz.
It focuses on extremely slow movements and long recordings to experience the end of the day, when the sunlight fades out. Depending on our awareness, this moment may feel long or short, fleeting or suspended in time. It is part of a methodology of urban mapping, developed during a residency at Tsonami –Centro de Arte Sonoro in Valparaíso, Chile.
Read our article, Tartamudeos, published on Tsonami Ediciones : A compilation of experiences, ideas, thoughts, moments, sensations, feelings and states of mind during my stay in Valparaiso. Two voices mix here, the green and the blue, the ocean and the ravine.
VA – HARKENING CRITTERS (fom12)
forms of minutiae presents ‘harkening critters’, the label’s second non-profit compilation of field recordings and soundscape compositions highlighting, this time, the incredible variety of animal signals.
Stemming from the archaic verb “harken” which means “to listen” or “to give respectful attention to”, indeed, this gathering of contributions from 32 field recordists and sound artists from across the world tunes in to the plethora of vocalizations, mechanical emanations, and any other acoustics phenomenon produced by animals.
REVEIL 2024
Ilha da Itaparica, Bahía, Brasil
URL: itaparica_bahia_brasil.mp3
Streamer(s): Diane Barbé
Broadcast time (your location UTC+2):
SAT 10:21 – SAT 10:42
Broadcast time (stream location UTC-3):
SAT 05:21 – SAT 05:42 (Civil Twilight – Sunrise)
Coordinates: -12.88590°, -38.67704°
>> archive will be available shortly.
Festival Suraural 2024
In its sixth edition, the “Sur Aural Festival 2024” aims to investigate the silent languages of nature and the cosmos. After five versions opening portals between past, present and future times, in this version we propose to question the relationship between nature and culture and then predict the possibilities of a rebirth with “Organic Intelligence”.
We investigate these concepts to create a vibratory unison in harmony with the whole.
After the call issued in April 2024, Sur Aural has selected from a hundred works: 91 sound works belonging to 85 artists and collectives of 16 nationalities from around the world!
From July 1 to 13, 2024, you will be able to listen to a new broadcast every day with the invoked works, in addition to a special broadcast for July 20 as an epilogue to our broadcasts. This year we are happy to announce that we will remain in the city of Cochabamba and return to the city of Santa Cruz for the closing activity of the Sur Aural Festival 2024 >> Organic Intelligence.
Flussgeschichten | River Stories
In recent months, artists, scientists and residents have explored a small village in the middle of the Spreewald between rivers, barges and trees. Their research culminated in a two-day art and science festival in the small village of Raddusch. This resulted in multimedia installations, performances and audio walks. The works, stories, ideas and impressions were then transported to Berlin. With the help of the actor that connects the Spreewald with the capital – the Spree.
But what does it mean to bring these impressions and representations to someone else? Which stories are heard and which are lost? How can one – beyond the anthropocentric perspective – also include non-human actors?
In the installation ‘River Stories | In the project ‘River Stories’, artists from the fields of theater, sound and stage design as well as scientists from the Humboldt University of Berlin (HU), the Technical University of Berlin (TU) and the Free University of Berlin (FU) address these questions, the river and all its dimensions.
Works by Oliver Rossol, Steven Lehmann, Jonas Dahm, Diane Barbé, Julia Ihls, Marius Probst, Klemens Czurda, Sven Bühler, Camila Ivana Vargas Pardo, Omar Sherif, Desirée Hetzel, Zora, Patricia Usée, Maximilian Grünewald and Pauline Münch are shown.
The project is a cooperation between the theater collective AnthroposEx and the experimental laboratory AnthropoScenes and is funded by the Berlin University Alliance as part of the Excellence Strategy of the federal and state governments. It was shown during the Berlin Art & Science Week at Holzmarkt25 in October 2023.
Read a review by Olena Slobodian & Pauline Münch on w/k – Zwischen Wissenschaft & Kunst, online journal for art & science (in German).
BOG MUSIC
forthcoming on forms of minutiae, Musique Tourbe, fom13, 2024
Field recordings and soundscape compositions presented in spectrogram format at the Universitätsbibliothek of the TU and UDK Berlin for the ceremony of the Library of the Year Awards 2022. The award certificate was presented at the ceremony in the shared library building in Berlin-Charlottenburg by Volker Heller, the Federal Chairman of the German Library Association, and Dr. Thomas de Maizière, the Chairman of the Board of the Deutsche Telekom Foundation. The laudatory speech was given in a joint discussion with the moderator Ninia LaGrande, the Vice President for Research and Appointments at TU Berlin, Prof. Dr. Stephan Völker, and the President of the UdK Berlin, Prof. Dr. Norbert Palz. The event was accompanied by music from the UdK sound artist Diane Barbé.
Some impressions from the ceremony here.
ON A GREEN HILL
Coup de coeur du Centre Wallonie Bruxelles Prix Découvertes Pierre Schaeffer
Diane Barbé, On a Green Hill
7’35, autoproduction, Allemagne
On a Green Hill est une petite exploration bucolique d’un monde multi-espèce, refuge d’animaux informel et anti-productiviste de la Forêt Noire, construit de bric et de broc par un vieux paysan qui ne demande rien aux bêtes qui l’entourent. J’ai voulu rendre hommage à cet espace liminal, décentrer le point d’écoute peu à peu pour rentrer dans l’intimité de ces bêtes velues ou plumées, qui nous entoure d’odeurs de poil chaud et de foin frais.
Tissant ensemble musique expérimentale, recherche biophonique et activisme, Diane Barbé cherche à trouver des formes de résonance et de collaboration interespèces par le biais du sonore.
ONE DAY (2022)
Video installation presented at Vogelklang festival 2022, Schwarzwald, Germany
Continuous 24-hour recording in the town of Sankt Georgen im Schwarzwald, Germany. transformed into a 24 minute video with spectrogram (1 minute = 1 hour). Recording and video by Diane Barbé, 2022. Many thanks to Global Forest e.V. for the support and residency.
This is part of an ongoing research project dedicated to environmental acoustics and durational “tonalities” of places.
VA – POSSIBLE MOISTURES (fom03)
For its third release, forms of minutiae presents ‘possible moistures’ a non-profit compilation of field recordings and soundscape compositions derived from various aqueous environments and their autochthons.
This gathering is made of 16 sonic encounters collected by field recordists and sound artists across the world. Artists were invited to submit sounds from marine and aquatic-related events, phenomena, geologies, fauna, flora, geographies, and technologies. From the thawing acoustics of Icelandic and Antarctic glaciers to the non-human voices of Australian wetlands, while meeting sea and river dwellers, the listeners embark on a sonic journey across the globe’s possible moistures.