Sound installation at the Universtät der Künste Berlin (2019)

H Y D R O C L I N E S  is an immersive sound installation for staircases, water reservoirs, or high vertical spaces. Starting from the surface of the ocean, the pedestrian-listener is able to float up and down a fully fledged aquatic world, distributed over three omnidirectional loudspeakers and a subwoofer.

Recordings of underwater environments were studied using spectral analysis and re-created using analog and granular synthesis. Biophonic and geophonic information was collected in the archives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), and the Canada Ocean Network (CAN).

The composition has three distinct layers (clines) which can be played separately or together. Each cline was assembled keeping in mind Krause’s niche hypothesis, in which species occupy unique available frequency bandwidths, eventually sounding together like a well-tuned orchestra (Bernie Krause, The Niche Hypothesis, 1987).

Presented as a semester solo project under Daisuke Ishida at the Sound Studies program, UdK Berlin, February 2019. Many thanks for Rick Burns for the video, and to my classmates for their continued support.

Three layers of dense water
Carry voices of a world unknown
The cold Pacific island listens.
Sand and rock, an iceberg adrift
Wide-eyed seals slip into the blue
Diving through the kelp and the krill.

Hydroclines • February 2019.
installation at the Universität der Künste Berlin