Soundscape Instrument

Gouache and perforations on paper, mechanical music box, laser-cut plywood box; box: 5″ x 5″ x 3.5″ (15 cm x 15 cm 9 cm); paper: 27.5″ x 2.75″ (70 x 6.8 cm)

LISTEN TO THE PAINTINGS

This work is inspired by the concept of multiverse and synchronicity of perception. The scientific demonstration of the relativity of the time—space has obliterated entire worlds of belief and structured thought, and with it has changed all fields of human endeavor. It left us with a profound sense of ambiguity, but also with a renewed sense of curiosity in a world much more complex than it seems.

With this in mind, I envisioned an instrument that would allow us to better perceive the complexity of things, this invisible complexity that takes place at one point in space and time.

The Soundscape Instrument is an object that translates painted landscapes into sound. The ‘scores’ are detailed gouaches on paper of actual landscapes, which subsequently are perforated following unique features of the landscape. Once perforated, the painting is played via the music box.

The process of creating each painting/score goes from the visual to the audible, thus the resulting sound is not composed in the traditional sense, but generated by the image via a conversion process in order to make it legible by the mechanism. The instrument can produce 30 chromatic notes, but the resulting melody is not tonal, as it is not guided my any music theory concepts. 

Each painting contains in itself 4 different melodies, as each strip of paper can be played (passed through the instrument) in 4 different ways. This series is a work in progress, evolving with every new place that I experience.

I look at this as a translation project, one that reveals an unexpected synchronicity not only between visual and audible perception, but also between nature and culture. Through a cumulative process, each soundscape contributes to the meta-polyphony that nature and culture can generate at one point in space.