If you were reclining in a hammock, nestled in a cedar grove, what would you expect to hear? Oscillations from the sun? A tiger moth spewing ultrasonic radar to block the echolocation of a predatory bat? Probably not. Because these sounds lie far outside the range of human hearing.
Yet these are exactly the kinds of sounds you'll hear at Annea Lockwood's installation 'Wild Energy'. The New Zealand-born composer calls the project one of her most exciting collaborations.
Annea Lockwood Photo: Nicole Tavenner, annealockwood.com
Annea, who is now based in New York, worked with inventor and sound designer Bob Bielecki to create this installation. The sounds were supplied by scientists from all over the world. In raw form they were inaudible because they were either above or below our hearing range. To be heard they had to be drastically transposed. For example, the oscillations of the sun, recorded by NASA, were sped up 42,000 times and became 'beautiful pulsing sounds'.
“All these sounds are emanations of energies which are very much involved in running the planet, and which course through our bodies as energy all the time. It’s bringing them into awareness, into our conscious experience momentarily. Because we are not separate from these phenomena from our planet. And the more we see ourselves as being interconnected, integral fibres in the whole fabric of the planet, the more strongly we may want to preserve environments.”
'Wild Energy' is permanently installed at the Caramoor Centre for Music and the Arts in Katonah, New York State. The sound equipment is hidden in a bramble patch so audience members just lie back in their hammocks and otherworldly sounds wash over them. If you've ever wondered what an ultra-sound from inside a Scots pine tree in Switzerland sounds like, or vents under the ocean, then this is for you.
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