Ordinary Hidden Soundscape (2012)

4 channel fixed audio

Duration: 11.52 minutes

Performances:

• 26-Oct-2012 - Seoul International Computer Music Festival, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, South Korea.
• 19-Sep-2014 - International Computer Music Conference, Athens, Greece.

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Ordinary Hidden Soundscape is an attempt to renew the experience of the most ordinary sounds. Concrete sounds recorded in Rome without any selective intention a priori, and electronic sounds are used in such a way that perception may associate them with experiences often radically different from the usual one: bird sounds are turned into loud noise, loud electronic pulses into little steps of pedestrians, car horns into delicate sustained tones. Electronic and concrete material are related as part of a continuous morphing, or as alternated counterparts, either sharing some features or not. The rhythm of the changes plays an important role. Very different sounds are brought into relation by their disposition on the time line, often left immovable with no development, as mere sign of an intuitive duration. Always through rhythm and duration, the work aims to affect how the information is processed, sometimes giving the listener the time to formulate an idea, other times using short durations to give subliminal hints, or to merge the most disparate materials into perceptual units. The electronic material is realized through techniques ranging from basic oscillators to complex forms of recursive modulation and granular synthesis.