BUILT HIDDEN SOUNDSCAPES
What do you think we are not hearing?
I have been developing a process for constructing synthesized “built” soundscapes of hidden sounds - sounds that cannot be heard by humans without the use of technology. Sounds that are easily heard by human ears are excluded. Built Hidden Soundscape: Pipeline Road, Gamboa and Adolfo Ducke Reserve are the first two results from this research. The works each consist of a speculative soundscape of entirely cryptic sound that begins with the dawn soundscape and runs through the diurnal soundscape into the evening. The comositions are presented alongside a spectrogram. A spectrogram is a bioacoustic tool that shows how sounds sit together in a soundscape. The Y axis represents frequency (Hz) and the X axis represents time. The sound work consists of field recordings from Pipeline Road in Gamboa, bookended by the dynamic dawn and dusk soundscapes of Pipeline Road. This built soundscape includes ultrasonic sounds (above the range of human hearing, played back at lower frequency), substrate-borne vibrations, and otherwise very quiet sounds.
you are encouraged to listen in headphones
I have been developing a process for constructing synthesized “built” soundscapes of hidden sounds - sounds that cannot be heard by humans without the use of technology. Sounds that are easily heard by human ears are excluded. Built Hidden Soundscape: Pipeline Road, Gamboa and Adolfo Ducke Reserve are the first two results from this research. The works each consist of a speculative soundscape of entirely cryptic sound that begins with the dawn soundscape and runs through the diurnal soundscape into the evening. The comositions are presented alongside a spectrogram. A spectrogram is a bioacoustic tool that shows how sounds sit together in a soundscape. The Y axis represents frequency (Hz) and the X axis represents time. The sound work consists of field recordings from Pipeline Road in Gamboa, bookended by the dynamic dawn and dusk soundscapes of Pipeline Road. This built soundscape includes ultrasonic sounds (above the range of human hearing, played back at lower frequency), substrate-borne vibrations, and otherwise very quiet sounds.
you are encouraged to listen in headphones
I made the field recordings for this built soundscape while at the Digital Naturalism conference in Gamboa, Panama in August 2019. The video shows a scrolling image of a spectrogram.