Marianne Decoster-Taivalkoski, Hanna Haaslahti, Co-composer Alejandro Montes de Oca: Sonic Seascape Terraces
In the work by Marianne Decoster-Taivalkoski and Hanna Haaslahti, hydrophones transmit natural and man-made underwater sounds, composed in real time, to be listened to on two waterfront terraces. The evident beauty of river- and seascape is being questioned, while sound signals emitted reveal processes invisible to the eye. In Koroinen the soundscape merges from Halistenkoski and its fish road, in Ruissalo the audience will watch and listen to the harbour and the traffic at sea.
Is there a correlation between the sound of an underwater soundscape and the way the sea looks on the surface?
Sound can travel many kilometres under water. So it can be loud and noisy down there though on the surface the sea appears really calm and peaceful.
Two terraces are built near Turku waters, located in Aura River and Ruissalo waterfront. From terraces one can hear the real-time underwater soundscape of the river- and seascape visible from that specific view-point. The view is framed from the terrace to the place where a number of hydrophones are located, so that a viewer and listener standing at the terrace can link the river- and seascape and the soundscape to each other. All together the terraces form an exploration into the interaction between the sea and the land, how the sea is reflecting human activities and how city sounds merge into the underwater soundscape.
Soundscape studies and acoustic ecology form the scientific background of the project. Acoustic ecology is a rather new field of research dedicated to the study of the sound-based social interactions of living organisms. The composer and researcher R. Murray Schafer created the term soundscape in the 1960’s in parallel to the term landscape. Soundscape refers to an acoustic environment in which listeners are immersed, including natural acoustic elements as well as those caused by human activities in a specific place of the landscape. In our project the contradiction between the soundscape and the landscape should raise thoughts about the invisible changes happening under a naturally idyllic surface. Even if the seascape still looks harmonious and beautiful, its "industrial" soundscape prefigures something different.
Soundscape composition usually implies that the original sound sources remain recognizable for the listener. Underwater sounds are quite unknown and even for trained ears it is sometime difficult to relate the sound to its origin which might not be visible on the surface of the water. Also some sounds very typical to the place happen in a very limited period of time.
Our approach as composers is to emphasize the specificity of the soundscape of each location. To do so we use strategies such as selecting the material through the choice of precise points of hearing where the hydrophones are set. Or reinforcing certain acoustic qualities of that material to reveal its originality and the zones where sounds overlap with each others.
The relationships between different soundscapes and landscapes are core elements for the composition work. The experience of the audience can be compared to a promenade through a composed garden or park.
Text by: Marianne Decoster-Taivalkoski
The sound signal transmitted by the underwater microphones (hydrophones) is analyzed and processed through an application created for this purpose before being diffused on the terraces. For each terrace there can be up to three hydrophones located in the sea, so that they pick up different kinds of sound sources from different points of hearing in the water. The application analyzes, processes and mixes the sound signals creating a real-time composition from the sound material.
The application is designed, developped and produced in collaboration with the electroacoustic music composer Alejandro Montes de Oca and the Centre for Music and Technology at the Sibelius Academy
The sound signals are sent in real-time from the hydrophones to the server and once treated they are sent as a real-time composition to the terraces. These phases of transmission of the sound signals are realized in collaboration with the project BalticSeaNow.info financed by the EU at Turku University of Applied Sciences. This project focuses on growing the consciousness of the citizens towards the alarming situation of the Baltic Sea.
The terraces are built with recycled materials and natural materials. For example a variety of lake reed which has spread (tai increased) along with the eutrophication of Finnish waters can be used as a building material. Its origin and its excellent acoustic characteristics make it a very suitable building material for this project. The collaborator for this part is the LUMO centre (centre for the use of natural material) of the Turku University of Applied Sciences, involved in the EU project called Promoting Natural Material Know-How.
