Our composition “L’Oscuro Oceano dello Spazio Infinito” (The Obscure Ocean of the Infinite Space), originally commissioned by Sound Festival for the 2020’s edition, is now in rotation at the Marischal College in Aberdeen for the British Art Show 9 (BAS9) and Sound Festival 2021.
The unique soundscape of “L’Oscuro Oceano dello Spazio Infinito” has been composed having in mind the sound generated by the movement, the rhythm, the sound and the play of light on the water of the Marischal College’s fountain. Using delayed and reverberated tinkling glass sounds, random electronic sound patterns, deep and dark slowly evolving atmospheres, and enigmatic choir drones, we imagined how the deep space would sound like, and, by the alchemic motto “as above so below”, we explored how the sound of the “above” would merge and play with the sound of the “below”, here symbolised by the water games of the fountain.
This concept was generated from our reasoning around the originating substances of matter. Having a Mediterranean and classical culture, our mind went immediately to greek mythology in which Oceanus and Tethys were the primaeval parents of the gods, and so the origins of all things, and the upper and lower waters which were then separated to create the heaven and the earth, also paralleling the story of Apsu and Tiamat in the Babylonian cosmogony. Also, Thales, the ancient Greek philosopher, arrived at the same conclusion by the use of reasoning, observing how ‘that the nurture of all creatures is moist, and that warmth itself is generated from moisture and lives by it; and that from which all things come to be is their first principle’.
The composition will be rotating as follows:
August
21-27 August: Ross Whyte
28-3 September: Silent Chaos
September
4-10 September: Bea Dawkins
11-17 September: Pippa Murphy
18-24 September: Ross Whyte
25-1 October: Silent Chaos
October
2-8 October: Bea Dawkins
9–15 October: Pippa Murphy
16-17 October: Ross Whyte
18 October: Silent Chaos
19 October: Bea Dawkins
20 October: Pippa Murphy
21 October: Ross Whyte
22 October: Silent Chaos
23 October: Bea Dawkins
24 October: Pippa Murphy
Aberdeen City Council has advised us that the fountains are currently operational between 8am – 10pm Monday-Sunday. Please note that due to an ongoing issue, the fountains may be switched off from time to time.
Evening Express article here.
Aberdeen City Council infos for BAS9 here.
