Launching today - our latest project Flow! 🌊
The life of a river, from its source to its end, imagined through sound
Hi everyone
We’re excited to present our latest project to the world today, as Flow is presented at the EGU general assembly in Vienna, the biggest geoscience conference in Europe.
Working with the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, Flow tells the story of a river through sound, from its source to its end.
Flow combines science, sound, and imagery to bring to life the story of the river Lech, which flows through Austria and Germany, as an example representing all rivers, all over the world.
The Flow project sound map - follow the course of the river through sound
Researchers at the University of Padua and the University of Würzburg collected satellite images, research, photography and field recordings from the entire length of the river, and asked artists to reimagine the life of the river through sound.
An example of the timelapse videos provided to artists.
The Lech was divided into 25 individual segments, each based on uniform characteristics of the river and represented by a time-lapse created from satellite images, along with a field recording captured on that stretch of water. Artists were asked to create a brand new composition based on their own responses, memories and feelings to that information, and to the role rivers play in their own lives. You can explore all of those creative responses, and the original concept material here.
Ways of Listening - six weeks left! 💕🎧
There are just six weeks left to take part in our partnership with Dame Evelyn Glennie and answer one simple question - what does listening mean to you?
The call for responses is open to anyone, anywhere in the world, to respond through whichever creative medium you feel best allows you to express what listening means to you. That could be sound, but equally it could be video, photography, drawing, painting, prose or poetry.
The call for submissions will be open until 19 June - find out more here.
New on the sound map this week 🗺️
The submissions to our Spring Project keep coming in, with some amazing pieces to listen to - here’s a selection of the good stuff we’re receiving this week.
A new collaboration between Cities and Memory and Cristina Marras, telling the story of a late summer evening in Oldenburg, Germany 🇩🇪
A gorgeous dawn chorus from Chiba, Japan 🇯🇵
The Isha call to prayer in Marrakesh’s iconic central square 🇲🇦
Reimagined Mediterranean Sea vibes in Valencia 🇪🇸
Sunset on Koh Mook, Thailand 🇹🇭
Violin practice inside the iconic La Fenice, Venice 🇮🇹
One of the remotest recordings we’ve received so far, from Yakutask, Russia 🇷🇺
A magnified moment of attention in Notre Dame, Paris 🇫🇷
New project callout coming on 18 May! 👀
A quick note to let you know that our next major callout is coming on Monday 18 May, and it’s something a little bit different from any other Cities and Memory project so far.
Stay tuned - and we hope you’ll be up for being a part of it!
Things we love this month ❤️
The new album by Setting is one of the best things I’ve heard this year - an amazing maelstrom of krautrock, improv, jazz and post-rock that reminds us of Ash Ra Tempel in its glorious out-there-ness.
The Stranger - I wasn’t sure any movie could capture the existential energy of L’Etranger, but this really nails it.
Arturia’s Augmented Persia is excellent - Persian and Middle Eastern instruments melded with modern synthesis for some unique sounds.
For World Book Day, here’s my essential list of the books about sound, recording and creativity that get me inspired.
Buchla’s new all-in-one, non-modular Ziggy synthesiser looks like it’s going to be loads of fun.
Share your London heatwave sound recordings 🥵 🔊
Finally, here’s a shout-out for a field recording call from an artist in the Cities and Memory community - if you can help with sound recordings from London as below, please drop them a line!
For an exhibition with London’s Climate Story Bank at the beginning of June, artists Andrey Chugunov & Bobby Jewell are looking for sound recordings of everyday life in London during extreme heat for a 3D spatial sound installation.
We would like to outline people’s experience of extreme heat, with the main focus on sound perception: Does your commute sound different, is your home or office noisy with fans, humidifiers or ventilation? Do you hear London differently or feel the heat through noise?
We are looking for sounds that revealed themselves to you in the heat: sounds that caught your attention, changed your sense of place, or made your home or the city feel different. Maybe your attention was drawn to the hum of a fan, ventilation, a fridge, or air conditioning, etc. Maybe it was tyres on hot asphalt, the sound of dry leaves, an altered wind, unusually silent streets, or other noises that seemed sharper, stranger, or more present in the heat.
The deadline for the submissions is 29 May - submit your recordings here.
As always - thank you for listening! Enjoy exploring Flow, and hope to hear (and see) some of your Ways of Listening submissions soon 💕
Stuart.
Flow is a project by Dr Martina Cecchetto, with the scientific contribution of Dr Florian Betz and the artistic curation of Riccardo Fumagalli, in collaboration with Cities & Memory, the University of Padua (Italy), and the University of Würzburg (Germany).
Love this concept, I'm excited to listen.
I'm almost done a similar concept album where I took field recordings along a 7 day canoe trip, and then set them to music. My intention was to use a map like this to present the album in a manner that sets each song in its places.