The ocean's guests

Jul 15, 06:27 PM

"Rob tells us about David, a British diving instructor, and Ketut, his Indonesian colleague and friend. While the two men share the sunrise in Amad, Rob notices the stark difference of perspectives between them. One emigrated easily to Indonesia, while the other does not have the resources to make this choice of moving abroad.

"The field recording oozes a peaceful atmosphere : the rooster signals the start of day, and in the background we can hear birds, a motorcycle, a broom sweeping. I chose to focus on two aspects: friction, and the sea.

"Friction, present both in sound and sound processing, illustrates the proximity and disparity of the two men. I see it as an evocation of the friction between a migrant and his land of adoption, of between natives and migrants. The encounter causes a transformation, and sometimes an erosion. Most samples are generated through a friction process, may it be in the physical world (bowed piano, bowed glass), or through sound synthesis. Indeed, I have generated a wide array of sounds using a Low Frequency Oscillators (LFO). The resulting sound are caused by an interaction between two sound waves (one of them being out of the audible spectrum).

"The ocean had to be part of this musical evocation somehow. The two men are diving instructors and therefore spend a fraction of their existence at sea rather than on the land. The ocean is also a passageway for migration. Both men are equal in the ocean. They are guests in this realm, and can stay for a short duration only. I chose to suggest the depths of the ocean, its calmness, but also its eerie, powerful and menacing qualities, with basses, low pass filters, samples (including glass sounds that allude to sand). The sea is a master of erosion; which brings us back to the starting idea."

Indonesian dawn reimagined by Judith Adler de Oliveira/

Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration. 

For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration