When sound travels underwater, it moves so quickly that its aural trajectory seems to disappear. As we can longer differentiate the arrival time at each ear, we lose all sense of depth and directionality. Human tissue itself has a very similar acoustic resistance to that of water, so that underwater sound, even if distant, appears to be taking place inside your head. As an analogy for Virilio’s dromosphere, the disorienting world of underwater sound is apt. Referring to a distortion (or ‘pollution’) of dimensions, the dromosphere is brought about through the electronic augmentation of our thought and language. Now on land just as in water, the perspective of real time supersedes the perspective of real space. Undercurrents was premiered on 2 September 2010 as a multichannel installation at Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe. It was presented along with compositions and performances by Minoru Sato -m/s, SASW, Jacob Kirkegaard, Zbigniew Karkowski and Jean-François Laporte. The source material was collected on tours through Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, using a custom hydrophone built by Jez riley French, and further recordings were made in Japan using an Aquarian Audio hydrophone. The composition was subsequently performed as a live piece in Bangkok, Thailand, and again (with Max/MSP programming by Kouhei Harada) at the MOT in Tokyo, with compositions and performances by Minoru Sato -m/s, SASW, Jez riley French, Toshimaru Nakamura, and percussionist Sachiko Nagata.
credits
released September 22, 2021
SOUND: CAL LYALL
MASTERING: PETER SLADE
COVER IMAGE: CHARLES MARTIN
VIDEO STILLS: JAMIE LEE REED
DESIGN & TEXT: CAL LYALL
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