Listen to what the brilliant lady said
Actually, I owe it to the nice lady who took us down from Valldaura to the metro station. She summed up the idea of how sound can transfer a person from one reality to another and she stated her theory in a few brilliant words. She lives in Sants and makes a daily trip to Valldaura where she teaches at a school above the hill. Of course, I didn’t plan to record the conversation, but once she started to talk about nature and sounds in a very articulated way, I felt like I need to push the record button, as something interesting is coming. So, I unfortunately missed the first few words where she talked about how the soundscape of the ride from the city to the hill is so powerful in terms of feeling the spaces she is moving between, but at least I managed to capture her conclusion. Just click the link above to listen to her wisdom “It is pretty hard to work..so I have to _disconnectrar_ disconnect..switch OFF, and then I go home and have to Switch ON to a different reality”
Switch On — then Switch Off —. Like plugging then unplugging yourself to a different space, or maybe a different reality, if I can use the lady’s own words.
Imagine that we will have a parabolic speaker built in Valldaura _no army stuff or sonic waves to transmit, it is just an innocent reflector _with the right geometry and electronics, we can broadcast Valldaura natural sounds and transfer it to the city on FM waves –bringing an absolute random, spontaneous, natural broadcast to Barcelona citizens 24/7. We can also make cool DJ effects with the reflector 
But what does that mean?
Is it a literal transfer through sound – maybe?
Is it bridging a gap between city and suburb and making a point in transferring and availing the sounds of the nature to the city at every second – maybe?
But . . .
Basically, how does Valldaura sound like?
Do we need to amplify it, or do we need to listen to each and every sound?
Does anybody actually care to listen to Valldaura?
Conversely, do we need to transfer the city to Valldaura as well?
There is no input of any kind at the moment, which makes it difficult to make any assumption, but it will be interesting to take this project forward to research and analyze how the Valldaura soundscape sounds like, what is the significance of transferring it to somewhere else, and how do people in city react and interact with that, most importantly, how can we decide _collectively with the people who will listen to these sounds_ what do they actually want to listen to, or even don’t want to listen to. I assume experimentation will be in two aspects, technical and social. Technical by researching and analyzing possibilities of dealing and transferring Valldaura sounds , the social one, is develop this experiment along with the people, the audience, who will receive this sound. Just like how the idea started by the lady’s observation, similarly capturing those smart gestures from the citizens have the potential to take the idea to interesting and more sophisticated venues.
If I can list ideas in steps that would be:
0.0 — Find out how Valldaura sounds like and take a time to research and analyze that using low tech and high tech tools. I think we can transfer sounds without the parabola, but I assime analog part has a significance in making this sound transfer more intimate (I guess!)
0.1 — Take the small findings to the people and see how they interact with them. Get more input into the experience (this could be a workshop designed to transfer Valldaura sounds to downtown Barcelona, and see how the general public react with that)
0.2 — It is hard to decide at this step, given that I don’t have input, but obviously this involves moving forward with more hardware (or making aspect) of how availing Valldaura sounds to citizens can be done in many creative was through FM waves.
0.3 — This seems to be implementing what we found at step 0.2 which of course I don’t know at the moment
..and of course, most importantly, I will finally get my chance to host my show on FM, Yaay!
more to follow..
