H2OMANAUS SCORES
For the river Váh in Trenčín, Slovakia
Proposition for SCORE 1
Akka, the Acoustic Sculpture, Built of Clay in the Shape of a Parabola and Floating on Top of the River
Sound 1
We listen to the river by the mediation of Akka. A cable rises from the bottom of the river and attaches to a metallic bowl inside Akka. You can listen to the flowing river reverberating in the bowl by placing your ear in one of the holes of Akka.
Sound 2
The clay of Akka resonates with the mud at the bottom of the river.
By singing into the Akka, tune your song to the materiality of the clay and mud. The parabolic shape focuses and sends these sound waves towards the mud at the bottom of the river.
UN-sound
Akka does not give you the same audible experience that the microbes in the mud will have. Your guidance cannot be your ears alone, but a deeper sensing of the reverberation of the world, organisms, and matter. And your own voicing tuned to that reverberation.
Proposition for SCORE 2
Based on the under water recordings of the river Vàh
Listen here: H2OMANAUS under water sounds
Theme 1
Sounds of the water passing through the turbine in the hydropower plant:
The water does not enter the turbine in an even flow, but instead in giant sloshes. The water drops from a height as one big mass into the turbine. The wing of the turbine pushes the mass of water against the wall (sounding of a suction and a slosh). The water mass then is bounced off the wall back into the turbine (sounding of a second slosh). Thus a second massive wave passes through the turbine and comes out from the bottom (sounding off the turning of the turbine). Meanwhile, a new mass of water has just fallen into the turbine at the top, is sloshed off into the wall, and again off the wall. This way, the water keeps passing through the turbine in these uneven suctions, ebbs, and sloshes.
Akka, the acoustic sculpture, is like the turbine, an amplifier of forces.
Singing, think of your soundings as extending your own body into Akka and circulating through it - like the water passing through the turbine.
Theme 2
Plant fibers and molecules flowing in the river:
The light flicker of sounds brings to mind almost weightless bodies or organic life flowing in the water. Is it the electromagnetic energy that makes the tinkling/sparkling sound, or is the energy of the flow/movement? Sing this lightness, yet a resilient energy, as you flow with the water.
Theme 3
A three-centimeter thick and twenty-meter long metallic cable connects a bridge above the river with the flowing water in the river:
The cable records and transmits sounds of forceful movements both on the bridge (cars and other beings passing) and the energy of the movement of the water and other beings in the river. These two perpendicular movements meet in the cable as two resonances of the cable. Be the cable, feel the resonances in your body. Sing like the cable.
Proposition for SCORE 3
Based on the studies of microbes in riverbed mud
The sound of the turbine, recorded from under water, seems to stimulate the microbes a little bit more than any of the other sounds I played to the mud samples I gathered from the bottom of the river. My assumption is, that this sound was more stimulating, because it sounded off a strong sway, and created a sense of three-dimensional space. Sine waves, being flat and a single un-swaying tone, did not seem to have any effect on the microbes.
Generally, lower resonances (from 60 Hz and lower) massage the mud in a way that should be good for the microbes as well as plants. However, a variety of sounds, sung with intention and striving for a variety of harmonies, seem to be beneficial for living organisms.
Three singers engaging with Akka, the acoustic sculpture, at the same time, singing into it from different positions, should be able to create a powerful sense of space and sway through Akka and into the water and riverbed.
