Today I started to resolve sound elements for The Trophy. I love this part! I know it will take awhile. Part of that trendy artword trajectory is learning how you tick as an artist. Someone once told me I was part social archivist/part geek. I don’t know if that’s true, but I will be accumulating sound, exploiting some technical devices, and collaborating with some family. But there is some conceptual framework in the back of my head. I will be doing a lot of recording around the 4th of July.
So I started the Google chain of events and searched for underwater microphones >> learned they were called “hydrophones,” >>> found “Aquarian Audio Products,” >>>> and was amazed to find a testimonial from an Juliana Snapper regarding her underwater opera! There is a good post about her on the art:21 blog.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCnZ_l0EEig]
From her website:
“Five Fathoms Deep My Father Lies is a multi-site underwater opera staged in venues including private bathrooms, water tanks, swimming pools and ocean grottos. The opera takes shape around the material tension between water and air and the parallel specters of drought and drowned cities. The first work in which a singer sings directly into water, Five Fathoms probes our shifting relationship to water, and to each other in moments of crisis and emotional overwhelm.
Maximizing bone conduction and controlling bubble output as part of a new vocal fabric, Snapper merges extended techniques with Baroque tropes that represent human longing and passion as aspects of weather. Pre-recorded sounds from oceanic bubble fields and birdcalls throb above the water as Snapper’s voice (amplified by an underwater microphone) presses through the soundscape. Each performance closes with a (local, amateur) double chorus that emerges from the audience.”
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