Future Forest - What Does the Forest Sound Like in Transition? (ABO 4)

Description

Our forest rustles and chirps, babbles and drips – and yet most of its sounds elude the human ear. Composer Kirsten Reese and the geobotanist and ecoacoustician Dr. Sandra Müller from the University of Freiburg have listened more closely: with hydrophones in watercourses, with earth sensors in the soil, with special microphones on tree trunks. Over months and years, recorders in research areas in the Black Forest, Solling, and Schorfheide recorded one minute of sound every ten minutes – an acoustic long-term memory of the landscape that extends far beyond human perception. But this memory is changing. Ecoacoustics makes audible what measurements alone cannot show: how an ecosystem sounds when it is under pressure – and when it is tipping. The forest, between wild nature and managed forestry, is not a stable state but a process with thresholds that can only be recognized in retrospect. When is a forest still wilderness, and when just a resource? The long-term archive of recordings makes exactly this audible: not the dramatic cut, but the quiet shift – the moment when something has become irretrievably different. Together with the Ensemble Recherche, this resulted in a spatial composition in twelve scenes. Pitch and rhythms were extracted from the recordings, research data sonified, sound shapes imitated in sessions with the musicians – diverse translation processes that make the inaudible audible. The ensemble members developed their own, nature-inspired expressive styles: creature-like voices that oscillate between imitation and invention. Art and science ask the same questions: What does the forest mean to us? Can we learn from its resilience – or do we only listen when it is too late? Additional information:
Foyer: 7:30 PM, Hall: 8:00 PM

Highlights

• Spatial composition in twelve scenes
• Collaboration with Ensemble Recherche
• Acoustic long-term memory of the forest

General Information

The event "Future Forest - What Does the Forest Sound Like in Transition?" takes place at the E-Werk in Freiburg im Breisgau. Composer Kirsten Reese and ecoacoustician Dr. Sandra Müller present an innovative sound journey that makes the changes in the forest ecosystem audible.

Location

Eschholzstraße 77, 79106 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

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