LIMINAL
2012audio-video live performance
Liminal is inspired by below20 Sound Museum of Silence web archive, which collects recordings of environments beneath 20dB in volume, a threshold considered as the scientific limit of silence. Absolute silence as total lack of sound is however impossible: below the 20 dB threshold lies a universe of sounds that are usually ignored. Building on these recordings, Liminal turns them as focal points for a sound production aimed at overturning the habitual notion of a concert, also becoming a research experiment on alternative ways of sound production and music fruition.
The performance is focused on the auditory limits, technical and conceptual: infrasound and ultrasounds, high and low frequencies, ambient noise, sounds produced by the audience and by the musicians themselves, sounds produced by the machines used for the performance. The idea of the work is to create perceptual shifts and revert the structure of a concert. In liminal, attention is shifted from what the performer produces to what remains: environmental sound and sounds that are normally labeled as noise or background, and therefore eliminated. One of the key points of the performance is the search for an expression method for this set of sounds, to offer it to the audience for a new experience, if not more auditory, perceptive in other respects (as by the vibration of low frequencies, or visually by a spectrum analyzer). The presence of the spectator becomes an essential part, as it determines the ambient sound. The spectator is therefore active and involved - albeit with different degrees of awareness - in the sound production, and contributes together with the environment to the uniqueness of the event that is taking place. By changing the environment and changing the audience, the performance changes itself making the sound an interesting research tool.
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The performance is focused on the auditory limits, technical and conceptual: infrasound and ultrasounds, high and low frequencies, ambient noise, sounds produced by the audience and by the musicians themselves, sounds produced by the machines used for the performance. The idea of the work is to create perceptual shifts and revert the structure of a concert. In liminal, attention is shifted from what the performer produces to what remains: environmental sound and sounds that are normally labeled as noise or background, and therefore eliminated. One of the key points of the performance is the search for an expression method for this set of sounds, to offer it to the audience for a new experience, if not more auditory, perceptive in other respects (as by the vibration of low frequencies, or visually by a spectrum analyzer). The presence of the spectator becomes an essential part, as it determines the ambient sound. The spectator is therefore active and involved - albeit with different degrees of awareness - in the sound production, and contributes together with the environment to the uniqueness of the event that is taking place. By changing the environment and changing the audience, the performance changes itself making the sound an interesting research tool.
