Sonic Dreamscapes - Miami 2018
This is an imaginary landscape made of environmental sounds and the images that they evoke. The presence of this sound sculpture is meant to create a space of fantasy out of the hidden soundscapes of Miami Beach.
Wallcast projection of Sonic Dreamscapes in Soundscape Park running 7pm to midnight until the end of December 2018.
Sonic Dreamscapes is listening to and looking at the Miami Beach coast. It is an artistic response to the issues of rising sea levels. It is immersing Soundscape Park with deep underwater sounds while projecting the interactions of dynamic coastal waves with light. It is an immersive sonic and visual meditation designed to give the sea around Miami Beach a passionate voice that awakens a new awareness of the fundamental importance of the issues of climate change and rising sea levels.
At times, Sonic Dreamscapes is not only resounding the seas around Miami Beach but is sometimes singing with multiple moving voices from the only song bird that creates its own music from listening to other birds and sounds, the Northern Mockingbird, which is also the state bird of Florida.
The installation cycle begins during the day with individually recurring auditory recordings answering each other from different spatial points in SoundScape Park. By afternoon, the “musical vocabulary” will grow as additional sounds are added to the repertoire. As the evening approaches, environmentally inspired abstract videos will emerge on the video wall, allowing visitors to experience a myriad of floating sounds and meditative images.
“Mockingbirds take most of their sounds from the environment, sometimes from other mockingbirds, and always including a range of other bird vocalizations. Mockingbird songs may also incorporate the vocalizations of non-avian species, such as mammals (including the pet dog!) or frogs, and even electronic sounds, like car alarms and cell phones. These sounds are learned, memorized, and incorporated into the mockingbird’s ever-expanding repertoire.”