Carta de Ausculto is a sonic documentary of Lincolnshire limewood forests before, during, and after the “Ash Thursday” (15.4.2010) and five days that followed when Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted and North European airspace was closed. I hope that this work helps audience to appreciate “natural” soundscapes and what is left of them.
Carta de Ausculto is a part of an artistic research project that studies transaudibility of different sonic environments. The first work in this series was Virtual Forest, that was commissioned for the sound gallery of Sender Freies Berlin Radio in 1999. Carta de Ausculto has also a sister work Lincolnshire Sketches that was exhibited in Turku, Finland in 2010.
The Soundwall consist of 22 loudspeakers, in various groups, installed on three levels. Due to its large scale the Soundwall offers many different acoustic perspectives to Carta de Ausculto. I encourage the audience to explore the work from “different points of hearing” or even moving during the playback. The recording process was peripatetic in nature, it involved a lot walking and wandering in the forest. I think a peripatetic listening of the work is also worth a try.
Simo Alitalo 