"Field Listening"

Victoria Keddie (United States)

Arrangement for binaural and 3-channel spatial sound composition for Sonic Chair with video.
Geophonic microphone installed approximately 5 meters underground in a field in Wüsten-Buchholz, Germany in August 2022. Subfrequencies were reproduced on a subwoofer in the center of the field.

In August 2022, I was in residence in Wursten-Buchholz, in the agricultural part of Germany in a time of severe drought. Cornfields surrounded the place, framed by a forest in the distance. The fields were extremely dry, which made me absolutely captivated by the absence of water and that way of trying to hold on to life. I wanted to listen to what was under the surface of those fields in order to actualize in me that invisible space. How can you hear being under the earth in such a state? How can you feel such low vibrations?

I made recordings of seismic vibrations at various depths within these fields using geophone microphones, focusing on any exchange of life happening at various depths in the earth, while retaining any residual sound coming from the surface. From a number of recordings I composed a binaural arrangement that allows the sensation of being immersed within the corn crop.

I reproduced these compositions through a series of subwoofers in these same crops. This polyphony of vibrations present above and below the earth's surface can for a time be simultaneously articulated to our ears. As an audience, we can not only hear but also feel the presence of the Earth around us as if we ourselves were immersed in it.

About the artist:

Based in New York City. Her working material is electronic sound and video, television and sound transmission, and shifting becoming. Recent projects include the development of software for listening to space debris, the utopian sound of a landmark building, and a television installation inside an abandoned retail store. Keddie is co-director of E.S.P. TV, a nomadic television studio and cable access series, which makes synthetic environments and deconstructs television for live performance.
Keddie has presented live productions with specially commissioned compositions and performed internationally in countries such as the United States, England, Canada, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Ireland, Iceland, among others.