Weeping Bamboo: Resonances from Within

Andreas Kratky and Juri Hwang / USA

Weeping Bamboo: Resonances from Within is an exploration of new forms of communicating and preserving indigenous forms of oral culture. It is a locational sound art piece offering a site- specific, reactive soundscape that is experienced in public at the Plaza de Bolívar of Manizales, Colombia. The project builds on the notion of resonance, the correlated vibration of bodies, to transmit sonic, tactile, and gestural experiences.

It creates a rich layering of different stages of the history of Manizales through an augmented reality experience that merges environmental sounds with a spatialized soundscape. Through a custom- made headset a spatialized audio experience is transmitted by way of the bone structure of the skull, which makes it seem as if it were coming from the space within the listener’s head.

The multi-channel soundscape merges with the environmental sounds perceived through the ear. Beginning with narratives of indigenous myths in concert with today’s environment, the project offers a narrative soundscape that is correlated with the actual geography of the plaza through a GPS location-tracking unit, inertial sensors and a microphone