SOUNDSCAPES

MARISA:
Today we had the honor to listen to Lorenzo, a multimedia artist and philosopher originally from Florence, who talked to us about his work with sounds and how he projects space through sounds. He now lives in Berlin and has done a lot of work there as well as around Europe. His lecture was really intriguing.
Lorenzo shared with us his work and concepts of his sound gardens. The concept of space through sound is the main idea of the gardens. In his lecture he showed us multiple pictures of these organic structures he designed that provide sounds composed by him. He is very interested in the sound and spectator as integrated in the environment and wants the viewer to interact with the sounds in the garden as part of the environment. As an open work, he wants the audience to react to the sounds at their own level but at the same time enjoy the sounds as a shared public experience. He made it clear that he does not need to control the audience because they start doing it themselves. The audience starts reacting to the sounds in their own way and as a result become their own composers. His work is very interactive and it was good see examples of multimedia art.
After the lecture we sat down with Lorenzo over a wonderful lunch and had the chance to talk to him in person about his lecture, ideas, and work. He explained to me that his sound gardens are similar to listening to your iPod except it is a public experience instead of a private one. When you walk to school or wherever with your iPod you are in your own private world saturated in your music and not paying attention to the people around you, but having a private experience based on the music you are involved in. The sound gardens also take you to another world like the iPod except it is a public experience and you are integrated with the environment. Lorenzo’s lecture was great. It opened up many ideas and possibilities for a sound garden that would be great to pursue in Chico.