workING on the SOUND
In collaboration with the sound engineer Dimitris Savva audio experience is lends to the piece. Nature sounds are recorded while exploring the forests around Cyprus. The audio plays an immersive role in leading the audience first through peaceful, almost meditative sounds of the spring forest heightening their spatial awareness of nature. Then, every half hour the audio changes suddenly for few minutes. While the animated forest continues to move peacefully in the breeze, the transition of the sound shifts from peace and harmony to the repetitive and disturbing sound of an axe repeatedly cutting the wood. This splintering sound grows louder, followed by the alarming sounds of chainsaws cutting up the forest and a raging fire scorching the trees. The viewer's disturbance is intensified by not knowing where this horrific sound is coming from because the projected images remain unchanged. This transition is brief and ends abruptly. Sumarac thus aims to reawaken a sense of empathy and responsibility when it comes to nature and the way we interact with this fundamental and often neglected aspect of our lives. Nature is crying out for help in a language that is not always comprehensible to us in a habitual sense, yet it is one that calls to us to find new ways of listening as we work towards healing ourselves in the process.
Music composition, sound design, technical surround sound mixing and technical set up for the installation: Dimitris Savva
Bio:
Dimitris Savva was born in Cyprus, 1987. He received his Bachelor degree (distinction) in music composition from the Ionian University of Corfu and his Master degree (distinction) in Electroacoustic composition from the University of Manchester. In January 2015 he started his PhD in Sheffield University under the supervision of Adrian Moore. His doctoral research explores the concept of dramatized-performative narrative through the development of a compositional practice and method in electroacoustic music. His acousmatic composition Erevos won the first prize ex-aequo in the student category of acousmatic composition competition Metamorphoses 2012 and his composition Balloon Theories has been awarded with the public prize at the composition competition Metamorphoses 2014. For his composition Moments of Liberty II: Falling Within, he received the 4th prize of the French international electroacoustic music composition competition SIME 2019 and the 3rd prize of the Greek international electroacoustic music composition competition Iannis Xenakis.
