Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Arranging Tangerines Episode 47 - A Conversation with Mélia Roger
18 Plays4 days ago
In this episode, we talk with French field recordist and artist Mélia Roger about her film Dear Phonocene, currently featured in the Projected Ecologies program within the exhibition Pulsar at MUCA in Mexico City. Mélia shares how the work emerged from over a decade of listening to the monoculture Douglas fir plantations near her parents’ home, spaces she describes as “post-natural” and marked by biodiversity loss. Blending fiction, performance, and documentary, the project imagines “acoustic enrichment” as a form of care—playing back past soundscapes to acknowledge what has been lost. We discuss her collaboration with other women recordists, the role of human presence and “noisy non-self” in the film’s soundscape, and the interplay between slow listening and the fast pace of image-making. Mélia reflects on grief, hope, and tenderness in altered landscapes, the technical and ethical dimensions of playback, and her evolving research on post-natural listening within her PhD work. Plus, we hear about her upcoming explorations of cetacean sound in the Canary Islands.
Mélia Roger (*1996, she/her) is a field recordist and artist engaged to inspire ecological change with environmental and empathic listening. Her work explores the sonic poetics of the landscape, searching for the invisible layers between human and non-humans. Coming from a sound engineering background (ENS Louis-Lumière in Paris, ZHdK in Zurich), Mélia is developing a twofold activity between immersive 7.0.2 sound recordings within HAL, as well as a more experimental and naturalistic approach to listening. Now at Le Fresnoy, she is a practice-based PhD candidate at the University of Lille, focusing on the relations between sound arts and acoustic ecology.
https://www.meliaroger.com/portfolio/project-two-llrgk-blz6c
https://www.instagram.com/meliarog/
https://muca.unam.mx/pulsar.html
https://www.lydianstater.co/projected-ecologies
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Arranging Tangerines'
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Arranging Tangerines, conversations with contemporary artists, curators, and thinkers about the intersection of art, technology, and commerce.
Meet the Hosts and Guest Artist
00:00:10
Speaker
Your hosts for this episode are me, Joseph Wilcox, and Elisa Gutierrez-Erikson.
00:00:16
Speaker
Our guest this episode is Milia Roget.
Ecological Change and Sonic Poetics
00:00:20
Speaker
Milia is a field recordist and artist engaged to inspire ecological change with environmental and em empathic listening.
00:00:28
Speaker
Her work explores the sonic poetics of the landscape searching for the invisible layers between humans and nonhumans. Coming from a sound engineer background, Milia is developing a twofold activity between immersive 7.0.2 sound recordings within HAL, as well as more experimental and naturalistic approach to listening.
00:00:48
Speaker
Now at Le Frenouin, she is a practice-based PhD candidate at the University of Rio, focusing on the relations between sound arts and acoustic ecology.
00:00:59
Speaker
Welcome to the show, Milia. Hi, thank you for having me. Yeah, of course. And as always, currently, Elisa Gutierrez is here as well.
00:01:10
Speaker
Hello, hello. Hello, hello.
Exhibition at MUCA, Mexico City
00:01:13
Speaker
And Emilia, as like many of our recent guests, is currently in the Projected Ecology's film selection at MUCA campus in Mexico City as part of the exhibition Pulsar.
Forest Listening Project and Biodiversity
00:01:29
Speaker
um And the first question we've been asking most guests recently, Emilia, is if you could kind of like give us a little bit of an overview of the work that you have in the show, which is Dear Fauna Scene.
00:01:43
Speaker
Yeah. So Dear Fauna Scene is a project um that started in the surrounded forest next to my home. I've been listening to these forests since like 10 years, since I have been studying sound engineering and had microphones in my hands.
00:02:00
Speaker
And it's really the time that I spent in this forest that really helped me to understand that these are not forests, but these are plantations of Douglas Pines tree.
00:02:14
Speaker
And this is very common in France. It's like huge monocultures, um plantations. And There are sounds, you know, that have been nevertheless been recorded there.
00:02:29
Speaker
And
Sound Enrichment and Restoration Techniques
00:02:30
Speaker
I just took really some time to listen to them to the species that were still there, even though this very, like, one species ah plantation is very ah hard for biodiversity and there is really a loss of the species.
00:02:50
Speaker
Yeah, just diversity and ways to to live there that there are just a few birds around and I've just been listening for them for a long time and kind of ah understood through sound that this place is kind of what we can call like this post-natural um landscape.
00:03:10
Speaker
And there are places that have been recording in that since then have been cut down and it's like huge clear cut, you know, like you have some hectares that are completely and taken away in just like a couple of days and nothing remains.
00:03:28
Speaker
And these clear cuts are super violent towards the landscape and also towards the people that are living around. And so for me, it was I was not living there. This was my parents' house, but I mean, it kind of had an emotional impact or a psychological impact I had on those landscape.
00:03:44
Speaker
And there there is a question that I'm always asking myself when I'm out there recording.
Coexistence Through Active Listening
00:03:49
Speaker
like, what am I taking when I'm taking sounds and how maybe can I give back, you know, and I've been interested in this concept of ah acoustic enrichment, which is the action of like playing back some sounds in order to kind of restore a place. This has been done in Choral Rilf.
00:04:12
Speaker
And i just wanted to take the opportunity kind of as a fiction to imagine what would it be to play back the sounds that have been recorded into this already super poor forest or plantation of tree and kind of play back the sounds of the soundscape, ah kind of a like acoustical care.
00:04:34
Speaker
So the project is about this, it's about how to take care of places through sound and listening.
Artistic Fiction and Soundscapes
00:04:39
Speaker
And the term Phono Scene is really addressing this concept, like addressing how sound ah can be a way to just be there with others and acknowledge this coexistence through sound and through the presence, like through through this active listening.
00:04:57
Speaker
And so the project is is about this. Mm-hmm. that That's awesome. Thank you for sharing all of that. I um i like that you used the word fiction because, and we'll I'm sure we'll talk about it a little bit more, but on first viewing of the piece, you know i i like I get performance, I get documentary, I get kind of intervention art, I get public art, and I didn't and i didn't really think about fiction ah until until the end, right?
00:05:27
Speaker
um with the There's a scene of the animals at night kind of like coming, coming to see the camera. And, and there's a lot of kind of like construction of the film being shown, but that, that part of it, uh, I was like, Oh, this is like a very kind of like, or at least felt to me a very artistic gesture of of kind of like a fiction narrative that you're presenting as like, what, what could it look like if we do this kind of like, uh, sound restoration in like the best case scenario. Right.
00:05:58
Speaker
Um, but But I don't know. Yeah. Can I answer?
Ethics of Sound Playback in Nature
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, sure. I mean, there wasn't a question really, but that but yes, please do. Yeah, I mean, it's really hard. Like the term fiction is not something that I employ a lot, but of course it's something that we always do, you know, when we are out there with microphone, even though it can have like a kind of a documentary aspect or like a very objective way of like recording the soundscape. It's also something so subjective, the way you place your microphones, when do you record, how much, how long,
00:06:33
Speaker
in like which level, which, like there are so many choices and it's also like an artistic form, like field recordings in itself is like a genre, right? It's very linked to electroacoustic, it's linked to science, it's kind of in itself in this in-between place.
00:06:53
Speaker
And so for me, it was never very clear, you know, if it's Also, like from this technical ah side that I address this question is if it's from like an artistic side, if it's from like a cinematographic way of interrogating it. And i I'm still unsure what it is. And I just like to call it fiction now.
00:07:15
Speaker
Because i don't want um people to think that it's a thing to just go out there and play back sounds. Because this is also super harmful for the environment. Like it's not okay to do this and play back. In French, we also say repasse.
00:07:32
Speaker
is something that is often used in bioacoustic to observe the behavior of the animals, for example. You can play back a sound that you kind of modified and you will see how the animal will react. And then you can say, okay, in this part of the sound, this acoustic feature means ah that the animal um means the animal species, for example. And there is a lot of...
00:08:00
Speaker
um research that that's our this is what is using um this playback sound. But it's also used a lot in hunting, you know, like um people are just calling the animals with whistles or sometimes just with their phone. And it's something which is forbidden, at least in France. It's completely forbidden to do it.
00:08:23
Speaker
And so I call it fiction because somehow the playback that we are, that we done ah there, we did it only once to really, you know, take out them the electricity from a house and really plug in the speaker.
00:08:37
Speaker
And otherwise, this is a film. It's constructed. You know, we didn't do it properly because we didn't want to have any impact on the
Curating Soundscapes and Human Impact
00:08:45
Speaker
environment there. Mm-hmm. So in in this sense, it's a fiction. it's not It's not linked to any scientific study. It's not something that we did for a long time to measure what real impact it had on the landscape. So it's kind of um like the film. And that's why I also used image in this project. It's like it's a place to explore this playback.
00:09:11
Speaker
And without the image, it's very hard to make it and understandable. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah, I was I was also thinking about, um you know, like you basically saying that you're curating soundscapes, right? Like, I feel like this is another part where like this fictional replay or like playback to the forest comes along, right? Because what you're playing, I am guessing it's also a combination of different recordings that you had before or like maybe that other people that are I don't know, maybe this is a question for later, but like that are maybe collaborating with you that are also in the film.
00:09:45
Speaker
Maybe they're also like chipping in, you know. um But there is also like a fiction coming from there. But I think that what is really interesting for me is that it's also bringing this implication that everything is listening, which I think that with like sound...
00:10:00
Speaker
um sound art and like sound practices nowadays, that it is also like very focused in the human, right? So it is also kind of like, what are we taking from nature? What are the sounds that we're able to take that to then reproduce for humans, right?
00:10:17
Speaker
But then in this, in what you're doing here and in this concept of um acoustic enrichment, ju and there is like implying like a reverse response, right? Like, and and then some but some of these responses, as you've said, can be harmful or can be, you know, like they have like other set of like complexities, but I feel like that the fact that you are um allowing for this implication that everything is also listening back, I think it's really interesting.
Human Presence in Nature Recordings
00:10:47
Speaker
Yes, it's hard to make it understandable in the film, I think. oh Now the critique that I'm doing to myself, it's like it's still very human focused and we are always on screen and...
00:11:02
Speaker
I mean, this is um a perspective that I'm still deconstructing a lot, but I had also, i think, the need of filming ah women doing recordings in the forest because, i'm I mean, I've been doing this also alone. I've been doing this with my partner a lot, but now I really wanted to invite other ah yeah other humans ah to to have this, to share this moment with me.
00:11:36
Speaker
And normally it's something very individual because also in the film, somehow we are, because there is nothing to record, somehow we are kind of recording ourselves. you know we are When we have the four of us in this forest, every movement is very loud, like clothes.
00:11:55
Speaker
um close Yeah, the clothes, the jackets, when we are walking, even though we try to be so quiet, like there is no dialogue in in this project and it's still
Collective Recording and Sonic Dialogue
00:12:05
Speaker
very loud. You know, our presence is so loud.
00:12:09
Speaker
And normally it's a sound that you want to take out, you know, in the field recording community, there is... especially in the like wildlife sound recording community. It's something that, okay, it's only about the animal sound. It's only about the wildlife. And every presence of the record is taken away.
00:12:28
Speaker
It's edited out and... I really like this idea of a thinker, maybe you know, it's called he's called Mark Peter Wright. He's a British um writer now at the head of the CRESAB, the Center of Research and on Sound Art Practices.
00:12:46
Speaker
And he has this concept of noisy non-self. which for me is very interesting. And that is kind of was what was in the background of the film when I was also writing my PhD proposal and of course we're working on the project and has this kind of dialogue between the theory and the practice. And I was like, okay, this is exactly what we are doing right now.
00:13:08
Speaker
It's like we are so ah loudly saying, silent, you know, we try to be so hard to be silent that it's so loud and our presence somehow is this being quiet, but I really wanted to, to enhance this in this project. And so all the boom, all the like mic pops, all the, I don't know, cable thingy, the telephone, beep, beep, like it's, it's there.
00:13:35
Speaker
And it's also part of this soundscape being heard, being listened to. And I really wanted to have those sounds in the foreground. And I don't know, it was also a way to kind of rethink of the human presence in this landscape, in this post-natural decor, and to kind of highlight this landscape this encounter, like this sonic encounter between the, yeah,
Tech vs. Human Experience in Sound Monitoring
00:14:04
Speaker
the human walking around and this kind of very sick forest.
00:14:12
Speaker
Yeah, i kept going back to, like, um how much, like, contrast there is in the film in, like, the humans against the landscape, right? But also, like, the fume the film is beautifully shot, right? The, the like, framing is and is like, very...
00:14:29
Speaker
very intentional and well done and it's lush and it's beautiful uh and it's kind of like exploring this thing that is not beautiful right these like sick landscapes uh and the contrast of like bringing in all of this tech to kind of like serve the natural purposes and i i was kind of like um doing kind of a deeper dive into your previous projects, kind of like planning for this.
00:14:54
Speaker
And I don't know if this is true, but my thinking about contrast, um it it seemed that you were very kind of like interested in tech and and AI and sound recording and and the tech side of it early on.
00:15:08
Speaker
And I'm wondering if you were always also interested in kind of like the landscape and ecology or was there kind of, was the kind of like you know Because sometimes you can get so immersed in a certain thing, like technology, that you're like, oh, I need to balance that back out. So I'm just wondering kind of like how that happened or melded, and if you've always been interested in both.
00:15:28
Speaker
Yeah, um I come from engineering, so I'm kind of a geek. And I really like testing microphones, testing new way of like using technology in order to access unhearable, unheard parts of the soundscape. It's something that I really like.
00:15:49
Speaker
um Of course, now with the... yeah with the use of AI in bioacoustics or in echoacoustics, like all the science that are using sound as a proof, as a data in order to um statuate on the health of ah landscape, for example.
00:16:08
Speaker
um I'm super interested in this. ah This is also part of my PhD research, but... um The thing that is now really interesting for me to observe when I've been also, you know, being like intern in um bioacoustic labs and stuff, it's like there is very few moments in the field. It's about going um once, putting automatic automating ah recorders out there and then recording for like so long that you cannot even...
00:16:41
Speaker
listen yourself. you You have to use the technology to you to listen for you and actually to look for you because it's not about listening. It's about analyzing ah spectrograms.
00:16:53
Speaker
And for me, this is really interesting in a term of just, okay, who is actually listening to those to those places and how is it done and how the the technology is also shaping the way we have relations to to those places. So um yeah It's kind of bringing also bringing this opportunity
AI and Sound Data Challenges
00:17:15
Speaker
to listen in a more than human way, like in a way that you cannot be there for five years and still you can have access to the sounds that have been played in ah in a place for so long, which is completely crazy. so
00:17:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'm super curious to to explore more with this intersection of ah art and science, especially in the use of AI and like new technology to to process some sonic data, which is unprocessable for humans because it's just too much.
00:17:48
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I wonder um like what is lost there when the human doesn't have to go searching for the thing, right? um Which I guess is kind of the AI question in general is like, if we have these computers doing all of this work for us that we used to do ourselves,
00:18:06
Speaker
you know Obviously, there's benefits to being able to analyze that much data in in any field, but then you know what what happens to us as kind of like people to not have to do that work anymore?
00:18:19
Speaker
ah i don't know. um I wonder what's lost there. Yeah, I think one of the positive ah side of it is, you know, all this technology is called non-invasive.
00:18:31
Speaker
all like um It's kind of this ah passive acoustic monitoring. It has this effect that you don't have to be there and somehow you leave um like the environment or like, I don't know how to call it anymore, but like you you leave the place that you are sitting alone and you're kind of diminishing your impact of like going there and making notes, et cetera. But of course we we are losing them the sense, you know, we are losing the all the things that you feel when you're out there and you feel the the cold and you feel the moist and you have tics and it's hard and and all of the all of these ah aspects are so important. So
00:19:16
Speaker
I guess it has to there there there is a need of ah of a balance. And of course, I think from i mean from what I know, what is done here in France at the Museum of Natural History, there is always a moment when there fieldwork and it's still very important. It's just
Preservation Practices for Sound Artists
00:19:33
Speaker
a matter of money as well. like you know to have um to have ah to have the money and the opportunity to to go on site.
00:19:41
Speaker
But of course, this technology, like to have these automated recorders, like the audio mode, etc., it's it's allowing us to have like another scale of of listening. And this is really new, and I think we still don't know also how to store the data. you know i went to the When I went to the Bioacoustics Lab, i was like, okay, what is your server?
00:20:03
Speaker
How... the data, how the sonic data is stored. And they just opened a drawer with like bunch of hard drives. and I was like, oh my God, it's so unsafe. It's so unsafe.
00:20:16
Speaker
And i mean, it's hard to organize, right? It's like just like disorganized. Yeah. Yeah. yeah And um I mean, I don't know if you if you saw this, but like a couple of years ago, there was also like a cyber attack for the on on the British library. And they for some weeks, they lost so like hundreds of ah of ah giga of sounds, you know. And it's like, how is this proof of life ah kept safe? um Yeah, I don't know. It's really an open question. And it's...
00:20:47
Speaker
For me, it's the same. you know I've been working only with digital recordings and it's very hard to store and to organize. And between the cinema world, which has a very specific way to kind of categorize the sounds on my for my projects, it's very different because it's not only for movies. So I have also to mark or to keep notes from like very intimate states or emotions or I don't know, random observations in the field. And it's very hard to find a proper way to keep this archive work.
00:21:23
Speaker
but Yeah. Yeah. I recently learned that a lot of movies, like big productions that are shot fully digitally, when they're finished, they will, they'll transfer it to a 35 millimeter copy and store it so that in case the digital files are lost, they have this kind of like physical,
00:21:42
Speaker
copy of it somewhere yeah which is just silly and wild and funny and yeah I don't know yeah it's ah Yeah, they are doing
Collaboration in Creative Processes
00:21:54
Speaker
it.
00:21:54
Speaker
But for this, you you need to be a big project. Sure, yes, of course. Store it like this.
00:22:01
Speaker
I wanted to ask Melia about the collective dynamic that happened in Dear PhonoSync. It's you and other three um field recordists. I'm assuming they're also field recordists.
00:22:14
Speaker
And I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit more and if in the process of making it, was it a collective thing or was it more of the idea of the film in itself? the idea of bringing other people.
00:22:25
Speaker
Yeah, it was in the idea of the film to invite other other women field recordists. So yeah, there is Léa Julien, Iga Van Den Hove and Elsa Michaud.
00:22:36
Speaker
They are actually friends, you know, like three friends that are really interested in sound, that have a practice of recording, but not especially like wildlife field recording.
00:22:51
Speaker
But they are interested in listening. actually. And the idea was really that we listen, the four of us in this forest, that we take time.
00:23:01
Speaker
And i was working with my, so we were, yeah, the the four of us and one DOP, Charlotte Muller, who comes from from documentary and also she has like this wildlife filming um interest and background as well.
00:23:18
Speaker
And I really wanted to have some shots in my head, but also wanted to that the sound is leading. And I wanted us to kind of move around and just explore by ourselves, explore together, but also individually. And that Charlotte will go kind of in between all of us and find shots, find ways that we are together, but also separate.
00:23:43
Speaker
And that we kind of make those... almost performances and she was filming those performances. It was more this way of, of, um, editing. Yeah. Edition.
00:23:57
Speaker
Editing the film. Or like kind of imagine the edits, you know. Um, yeah. wanted you to say something else. yeah.
00:24:09
Speaker
Yeah, I spend a lot of time also alone with the Charlotte. ah They're just going around in the in the landscape, also putting the the trail camera that will and that we're running for a couple of months in order to see the animals that we never see. you know We always hear some traces sometimes, but otherwise they're completely invisible. And I wanted to find the traces on the ground, to to find...
00:24:35
Speaker
where maybe there is a place where they are still around, you know, with this monoculture forest, you have places where there is really nothing, but at the border, um at this kind of edge between the industry forest and the fields, you have more um like various essence of trees.
00:24:54
Speaker
And so there, there is a bit of life. And so we put the trail camera there in order to film I don't know what's around. And I was really surprised also of the of the variety of animals that are still there. There is life. So I don't know. It was also about hope.
00:25:10
Speaker
And of course, i mean, the you know, the time that you spend while listening is very slow. And something that I had trouble while shooting with image, um also for the first time, like with someone, it's a choice like image is so fast.
00:25:29
Speaker
And it's also about how big this the data is. I mean, sound is very light and image can be very heavy. But I don't know, for me, it's like, okay, we do like one exploration.
00:25:44
Speaker
It takes, I don't know, like two hours. And Charlotte was like, I cannot film two Yeah. So she had to kind of, you know, shorten the time. And for me, this was something that I did i didn't think about before. I was like, oh my God, image is so fast.
00:25:58
Speaker
Like filming with the sights. I don't know how to explain it um in another way, but it's it's very fast. And so we had to find a way to be slow with filming and it took some time. So we had nine days in total together, which is a lot for such a short project, but it was the time we needed to kind of find the rhythm um for all of us.
Sound Installation vs. Film Adaptation
00:26:24
Speaker
Yeah. And I imagine it can kind of a workshop, you know, kind of a moment where we explore and there Charlotte filming us. it's It was, yeah, it was the thing. I just wanted us to be around with our microphones and also to have moments where we go with the speakers. It was the only two ideas that was, yeah, that were around.
00:26:45
Speaker
And another thing that I thought when I was like reading some of the things that are about you online is that I read that you actually share your equipment, but it's not. So I think that is also an interesting approach to collectivity and like how, you know, like in this world where everything is just like going so fast, as you say, and like technology is advancing so quickly. The idea of to have like a collective, um, I don't know, um,
00:27:11
Speaker
tools, you know, i think it's such a such an interesting thing about approaching work also like thinking about collectivity. Yeah, I mean for this project they they came with some gear but otherwise the idea was more that um I bring a lot and they also discover ah maybe microphones that they never used before or you know that in the film there are some contact mics, there are geophones, there are Also, like we did a lot of drop rigs. So when we are leaving some microphones for the night and then we come back, stuff like this.
00:27:45
Speaker
This is not in the final edit, but it's something that we did. And it was also new for her. So for them. Yeah. So, yeah. I had a question about um like the the idea of of like the difference between like documentation of a performance and like a film with like a capital F, which which Dear Fauna Scene feels very much like a completed film, and the way you talk about it is is is it's a film, although there are kind of performance-type things that happen during the film, but in your in your previous work, a lot of the kind of like...
00:28:23
Speaker
films that end up being produced are kind of like documentation of a performance. And I was wondering if this was, if this was kind of like the first like film film for, did it feel like that to you in terms of your, your practice?
00:28:37
Speaker
ah And are you like, can, are you interested in continuing this kind of like way of working ah where you're where you're kind of building a narrative a little bit more than just doing kind of like documentation of an intervention or, or a performance?
00:28:52
Speaker
um I think there are two things. The first um is that the project first is thought as an installation. So what you see normally it was edited as a loop.
00:29:07
Speaker
And I think you kind of feel it when you watch it. I mean, I feel it. um There are some redits, you know, there is kind of things that are being said before that kind of being re-said.
00:29:19
Speaker
mean yeah um And in the installation, the soundtrack is very different. It's about having like ah four speakers that are the same speakers that you see on screen.
00:29:32
Speaker
ah And there is also open headphones on a bench. And when you enter the installation, you only hear the sounds that are there in this kind of very sick landscape. So there is almost nothing. You hear the wind, you hear...
00:29:48
Speaker
distant dogs, you hear like some hunters, some just like circulation, cars, planes. And when you put the headphones on, you access our bodies, you access the microphones, like movements, you access the sound that we are playing back with the speakers.
00:30:09
Speaker
And because these are open headphones, and maybe now it's a bit my geeky way, you know, like you you kind of have both at the same time. It's kind of added to each other. And you have this proximity, like this intimacy that the headphones is is creating.
00:30:24
Speaker
You hear our breathing very close. You hear, you know, it's very like almost like not sensual, but, you know, it has this feeling of body. And when you take out the headphones, it's about like disparition. It's about the, like the wildlife not being there.
00:30:42
Speaker
And this is a very different way of listening to these projects than in the film. yeah And the, the film version kind of um existed after that in a sense that it's very hard to show sound works and And I wanted the project to be seen.
Film Reception and Emotional Impact
00:31:04
Speaker
and so I was like, okay, let's mix everything together. Let's find beginning. I didn't know where the beginning would be. So it's very different from the beginning I had when I started to edit.
00:31:17
Speaker
okay And it's kind of, I don't know if it's a film, like it's existing the way it is. It's not thought as a film with the beginning and the end.
00:31:29
Speaker
And I think it's something that you feel. um But I wanted to have something that, that can travel, that is easy to send and that it's not like, okay, you need to have eight outputs and to have a very silent room, like, you know,
00:31:45
Speaker
it's really hard to yet to have this place for sound works. And i don't know, I would like to to continue working with installation because it's something that is really interesting for me in terms of sounds to kind of have the viewer make its own way of like beginning and ending.
00:32:11
Speaker
But of course, Now this project brought all other ideas for maybe more narrative or like nonfiction, but not only performative documentation. I don't know.
00:32:23
Speaker
It brought a lot. And I learned a lot about time um working with image. I don't know. But it's something that I still, I don't know how to, how I will continue with that.
00:32:36
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. I mean, I, i the way you described the installation, i i would love to experience that and it sounds amazing, but also I think the film works ah ah as a film and it's, and and I think it's beautiful in its own right. And I think the projects that can,
00:32:52
Speaker
exist in different ways, you know, uh, is, is a plus I think, ah you know, to get more people to get more people to see it and and engage with it. Um, even if it might not be the, you know, the ideal setting, i think that the version that, um,
00:33:08
Speaker
that we have at the show, I think is, is fantastic. I mean, I actually like put it on my TV to watch it this morning again. And it was just like, it was awesome to watch it in my living room in the space. It like
Addressing Ecological Grief and Solastalgia
00:33:18
Speaker
worked, it worked that way for me. Okay.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah. I'm so happy. Okay.
00:33:25
Speaker
I wanted to ask you a little bit, and this is a bit, um I don't know, maybe maybe you've talked about these concepts not directly, but ah we ah you already touched upon those.
00:33:36
Speaker
But you you bring this concept of soul nostalgia in the description of the work. And um I'm wondering if you can talk more about that as well as the idea of of making it the phonocene, which and we know that comes from ah Donna Haraway.
00:33:52
Speaker
But i'm I'm just wondering if you could talk more about Solostalgia and the decision um of of using that as a descriptive thing, especially now thinking about the the, yeah, I guess the aspect of like this um being very intentionally like a work of ah fiction in a way, right?
00:34:12
Speaker
um Yeah, sevaalia so the concept of like kind of losing home because especially of climate change, even though you didn't move, is something that I really felt when I was there.
00:34:29
Speaker
Because when you are surrounded by those forests and suddenly you have a clear cut, you don't recognize your landscape and you kind of feel that you're not home anymore. And...
00:34:43
Speaker
Really the link with the soul nostalgia is this one. It's about how to connect to connect with desperation and grief and how ah to have positive actions to towards this this feeling and this this emotion of loss,
00:35:00
Speaker
of yeah I mean, of kind of sadness. And I think, you know, the time that I spent listening to these places and kind of understanding what they were through sounds is something that i wanted to give back and to kind of just... some playback I mean that's the whole playback thing again like to to play back the sounds in order to say I know you were here and I acknowledge that your presence is so important and now that you cannot sing here anymore um I will sing for you and it was about this and when we did the setup um of playing back the sound for real the only only time um in this fiction um
00:35:48
Speaker
There were some people living around that were hearing back the the soundscape that you know they knew. And their their house was just completely surrounded by this a like ah landscape of of nothing.
00:36:03
Speaker
and And they were feeling very emotional about it. And it's something that when I was there, I didn't film. I just, I i didn't know.
00:36:14
Speaker
i Maybe I should have done it. I don't know. But ah just the this um this sensation of grief and loss and and and also, I don't know, spending time in the so in your surroundings, like not going at the opposite side of the world to to listen to the pristine, preserved soundscape, but really spend time in your garden almost. Mm-hmm.
00:36:38
Speaker
it's something that is that is really important um to just yes use this time to to still listen and in these places, even though maybe they have not nothing else to say anymore. But who is there to record their they are silent you know there silence?
00:36:58
Speaker
And I think that there's still like other things there. like yeah i know that I know what you say when they when these are like you know industrial forests and these are plantations and there's no... like apparent life in it but there is some life you know there is and I feel like there's still kind of like this you know i guess i' I'm a bit of a romantic so I think that there's like still hope even in those landscapes where you know that the the the response you know like thinking about this Cullen response um that had existed for like you know many years but um
00:37:33
Speaker
That call and response is also and not to bring back the humans, but also like having an effect on like the people around it, right? Like, I don't know, like every morning I hear like the cardinal in the tree in front of my house and the days that I don't hear it, I'm like, what's happening? What's going on? You know, like there's obviously that this soundscapes that you have integrated in your life and you obviously hear when they're not, but obviously you're going to be very attentive when they're coming back. And
Soundscapes and Human Emotions
00:37:58
Speaker
so you playing them back to even that in this one occasion, it's it's interesting to think of like the effects that it has in people, but also to think of the effects that it could have in other living beings that you're not seeing or that are not manifesting, right?
00:38:14
Speaker
So, yeah. I think the playbacks were kind of addressed to the roots. ah This was my, I mean, my thoughts when we were kind of acting like this, you know, and I was like, okay, who is listening now? Of course,
00:38:28
Speaker
we humans were listening, but of course the remaining, um I don't know the name in English, like when you cut a tree and like the trunk, you know, like what it says, this was still there and yeah and this was listening.
00:38:42
Speaker
um And so we were kind of addressing those those sounds to them and maybe the roots are still listening and maybe it will still help them to grow. I don't know.
00:38:54
Speaker
Yeah, one of the things that ah I love about films that kind of like show the construction of the film is that it implicates the viewer in kind of like in the film.
00:39:06
Speaker
And so there was one cut that like you had the speakers with the wires going off screen, but you don't know where the wires are kind of like going to. And then it cuts to show the person on the laptop kind of like playing the sounds.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah. um And then, at least for me, as soon as I see the person on the laptop, i'm like, wait, there's also a camera and there's somebody filming. And, like, actually, that's me. At least my viewpoint is of the camera person. And so I'm, like, implicated in this space in a way that I i wouldn't be if the if the frame wasn't expanded so I could see the construction of the of the project.
00:39:42
Speaker
And so i I thought that was a really nice way of kind of, like, uh forcing a connection to the landscape and the environment for the viewer even if they don't know this place uh or even if they don't you know care that trees are being cut down it it it kind of like forces them to reckon with that a little bit and um at least in the way that you talk about your hope for the film i think that that is like a really useful tool uh i i thought it was i thought it was really cool
00:40:10
Speaker
Oh, wow, that's a a nice feedback. Okay. um and And now I'm thinking, of I don't know, um maybe Elisa, when you were speaking, um you know, this these clear cuts also what they bring. Sometimes you have new species coming because of the clear cuts and this hope and like this being on the positive side of it is also about acknowledge acknowledging that maybe sometimes this clear cut is bringing species that normally are not around. And there is this one sound in the in the film, which is a nightjar call, which kind of sounds like a cricket, like this. And it's this very long call of this bird.
00:40:53
Speaker
And this species is exactly coming for this, you know. They like to come in open ah open fields and just eat the the local insects. And then theyla they clap, they...
00:41:05
Speaker
fly back on the top of a tree and then they they fly down and they eat insects and then go up again and they do these circles like this and this hope that you were mentioning a lot this this implication also Joseph that you you mentioned it's it's about acknowledging their presence and like yeah it's it's it's full of hope somehow Yeah.
00:41:28
Speaker
And I think it also kind of like takes us back to the cycle of life, right? Like we were yesterday, we were talking with one of the other artists and we were talking about um like life and death and decay in like this cycle where like in death, there's also life, right? Like all this, like different systems are kind of like existent in this cycle. So it's not that there's ever really nothing, especially where're if we're thinking of this like landscapes, even though if there they're like plantations or they're artificial in a way.
00:41:57
Speaker
um So but so the ah ah there is always something there. And then the other thought that I kept thinking, that this is there is no question necessarily here, but I kept thinking about vibration. And I know that we know that sound is like vibration, but also like about other animals being able to listen or like how they listen and in what other ways can we listen, right? And so like many of them is through vibration. And and I think that also in...
00:42:27
Speaker
ah earlier you were talking about you know like trying to be silent in the space and not record it but even like steps you know like it's very different from like having a machine just going over like you know like bringing trees down etc think that all those um other things that happen that we think beyond sound are still kind of like creating this um yeah vibrations and this um frequencies that are being received by others or like other things in the space. So I think it is also really interesting to see it in that way. And, and, and not, I know that you're not like trying to like see what happened or like trying to find any repercussions or any, or cause any, right.
00:43:12
Speaker
But, um but I think I like thinking about like all the things that were actually shaken or moved when, when this performance happened. Yeah, definitely. We are so loud all the time, even though we try to be silent, not for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah That's amazing. Especially when you when you put yourself in the um yeah in the place of another species. like Of course, we are so loud. Yeah.
00:43:40
Speaker
ah You mentioned grief earlier when you were talking about solastalgia. um and they and And I definitely like went through some moments in the film.
00:43:56
Speaker
In the middle, it really felt like the songs of the birds felt almost like a funeral dirge. It felt like you were... ah like like you were ah kind of like holding space for this place that had died or something um even though ah part of it is to is to kind of like encourage restoration through through sound um but then like i was like kind of like brought back to hopefulness a little bit uh at the end so it was like a nice kind of like trajectory as a viewer to kind of like go on um which was which was cool and special
00:44:31
Speaker
um i uh what uh what's what's next what are you working on um so now i took a year to work on my phd which is really addressing those questions as well of like there is a a french word to describe wildlife sound recording which is called audio naturalism like audio naturalism And I'm writing now on the concept of audio post-naturalism, of like really integrating post-nature landscape into the the the concept of recording and listening to polluted places.
Exploring Unheard Sounds and Collaboration
00:45:12
Speaker
So I'm reading a lot. I'm listening to many artists. um And I also spend time in in scientific labs and having discussions with scientists.
00:45:26
Speaker
And now I'm going back to Le Fresnoir in September to start my second year project ah for for the PhD. And I really want to focus on things that I never heard before.
00:45:42
Speaker
And I've been trying to do some field work with bioacousticians. And one lab ah that answered me is the CISAC in the Canary Islands.
00:45:53
Speaker
And they are looking out the, I mean, monitoring the cetacean activity in CISAC. in the archipelagos. And so the idea is that I do an internship with them, ah going there on sites and see how they listen to to the dolphins and the different Cetassi.
00:46:14
Speaker
And so I really don't know what i've what i will be working on with that. Cool, that sounds exciting though. I mean, i really want to to experiment and i i I would like to work on some small,
00:46:26
Speaker
um um how do you say, like bones that are, not really bones, but we will say bones, okay, that are in the internal ears of um of fish that are called otoliths and they are used in a scleroclidum.
00:46:44
Speaker
chronology in order to to see like what is the life of the cetaceae, of the fish, ah what ah what they have been um living through. And so it's used a lot to kind of know and like the the life of the fish that was wearing those autoliths and so I would like to to imagine a soundscape that can be read on those little things. It's like some millimeters. It's very, very, very small and every fish has three pairs. And so I would like to work on the sculptures with those autoliths and listening to...
00:47:22
Speaker
to underwater and all the pollution also that is inside. And I want to listen to things that I've
Translating 'Dear Phonocene'
00:47:29
Speaker
never heard. So, yeah, this is what I want to That's exciting.
00:47:33
Speaker
Awesome. Are you familiar with the world work of this is a Mexican artist, but he has done a ton of work with citasians? How do you say it, Joseph? Cita...
00:47:45
Speaker
with like whales whales and dolphins and oh this is like the species of that yeah exactly i'm not it i have no idea and but the name the name of the artist is ariel gusik and maybe you've heard of him but he has done like some really wonderful work with with whales mostly and and it is all related to science and to sound and he has created this like crazy machines.
00:48:14
Speaker
Um, but also what you were saying made me think of like this book that I'm sure you probably already read and I am just at the beginning of it, but it's, um, um, it's, it's about, uh, they talk about fish and like how fish could actually would like make sounds like birds, like the sounds of birds kind of like came after, but fish first made like those types of sounds. Um,
00:48:36
Speaker
um and How Fish Sing? Exactly. That's the one. Yeah. Yeah. um Yeah. I started reading that and then I kind of paused because I'm also working on a thesis. So I was like, no, no, no, I don't have time for this. But um but I thought it was like really, really interesting.
00:48:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I'm now looking at Fabienne Delfour, Fabienne Delfour, who is a cetaceologue, I don't know how to say in English, sorry, a scientific who work on them with ethology and especially dolphins. And so I'm looking at yeah at at her work right now and how she has been also working on emotions um with dolphins and how we can observe and their their behaviors, basically.
00:49:21
Speaker
Super interesting work. Yeah. my Awesome. Well, thank you so much for for joining us. And i'm I'm saying thank you so that Alisa can ask her last question or or so maybe you can you can offer any final thoughts.
00:49:39
Speaker
Go ahead, Alisa. I do have a final question. And this is this has to do with language and with translation. And I was, um when I was also looking at some other ah things online about you and about the and about this film, I saw that the French in name is not Dear Phonocene, but Tendre.
00:50:00
Speaker
and And I thought that was interesting because there is a whole different meaning. yeah And i just I was just wondering if you could speak a little bit about the word choice. And and I know that maybe it's not an easy word to translate to English and then dear.
00:50:16
Speaker
it it works fine. But i I just was wondering if you could talk more about that. Yeah, um the title was really a difficult question because I wanted to address the concept of phonosine.
00:50:28
Speaker
And because I'm really stupid, I thought phonosine was a feminine word, you know? Like, I don't know. i was like, yeah, it's it must be ah she. Like, you know, in French, we have to we gender everything. And I thought, I really want to have like this, addressing this concept and it's like a super powerful concept feminine concept and then I looked out that it's like a masculine word and i was like oh no I have to find i mean either i I kind of address it in a way that it's feminine but then it's also it maybe it's too like I don't know I wanted to find a way that I i can address it in a way that is non-gender and with tender tender
00:51:11
Speaker
like it's yeah the tender the the translation is like dear it's like cher tendre it's more yeah it's about the tenderness but it's also ungendered and i wanted to keep this french title as this like Yeah, this it's like dear tender phonocène, what's up?
00:51:31
Speaker
What are we doing? You know? And I kind of prefer the English name. It's more accessible and I think Tendre Phonocène is very heavy. Also, it's like it has a lot of syllables. It's like, oh.
00:51:45
Speaker
Yeah. it's I don't know. It's a bit too, it's like French, you know, it's, I don't know. But, um but I like this idea of tenderness and, and care and spending time and that we are slow. And, and I think this is really ideas that are, yeah, that are driving, driving these projects.
Final Thoughts and Acoustic Enrichment
00:52:06
Speaker
And it's also okay like this. Thank you. that's That's the first time that I've read it the other way, right? I just like, I thought of dear as um like a letter to, right? like ah Yeah. like ah But but the but the the tenderness aspect of it is is really lovely.
00:52:25
Speaker
Yeah, it is.
00:52:29
Speaker
Amelia, do you have any final thoughts for us? um No. I mean, I wish I could come to Mexico to see this amazing exhibition and watch all the films.
00:52:40
Speaker
um But thank you so much for the conversation. and Yeah, thank you for joining us. Yeah, and the and the exhibition, if you're listening, is up until September 6th at MUCA campus.
00:52:51
Speaker
um And we're all excited to see what happens next. Yeah. What happens next. And I should say there is another piece that works with acoustic enrichment in the show, ah more focused mo more focused on choral re-use and the piece is called choralysis.
00:53:10
Speaker
Sorry, I got my tongue twisted. But um but yeah, so I think that ah this piece was like just like really perfect for this exhibition in in in many ways. And so we're very, very happy to have it as part of Projected Ecology. So thank you.
00:53:26
Speaker
Thank you so much. And I would love to see the piece of the corals. If you can send me, it would be awesome. I will. I will. cool Thank you. Thank you.
00:53:38
Speaker
Arranging Tangerines is recorded, edited, and produced by Lydian Stater, an evolving curatorial platform based in New York City dedicated to showcasing emerging artists with a focus on ephemeral, conceptual, and time-based works.
00:53:51
Speaker
You can learn more at lydianstater.co and lydianstaternyc on Instagram. Big thanks to Tall Juan, who graciously provides our intro music. His albums are available at tallwan.bandcamp.com.
00:54:04
Speaker
And thank you to you, listener, for spending your valuable time with us.