Gustavo Matamoros
Soundscape with Grasshoppers (2022)
57′27″ | four-channel site-specific sound installation with subwoofer | Bridge Red Studios, Miami
LISTEN
Soundscape with Grasshoppers (2022) | 3′34″ excerpt from the 57′27″ installation | Stereo mix of the 4.1 installation | Subtropics Editions
THE WORK
Soundscape with Grasshoppers is a site-specific sound installation created within Robert Thiele’s concrete sculpture room at Bridge Red Studios. Four small K-array speakers carrying frequencies above 150 Hz, a subwoofer, and the playback equipment are concealed behind the sculptures, allowing the sound to emerge as a property of the room.
I began by mapping the room through controlled feedback. From that process, I extracted resonant frequencies and used them to compose a slowly changing field of sustained tones that makes the room’s particular acoustic behavior audible.
Over this field are recordings I made during grasshopper mating season at Anhinga Trail in Everglades National Park. The sounds are produced by grasshoppers rapidly flapping their wings. Their sharp transients help articulate the room acoustically while establishing an ambiguous sense of scale: they sound quite natural, but at times considerably larger than normal.
A sound brought from the Everglades becomes a way of hearing the dimensions and behavior of another place.
THE INSTALLATION
The installation was created at Robert Thiele’s invitation for The BluPrnt Show, an exhibition curated by Robert Chambers featuring the work of 385 Miami-based artists at Bridge Red Studios from November 20, 2022 through February 12, 2023.
The 57′27″ composition repeats without pause whenever the installation is activated. It remains installed at Bridge Red Studios and is heard during private visits and public events.
Should Thiele’s sculptures eventually be presented elsewhere, I would map the new space and create a new set of resonant tones for that setting.
short video of the installation in operation
a short video of the grasshoppers captured at Everglades National Park’s Anhinga Trail
learn more about The BluPrnt Show
learn more about Bridge Red Studios