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Description
Deep Listening Deep Sea(ing) comes as our response to a challenge to increase ocean literacy. We want to draw attention to the deep ocean, as it is wider, less known and of extreme importance for life on earth.
Advances in ocean submersibles, imaging and sampling technologies are contributing to incredible biological and geological discoveries, but they have yet to make it into textbooks. The deep ocean is also threatened by the same damages happening to coastal waters (overfishing, oil spills, plastic accumulation, chemical and noise pollution) to which we can add those resulting from the race for the resources that the ocean floor contains.
The aim of DLDS is to create artistic experiences that contribute to raise awareness of the importance of the deep ocean. The project will invite teenagers to create “audiovisual postcards” and “soundtracks” to images / films of the deep ocean provided by the University of Bergen and the Task Group for the Extension of the Continental Shelf. “Imagining” the soundscapes of a barely known universe is a fascinating challenge and the results will be publicly presented in final presentations that will also include scientific talks.
The Pianoscope is the “sound factory” that we will use to create original sound resources in artistic residencies and workshops at the International Academy for Music Arts and Sciences in Marvão, involving CMT artists, teenagers and the general public, which will allow the creation of a “sound vocabulary” that will be made available in an open “library”. This sound material will later be used at the Fábrica Centro Ciência Viva Aveiro in workshops aimed at teenagers with the purpose of creating “sound postcards” and/or sound videos of the deep ocean.
This project joins a number of previous CMT projects that address the need to “tune” people with the fragile world we live in: Deep Sea Mission (2015); NOAH (2017); Murmuratorium (2019) or Thousand Birds (2020, part of Lisbon European Green Capital 2020).
Summary of project results
The Deep Listening Deep Sea(ing) project challenged teenagers to imagine and create soundscapes that could accompany images of the deep ocean collected during scientific missions in Portugal and Norway.
To achieve this, they utilized the Pianoscope, a contemporary interactive installation that transforms the piano into a collective instrument, allowing for a vast array of sounds to be created. The Journey to the deep sea included lectures by scientists and audiovisual/music creation workshops led by multidisciplinary artists. Engaging with "real characters" from these seemingly distinct worlds was a crucial aspect of the project, and for those who embark on the journey, it''s possible that it never truly ends: questioning, experimenting, discovering, and imagining are enduring experiences that take us to many places. Unveiling the mysteries of the deep ocean is a challenge for the scientific community, but conveying this information to the general public, especially teenagers, will help develop their critical thinking—a powerful tool for changing attitudes. That was the ultimate goal of this project.
The project reached more tham 900 people, mainly young people. The global results are kept on a dediacted web page (https://musicateatral.com/en/constelacao/deep-listening-deep-seaing/) were thay can be seen and used. We produced a video to promote and keep the project alive.
Summary of bilateral results
The University of Bergen, our bilateral partner, provided a significant amount of the high-quality footage that was“sonified”. It was very important for Portuguese students to realize that the research in PT is at a comparable level,and within reach, to that done in NO. The scientists involved in the project appreciated the role that art can play in communicating science and expressed intentions for future collaborations in projects where art can enhance scientific endeavors.