Berliner Symphoniker 2022
Encoding Seas is a work commissioned by the Berliner Symphoniker together with the TRR-181 research group “Energy transfers in Atmosphere and Ocean” of the University of Hamburg and was developed thanks to the research provided by Dr. Alexa Griesel and Dr. Julia Dräger-Dietel of the University of Hamburg.
Encoding Seas is a multimedia piece for chamber orchestra, electroacoustic music, video and poetry whose central theme is the expansion of human senses through the use of technology to understand phenomena that exceed our sensory capabilities.
The work is not “just” a sonification of the data provided by the researchers, but a composition and interpretation of that data, with the goal of achieving an artistic approach to science outreach. The orchestra is arranged on a 9 x 5 grid so that the movement of the sound can function as a representation of the movement of the ocean, expressed in the moving images provided by the researchers’ survey team.
The work consists of three movements, each of which is preceded by a poem that illustrates or introduces what is being developed musically:
#1. Extension: the radar
#2. Drifting away
#3. Loneliness and Coda.