Sonic Offering: Forest Echos - Transmission II
Forest Echoes is a speculative, sound-based ecological project that approaches the Amazon rainforest as a sentient, remembering entity. The work proposes sound and offering as a ritual medium for cross-species and cross-temporal communication, seeking to counter extractivist logics through gestures of return rather than extraction. Ritual here functions as a way of reaffirming identity—between human and forest, past and present, loss and resilience.
The project began as a speculative ecological intervention through sound. As preliminary research, I collected recordings of endangered and displaced species, reintroducing these lost sonic traces back into the forest.
Guided by the forest’s own offering gestures and manifestations, the rhythm and form of the work emerged from attentiveness to natural processes. The recordings were played through a container conceived as both transmitter and offering. Its form responds to natural shapes and gestural expressions of giving observed within the forest.
In parallel, these recordings were integrated into a live modular synthesis system incorporating a bioelectrical interface that translates plant electrical activity into sound modulation. Through this process, the forest actively shapes and transforms its own sonic traces. The modular system operates through interconnected lines: patch connections that carry electrical signals and weave relationships between sound, plant activity, and memory.
Rooted in ancestral cosmologies and speculative ecology, Forest Echoes draws on an acoustemological approach—understanding sound as a way of knowing and relating to the world. The project explores sonic memory activation as a means of accessing ecological knowledge held within the land, extending beyond human recollection into shared, more-than-human temporalities.
The project began as a speculative ecological intervention through sound. As preliminary research, I collected recordings of endangered and displaced species, reintroducing these lost sonic traces back into the forest.
Guided by the forest’s own offering gestures and manifestations, the rhythm and form of the work emerged from attentiveness to natural processes. The recordings were played through a container conceived as both transmitter and offering. Its form responds to natural shapes and gestural expressions of giving observed within the forest.
In parallel, these recordings were integrated into a live modular synthesis system incorporating a bioelectrical interface that translates plant electrical activity into sound modulation. Through this process, the forest actively shapes and transforms its own sonic traces. The modular system operates through interconnected lines: patch connections that carry electrical signals and weave relationships between sound, plant activity, and memory.
Rooted in ancestral cosmologies and speculative ecology, Forest Echoes draws on an acoustemological approach—understanding sound as a way of knowing and relating to the world. The project explores sonic memory activation as a means of accessing ecological knowledge held within the land, extending beyond human recollection into shared, more-than-human temporalities.
Documentation during my time in the residency LabVerde
Image Credits: ©Christian Braga by Labverde
Image Credits: ©Christian Braga by Labverde