Do you have your headphones on?
Let’s begin!
The project
In this research-creation project, using sound as the main vehicle of expression, we revisited three places in the eastern Colombian Andes traveled by Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland in the early nineteenth century. We aimed to characterize, recreate and compare in time these places using their soundscapes. Our main objective was to try and read these landscapes in an interdisciplinary way (arts, science and engineering) from a perspective that would allow us to understand the changes they had endured and recreate those changes with sound. The interdisciplinary approach of this project is also a sonic memorial to Humboldt and Bonpland’s legacy.
This research arose from our specific interest in the acoustic aspect of landscapes and from the question of a possible comparison of soundscapes between two distant moments (1801-2022). The detailed information recorded by Humboldt in his field notes and the illustrations derived from that fieldwork would allow us to extrapolate an idea of how these places were when he visited them with Bonpland and to extrapolate some sounds. Thus, the review of his notes complemented our historical and descriptive studies with an interdisciplinary approach such as the one provided by ecology, the discipline of which he is the father.
The chosen sites correspond to three of the places visited by Humboldt and Bonpland in the valley of the Magdalena River and the Bogotá highlands (Sabana de Bogotá), located between the central and eastern ranges of the Colombian Andes: the port of HONDA, the Tequendama waterfall (SALTO DE TEQUENDAMA) and the natural bridge PUENTE NATURAL DE ICONONZO-PANDI. The selection of places close to and linked to the Magdalena Valley at different altitudes, allowed us to reproduce the exercise in different types of Andean forests while maintaining a certain coherence in terms of the social and environmental pressures that these places have undergone during their processes of change.
By searching for the sound traces of the past that are still present in today’s soundscape, the sound recreation seeks to echo the reality of the landscapes travelled by Humboldt and Bonpland. We thus propose an exhibition that allows our visitors to perceive the spaces as if they were there and interact with various artistic and scientific languages, inviting you to an immersive experience of attentive listening.
We hope you will enjoy it!
H&B20167 COLLECTIVE: Sol Camacho-Schlenker, Camila Parra-Guevara, Yomayra Puentes, Luisa Roa, Martín Bermúdez Urdaneta, Pedro Vizcaya, Juan David Amaya.
A HUGE THANK YOU TO: Luis Enrique La Rotta, Fernando Franklin, Tiberio Murcia, Iván Romero, Ricardo Ariza, Mónica Naranjo, Alberto Gómez, Carlos A. Cuervo, Camilo Herrera, Tatiana Avellaneda, Camila Duque Jamaica, Nicolás Leyva Townsend, Carlos Mery, Tania Delgado, Luisa Fernanda Zorrilla, Nathali Buenaventura, Emilio Silva Schlenker, Antonio Contreras, Colectivo “Bichofué y la Llama Feliz”, Edgar Guzmanruiz, Elena Salazar Jaramillo, Pamela Paternina, Esteban Vanegas, Valentina Avella, Cesar Silva, Equipo Fuga, Oscar Perilla (Drink Tank), Ángela Mendoza, Alberto López Velandia, Daniela Rico, María Adelaida Farah, Luis Eduardo Parra, Marie Bernard, Séverine Delahaye-Grélois, Heidi Lasher-Oakes, Equipo 1CCBE Humboldt Villa de Leyva and all those that crossed and accompanied our path.
Colectivo Viaje Sonoro 