El Hierro is the smallest and most distant of the seven main Canary Islands. Exploring its contrasting landscapes and sonic environments, the composition wanders through reverberating deep ravines, the interiors of wind-bent juniper trees, human-animal interactions, energetic trade winds blowing in deserted beaches, and the late-night wails of shearwaters nesting in the cliffs. 

Headphone listening recommended.

Environmental sonic matter recorded in El Hierro Island in May 2021. Composed in El Charco, Puerto Cabras, Fuerteventura, June 2021. Special thanks to El Hierro Island Council.

This piece is part of CANARIAS DC SOUNDWALK, a project exploring the sonic ecologies of the Canary Islands, presented as a series of geolocated compositions throughout chosen locations in Washington DC.

HIERRO was premiered during Sound Scene Festival 2021 (26-27 June), organised in collaboration with DC Listening Lounge and the Smithsonian Hirschhorn Museum.

CANARIAS DC SOUNDWALK is a permanent public invisible artwork available through the Echoes app from September 2021.

https://pablosanz.info/canariasdcsoundwalk/
http://bit.ly/CanariasDCSoundwalk

CREDITS 
Commissioned and produced by the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in Washington, D.C. Fieldwork and production assistance: Palma E. Christian Martínez. Additional support from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI), the Swedish Arts Grants Committee (Konstnärsnämnden) and the Visby International Centre for Composers (VICC).

HIERRO was a finalist at the Phonurgia Nova Awards 2021 and Grand Prix Nova 2022.

HIERRO

listening with(in) the trees 🌀🌀🌀

for headphone listening ~  original sounds recorded in El Sabinar, El Hierro, May 2021 during a fieldtrip for the project CANARIAS DC SOUNDWALK, supported by the Cultural Office of the Spanish Embassy in the US ~ first released on the World Listening Day 2021 THE UNQUIET EARTH compilation, GFR, Portugal.

http://bit.ly/CanariasDCSoundwalk
https://archive.org/details/vagfrwld2021theunquietearth

sabina turbinata

site-specific installation | 8′ | 20-channel audio | 2014
¡VOLUMEN! Festival de Culturas Sonoras: ITINERARIO
La Casa Encendida, Madrid

Commissioned for a guided exhibition-walk through La Casa Encendida for the festival ¡VOLUMEN!. The work was in the itinerary section titled ‘Limits of the Ear’.

The installation is situated at the emergency staircase, an area of the building usually not accesible for visitors. The work uses a custom made multichannel setup with twenty compact loudspeakers distributed all through the stair flights from the basements to the terrace, across five stairs levels. 

The composition is based on sound materials detected in situ with a handmade induction coil microphone, a simple tool which picks up electromagnetic fields, revealing hidden sounds not perceivable to bare human senses. This instrument was used to explore the building, recording electromagnetic radiations from devices such as lights, routers, alarms, surveillance cameras, antennas and maintenance systems.

http://pablosanz.info/volumen/

-- SOUNDCLOUD AUTOMATICALLY COMPRESSES AUDIO TO MP3 128kbps FOR STREAMING -- UNWANTED ARTIFACTS ARE NOTICEABLE PARTICULARLY ON THIS TRACK, SORRY ABOUT THIS ---

!!! (¡VOLUMEN! La Casa Encendida, Madrid)

Commissioned by Atelier de Création Sonore Radiophonique (ACSR) Brussels for Silence Radio in 2012. Curated by Etienne Noiseau and Irvic d’oliver.

"Extraite des limbes des flaques, des mares et des étangs, se déploie une biodiversité fantasmagorique. Baissez-vous, un peu plus bas, un peu plus près de la surface, et buvez le bouillon par les oreilles." 

Based on hydrophone and above water recordings made in freshwater environments at various locations in Spain and Slovakia between 2007 and 2012. 

SILENCE RADIO :: Hiver 2012 : IN THE END (last edition)
10 commissioned works by: Henri Morelle, Anne-James Chaton, Andreas Trobollowitsch, Thomas Baumgartner, Yann Leguay, Christophe Deleu & François Teste, Pablo Sanz, Hanna Hartman, Anthony Carcone, Gregory Whitehead

http://www.silenceradio.org/grid.php?artist=131

released on Bandcamp, stereo and quadraphonic multichannel version, 2016
https://pablosanz.bandcamp.com/album/limnee

limnee

https://pablosanz.bandcamp.com/album/aeolian-precipitations

Based on wind recordings made in Den Haag and Leiden, The Netherlands during the Winter 2011. Contribution to the radio show Broadcasting Den Haag, produced at the Institute of Sonology for Framework Radio. Curated by Raviv Ganchrow and Patrick McGinley. 

The piece was also released in the double CD compilation SOUND-IN 2012, published for the 1st Sound-In Programme for New Creators at Estampa, Spanish Multiple Art Fair in Madrid, October 2012.

aeolian

spectrum (ståtic limbø) is a live performance series focused on the exploration of environmental electromagnetic energies.

pablosanz.info/static-limbo/

stereo live excerpts from a quadraphonic live performance at VELAK-export in Vienna, 07.01.2016

many thanks to Vinzenz Schwab & VELAK crew

SPECTRUM | live excerpts @ VELAK Vienna 07.01.2016

This sound work features surface and inner ice recordings performed in the Orava reservoir (Oravská priehrada), the largest (35km2) lake in Slovakia. The speed of sound in ice is approximately 4000 m/s, entailing a much different behaviour than sound travelling through air (343 m/s). The crackles and mechanical vibrations propagate through the ice, travelling long distances, and producing stunning percussive sounds and ethereal resonances. During a week In January 2016, I made long recording sessions which created more than sixty hours of materials. The composition can be heard as one week of listening compressed into almost eight minutes. 

originally released on ‘INNERSCAPE’, published by the label VacuaMœnia, Sicily, Italy in 2017. 

available on Bandcamp
https://pablosanz.bandcamp.com/album/49-23-35-n-19-32-52-e

headphone listening recommended 
please download the best possible quality 



mesh (earthworks) series

49º 23' 35'' N 19º 32' 52''E

Based on underwater recordings from the canals of Den Haag, Spring 2009. Premiered at Gallery Lokaal01 Geluidpost in Breda, The Netherlands.

liminal

Site-specific sound installation, October 2010
8-channel audio, tactile transducers
CSA La Tabacalera de Lavapiés, Sótano Sur, Madrid
Collaboration with Juan Cantizzani

SOUNDING SITE is a listening environment based on the specific physical properties of the basement area where it was installed in the former national tobacco factory known today as ‘La Tabacalera de Lavapiés’. The piece activates and renders audible the space, exploring resonance phenomena, spatial and material aspects of the site.

http://www.pablosanz.info/sounding-site-tabacalera/

sounding site [tabacalera madrid] | installation excerpts

presence is a sound work based on the exploration of architectural resonance and audible silence. It is based on environmental recordings made in the buildings of Tabacalera, the former Spanish national tobacco factory in Madrid. Almost two centuries old and derelict for years, Tabacalera was partially reoccupied as an independent cultural community center at the beginning of 2010. 

The piece is based on recordings made during off-hours in the Summer 2010. Ambiences, barely noticeable sounds, structural vibrations transmitted through the architecture and acoustic measurements (impulse responses) in vacant spaces are the raw materials used in the composition. 

Originally created for the 5th edition of the Festival IN-SONORA, premiered with a concert at Tabacalera in October 2010.

Further versions of the piece performed live at : Wonderwerp at Studio Loos, Den Haag, MEX at Künstlerhaus Dortmund,  IAM Gallery, Madrid,  noise=noise, London. A live recording was also included in the listening programme of the festival Urban Observatory in Torun, Poland, 2012.

Excerpts from a live performance at Studio Loos, Den Haag.
(multichannel recording converted to binaural, headphones listening is recommended).

http://www.pablosanz.info/presence

presence | live excerpts (LOOS, Den Haag, 27.10.2011)

immersive ambisonic multichannel installation and live performance
ongoing project series, duration and dimensions variable

entangled explores the nonhuman worlds of the Amazon rainforest, focusing on the fascinating complexity of the continuous sonic flow created by insects, birds, amphibians, mammals, reptiles, fish, plant species, soil, water and the weather.
The work facilitates a profound, active and sustained listening experience, cultivating intimate sensory encounters in which affectivity is favoured over signification and representation. The listener-participants find themselves in almost total darkness, without images or objects, within a sound field generated by a multichannel sound system.
The work is a durational composition made from several hundred hours of environmental sound materials recorded in terra firme and flooded forest (várzea) ecosystems within the territories of the Amanã and Mamirauá reserves in the central Brazilian Amazon. The fieldwork was carried out over two months in the dry season of 2015, in collaboration with local inhabitants.
entangled is experienced as a series of immersive installations and live performance events, featuring variable sonic materials and extended durations. 

The project uses higher-order Ambisonics. This audio is decoded to stereo (headphone listening encouraged).

unreleased

entangled (excerpts for headphone listening)

site-specific sound installation
8-channel audio, custom speakers, Max/MSP 
pablo sanz & juan cantizzani

30 June – 7 July 2012 | 24-hour
Tunnel Lekstraat-Schenkkade, Binckhorst, The Hague

A shifting aural topography based on the daily rhythms and the resonant architecture of a pedestrian and cyclist tunnel. The sound changes over a twenty-four hours cycle, interacting with the existing soundscape and the movements of passersby. The result is an added aural layer which is perceived as not having physical origin and belong to the site. Exploring the threshold of perception, the work aims to induce a switch of focus, a momentary lapse in the urban transit experience.

The project draws inspiration from the notion of ‘Rhythmanalisis’ proposed by Henri Lefebvre, on which he outlined a method for analyzing the rhythms of urban spaces and their effects on the inhabitants of those spaces. The spatial behavior of the sound and the overall cyclical structure are based on the rhythms of the site, accompanying, contrasting and extending them.

www.pablosanz.info/transient-lapse/

transient lapse (Tunnel Lekstraat-Schenkkade, The Hague) | installation excerpts

2019, 37 min, for headphone listening
commissioned for R{A}DIO{CUSTICA}, Czech Radio Vltava (Český rozhlas ČRo 3). first aired on 30.10.2019, 22:00, PremEdition Radioateliér. curated by Ladislav Zelený. winner of the Prix Paysage Sonore / Field Recording at the Phonurgia Nova Awards 2020.

Based on environmental recordings along the territories of Amanã and Mamirauá, in central Amazônia, strange strangers focuses on unusual listening perspectives (above, underwater, and ultrasound), inviting us to listen to (within) a singular world of vitality and non-human otherness. Listening cultivates profound encounters with other beings (life-forms, abiotic terrestrial matters, sounds...), and with our being as an other.

available on streaming
www.radiocustica.cz/pablo-sanz-strange-strangers-8114365 

www.pablosanz.info/strange-strangers

strange strangers (excerpts)

site-specific sound installation | Nave Intermediae
18.05 - 13.06.2013 | Matadero Madrid

2 channel audio, 4 exciters, 2 large metal doors, room

excerpts from 28 min cycle

http://www.pablosanz.info/duo/
www.mataderomadrid.org/ficha/2604/sharawadji--duo.html

DUO(Matadero Madrid)| installation excerpts

unheard, out of earshot, indistinct, imperceptible, hushed, faint, low, infrasonic, muted, soft, muffled, murmured, quiet, whispered, muttered, mumbled, silent, soundless, still, noiseless, unclear, ultrasonic 

https://phonosbcn.bandcamp.com/album/in-audible

(in)audible explores a variety of sounds on the periphery of human perception, including phenomena beyond our usual hearing range, "hidden" acoustic spaces, and "small" or unnoticed sounds. The project attempts to listen with other-than-human agents (species, energies, matters, things and technologies), engaging in alternative ways of listening. 

The aural materials featured in the composition were created using different extended listening and recording strategies. It includes electromagnetic noise recordings, geophysical and atmospheric effects, matters in states of transition, structural vibrations, ultrasound, close-up, contact and underwater bioacoustic sounds. 

All the original recordings were made at multiple locations in Spain, The Netherlands, Germany, and Slovakia from 2008 to 2012. The first version of the piece was commissioned by FONair (Cumbria, UK), with a premiere broadcast in January 2013. In addition, different headphone and spatial versions of the work (4, 8 and 16-channel) have been performed live and exhibited at multiple events in Wroclaw, Ljubljana, Brussels, The Hague, Heerlen, London, Kent, Belfast, Girona, Pontevedra, Porto, Viseu, and São Paulo, between 2013 and 2016. 

http://pablosanz.info/inaudible/

headphone listening recommended

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