This track takes me on a journey through a mysterious and serene underwater world.

Transverse Atlantis is a project by the students of the “R__m for Sound” elective at Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Taking on the challenge of creating a publication using sound as a primary medium, they set out to create an installation - an immersive experience of being in different layers of the ocean, hearing creatures and the ocean itself speak as it gets shallower or deeper.

As participants of the installation traverse up and down the staircase, they hear how the ocean changes at different levels, how holy or eerie it can become, leaving people wondering, what is hiding the water. This project essentially gives the ocean a voice - while producing the sounds and installation, a lot of thought and design process went into how the sunlight and lukewarm water, or the depth, darkness and unknown make us feel.

Throughout 2 weeks, the 18 students of the elective participated in numerous activities and assignments, producing sounds in creative ways, using everyday objects, voices, or already-made sounds, and manipulating them to create completely new sounds. As time progressed, the sounds became more conceptual and the students started questioning the medium, whether or not a sound can be trusted, and who is the owner of a particular sound. The whole idea of making sounds, manipulating them and listening to them was being explored through more intricate performances and immersive sound experiences by the whole group together, sharing ideas and concepts.

Transverse Atlantis was born by bouncing around ideas about the themes “underwater” and “to emerge”, thinking about how sound travels in water, what the ocean could sound like and what is hiding in the different layers, while also considering the conceptual idea of the ocean layers and what emotions or personal secrets they convey. By going out and producing a large number of sounds, the group found a lot of diversity among creative and vivid ideas. Afterwards, the students split up into smaller groups, dividing up the responsibilities of mixing and editing the sounds, preparing the installation space, documenting the process and publishing the project.

The final presentation went very well - people experienced the installation in great depth, spending time walking between the different layers and truly embracing themselves in this audial space the group had created. It was truly a rewarding feeling to see people really taking the time and enjoying the experience.

Makers // Surud Arif, Lan Dao, Manan Gadhia, Jette Klaver, Nati Lebedeva, Franciszek Michon, Shilen Mujicic, Ero Petraki, Gustavs Skenders, Arnoldas Sliuzevicius, Can Toksoy, Marie Veldhuizen, Joris Voeten, Luna Vreeburg, Jarmo Willering, Marius de Witte, Iga Wojak, and Alma Zijderveldt

Editors // Naomi Jansen and Ål Nik [Alexandra Nikolova]

Transverse Atlantis (Twilight level)

Transverse Atlantis (Midnight level)

Transverse Atlantis (Sunlight level)

Transverse Atlantis

Room for Sound - A Reflective Album is a retrospect
of the first year of Room for Sound. It’s a collection of fragments from interviews with some of the residents about the project and the sounds they made and shared during their residency. The album shows the richness which arises when you give room. Room for experiment, for working in silence, for developing ones own artistic process, for being able to relate to an institution in a different way and for simply creating so-called noise every now and then.

Room For Sound - A Reflective Album (2021/2022)

Room for Sound is a 10-day residency at the Willem de Kooning Academy for students, teachers and other staff of the WDKA and the PZI. The room can be used to either start a new artistic project or work on an existing one. In exchange for the room, the resident is asked to record a sound a day: this can range from an in-depth talk about the work to a short observational soundscape. The sounds are uploaded daily to the mywdka homepage so that the academy community can tune in to what’s happening inside the Room for Sound.

During this academic year (2022-2023), the residency welcomed 14 bachelor and master students who used the opportunity to work on their current resarch and elaborate on their work using the medium of sound. For some of them it was a brand new media, for others - a moment to dive deeper into their interest in the audio format. 

What was especially precious for the residents this year, was the chance to have their own place to work at the academy. The room is not a sound studio, but a working space which each one of them could decorate and transform the way they needed it. Most of them also shared that the invitation to create and publish one sound per day was a helpful push and constraint not to get lost into the endless opportunities out there.

During this academic year, the Room for Sound became of the home of more than 120 sonic pieces and accommodated plants, illustrations, collective murals, couches, cushions, laughs and conversations. In this reflective sound publication, you can listen to the selected snippets by the residents. Enjoy the journey!

Academic Year 2022-2023

Room For Sound - Selected Snippets (2022/2023)

Room for Sound is a 10-day residency inside the Willem de Kooning Academy for students, teachers and other staff of the WDKA and the PZI. The room can be used to either start a new artistic project or work on an existing one. In exchange for the room, the resident is asked to record a sound a day: this can range from an in-depth talk about the work to a short observational soundscape. Here you can find a selection of the sonic works that were created by the residents during their residencies or classes facilitated by the Room for Sound coordinators.

Transverse Atlantis

Room for Sound

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