Place selection and study: Nastazia Spyropoulou & Nota Tsekoura 
Field recording: John Grzinich
Original Material, part of the research of the Sound Tectonics interdisciplinary workshop 2013.
Recording date: 14th of November 2013

Description: A cross point of eras, city movement, city's varied activities and social meet-up. A blent of contemporary everyday life, transportation, nature, local and international coexistance, market and leisure. The echoes of the hidden river are revealed in the very center of Monastiraki Square "collaborating" with a collection of visual prespectives of the metropolitan city of Athens.

The force of a hidden river [Eridanos River Gr: Ηριδανός ποταμός] that starts from Lykabetus Hill passes underground from Kolonaki - Syntagma - Monastiraki and ends up in Kerameikos, an area which included an extensive area both within and out of the ancient city walls where its end with the ancient cemetary marked the beggining of the Sacred Way to Eleusis and the Eleusinean Mysteries. 

Eridanos River carried over clay mud until Ceramicos bringing with natural forces and in the most sustainable manner the raw material to the potters' quarter that was organized at it's end course.

Today a carefull ear can observe how the river carries over the sounds of the contemporary life of the city.

Underground river-Monastiraki Sta01

Underground River - Monastiraki Sta02

Place selection and study: Nastazia Spyropoulou & Nota Tsekoura 
Field recording: John Grzinich
Original Material, part of the research of the Sound Tectonics interdisciplinary workshop 2013.

On the highest point of Athens in Lycabetus Hill we recorded the sounds of the city as they climb up the cables from the foot of the hill to its peak, highlighting the vertical axis of the city as well as the vertical flows of movement. We captured sensitive sounds directly from the cable material with piezo microphones along with the sounds of the material itself as it interacts with the external weather conditions. 

Wires - Lycabettus Hill

Place selection and study: Nastazia Spyropoulou & Nota Tsekoura 
Field recording: John Grzinich
Original Material, part of the research of the Sound Tectonics interdisciplinary workshop 2013.

At the highest point of metropolitan Athens, Lycabetus Hill we recorded the ambience of the city that included several urban sonic layers: transportation, human activities, protests etc. The interesting aspect of this recording lays with the perception of the distance between the sound source and the recording point, as the velocity of the wind reinstates the perception of distance.

Ambient Panorama - Lycabettus Hill

Place selection and study: Nastazia Spyropoulou & Nota Tsekoura 
Field recording: John Grzinich
Original Material, part of the research of the Sound Tectonics interdisciplinary workshop 2013.

Vouliagmeni Lake lays in the Southwestern part of Attica, on the foot of Hemettus mountain. The lake was a cave in Its original form but after an earthquake around the early Middle Ages, its formation changed to what we see today. The recording was taken at a second, smaller lake that sits next to the one that is for public use. Nature there was purer and untouched. The lake is surrounded by Poseidonos Avenue on its Western side, which runs parallel to the Athenian coast and by the foot of Hemettus mountain on its Northeastern side. The echo from the avenue was quite distinctive since the high rocks that form the lake were reflecting those gray sounds.



Vouliagmeni Lake and its natural habitats

Sound Tectonics is an educational platform focused on the research between the fields of sound art and architecture aiming to provoke debates about the impact of sonic environments on cultural practices, to address acoustical, structural and spacial connections and to theoretically and practically contextualize their cross-field connections through hybrid creations. 

Sound Tectonics series of workshops, symposiums and collaborative projects are organised by the art platform Space Under.

sound tectonics