ʻEarthworksʼ, the Earth's sounds at the Sonar Festival in Barcelona
Turning seismographic vibes —earthquakes, volcanoes, glaciers and quarries— into harmony is the original proposal by Earthworks, an artistic project which will be launched in the next edition of Sónar Barcelona festival, from the 16th to the 18th of June. This project is driven by the British artists Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt, the Semiconductor duo, with the collaboration of some experts of the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the University of Barcelona, who obtained seismic data from the Plantaʼs gravel extractive activity -the industrial complex of the Fundació Sorigué in Balaguer (Lleida) -born from an established collaboration agreement by Bosch i Gimpera Foundation (FBG).
Turning seismographic vibes —earthquakes, volcanoes, glaciers and quarries— into harmony is the original proposal by Earthworks, an artistic project which will be launched in the next edition of Sónar Barcelona festival, from the 16th to the 18th of June. This project is driven by the British artists Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt, the Semiconductor duo, with the collaboration of some experts of the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the University of Barcelona, who obtained seismic data from the Plantaʼs gravel extractive activity -the industrial complex of the Fundació Sorigué in Balaguer (Lleida) -born from an established collaboration agreement by Bosch i Gimpera Foundation (FBG).
Earthworks represents the geological evolution of the Earth over time up to the Antropocene, the current geological era, defined by the human impact on terrestrial ecosystems. This work consists of five big screens arranged in zigzag, where they will screen animated graphics inspired by the sand states around the industrial complex Planta Sorigué in Balaguer. Earthwork graphics will activate from seismographic data turned into sound, obtained from the extractive activity of the gravel in Planta by a team of the University of Barcelona led by Professor Albert Casas, from the Department of Mineralogy, Petrology, and Applied Geology of the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the UB, with the collaboration of Professor Mahjoub Himi and the geologist and support technician for research Raúl Lovera.
The creative work by Semiconductor is the main project of SonarPLANTA, a joint initiative by Sónar and Sorigué Foundation launched in 2014 to promote the experimentation of creative languages around science, Technology and the art in new media. Earthworks also includes the use of analogic models, technique to produce scale geological structures and ease the three-dimensional study of the geological processes that determine the relief. The artists met the methodology in more detail in the Geomodels Analogic Modelization Laboratory, directed by Professor Josep Anton Muñoz from the Faculty of Earth Sciences, who is also responsible in the Geomodel Research Institute (UB).