Collaborations with Matilde Meireles.
Campo Próximo (Near Field) is a sound installation created in collaboration with Matilde Meireles for the project Invasor Abstracto, by Osso Colectivo. It plays with the perception and construction of places. The installation creates dialogues between such places and the spaces in which they are presented. For this iteration, we drew a straight line through the territory that connects São Gregório in Caldas da Rainha (where OSSO Colectivo is based), and Convento São Francisco in Coimbra. We explored various locations along this line, searching for their particular qualities, and captured them using sound and image.
These materials are played back in the exhibition space, with a duration corresponding to the time it would take for sound to travel the same distance. Meanwhile, a microphone positioned in the centre of the room captures the sound recordings, and the result is played back alternately at each end of the room. This process repeats several times, modulating the sound properties and merging the recordings with the acoustic signature of the presentation space, as in ‘I am Sitting in a Room’ by Alvin Lucier (1969). The dialogue between the various field recordings and the room accelerates until complete convergence – when architecture and audience become protagonists of the listening process.
The installation is also activated in a musical intervention which explores the sound materials in concert format.