photosynthetic beats – utricularia vulgaris, marais des pontins | ludwig berger

photosynthetic beats – utricularia vulgaris, marais des pontins

by ludwig berger

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limited 12" vinyl (incl. 12 locked grooves)
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
12" record (incl. 12 locked grooves)
with printed mat cover
edition of 25 copies

lathe cut and printed with care at Darkroom, Lithuania (darkroom.lt)

Includes unlimited streaming of photosynthetic beats – utricularia vulgaris, marais des pontins via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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1.	photosynthetic beats — utricularia vulgaris, marais des pontins I 10:18	buy track
2.	photosynthetic beats — utricularia vulgaris, marais des pontins II 10:12	buy track
3.	photosynthetic loop I 01:01	buy track
4.	photosynthetic loop II 01:01	buy track
5.	photosynthetic loop III 01:01	buy track
6.	photosynthetic loop IV 01:01	buy track
7.	photosynthetic loop V 01:01	buy track
8.	photosynthetic loop VI 01:01	buy track
9.	photosynthetic loop VII 01:01	buy track
10.	photosynthetic loop VIII 01:01	buy track
11.	photosynthetic loop IX 01:01	buy track
12.	photosynthetic loop X 01:01	buy track
13.	photosynthetic loop XI 01:01	buy track
14.	photosynthetic loop XII 01:01	buy track

about

With 'photosynthetic beats — utricularia vulgaris, marais des pontins', landscape sound artist and educator, Ludwig Berger shares the minute polyrhythms of aquatic plants’ photosynthesis.

On a too-hot summer day in the Swiss Jura, Ludwig Berger was listening to bog ponds with an underwater microphone. Below the surface, lay swarming tapestries of submerged greenery bathing in sunlight. These were the aqueous cradle of oscillations essential to our world.

As aquatic plants photosynthesize, they release oxygen bubbles from their stems and leaves. The moment of release creates myriads of extremely short sound pulses, resulting in ever-changing polyrhythms stemming from different parts of the plant. At a particularly high frequency, the pulses become continuous tones. From these sounds, one can deduce if and how strongly the plant is converting CO2 to oxygen. This depends on light and temperature, but is also affected by contaminants, fertilizers or pesticides.

The two recordings were made in two different ponds, and in both cases the hydrophone was in close proximity to a common bladderwort (Utricularia vulgaris), a carnivorous aquatic plant. While in the first recording the process is left to itself, Berger intervenes in the second by using shadows to regulate the pace of activity. At first accidentally, then intentionally, the interplay of light and shadow triggered the plants to respond with various temporal and tonal shifts.

To emphasize the microscopic processes and polyrhythms of the plants, these recordings were saturated, equalized and dynamically processed. Yet they remain unedited and unchanged in their temporality. Later on, twelve loops were extracted from the recordings to further highlight the percussive nature of the photosynthetic phenomenon. These loops are featured as locked grooves on the release’s vinyl format.

The work was created at the residence of "La Dépendance" in St. Imier in July 2022. Thanks to Jan van Oordt and the Collectif du Pont.

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A recording from this release was nominated for the "Best Natural Sound" Sound of the Year Awards 2022 → www.soundoftheyearawards.com/2022

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Ludwig Berger is a landscape sound artist and educator. In his compositions, installations and performances, he enables intimate and playful sonic encounters with plants, animals, buildings and geological entities. In his musical work, Berger produces sonic eco-fictions with processed and synthetic sounds. He studied electroacoustic composition at the University of Music Weimar and Musicology, Art History and Literature at the University of Eichstätt. As a sound researcher and teacher at the Institute for Landscape Architecture at ETH Zurich from 2015-2022, Berger studied the sonic dimension of Japanese gardens, alpine glaciers and urban landscapes. He has composed sound and music for award-winning films and theatre pieces and curates the landscape sound festival "Sonic Topologies" in Zurich and the experimental music label Vertical Music.

www.ludwigberger.com

•

credits

released June 16, 2023

duration: 20’30’’ + 12 locked grooves — limited edition of 20
recorded by ludwig berger in 2022
plant scan by Rice, W. & Rice, M. (1970)
mastered by mathieu bonnafous
design by pablo diserens
published by forms of minutiae — fom07 — 2023

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forms of minutiae

publishing platform for sonic ecologies, attuning listenings, and electroacoustic music.

artists are invited to produce sound topographies that point to specific (or imagined) environments.

curated by pablo diserens & mathieu bonnafous

> demos: we encourage submissions by women, trans, non-binary and BIPOC artists. ... more

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