Impossible Moments from Venice: The Other Side of the Lagoon, 10'

“Impossible Moments from Venice: The Other Side of the Lagoon” is an impossible experience of a real place based on my first visit to Venice. Loaded with preconceived notions about history and culture, and inspired by how Venice has featured in the literary fiction of some of our great writers, my goal was to explore the reality of this city of islands, canals and bridges with my microphones. Happy to be there outside of the peak of the tourist season, and a year after the cruise ships had been banned from the lagoon, I walked, listened and recorded. The tall buildings mislead my GPS and cast me into watery dead- ends, while a blind corner might reveal a hidden diagonal bridge leading to a passage the width of a person, transporting me to my desired destination. The composition places the listener in a fictional location beyond the reach of reality as Venice awakens one misty morning - as if in a dream state that nevertheless appears to be totally real.

Short synopsis detailing poetics and compositional strategies.

The composition primarily uses EigenMike sound recordings captured as Venice awakens early morning: town squares, the noisy iron piers, motorboats, a fish market and everyday activities that punctuate the dawn such as window shutters being opened and the sound resonating down the canals. Rather than create a soundscape composition my aim was to explore the space, the texture and the spectrum of the sources as musical materials. The work hovers on the intersection between real and abstract, soundscape and pure music.

Although all information about the soundscape is encapsulated in the recorded 3D sound-field, I applied methods that I have developed over recent years to isolate simultaneous sound sources and their spatial features such as location, focus and motion characteristics. This then allows me to process and control what are now independent sources extracted from the original recording, and then combine both scene-based and object-based approaches to composition. With this method I can also represent the spatial scene as a high density of directional sources that allow me to synthesise a continuous morphology between the real space and a dynamically shifting fiction.

Some of the compositional processes include resonant filtering based on spatial- frequency information in the original scene, and directional gating to isolate intermittent articulations which can be used to rearticulate the original recording.

Sound images are also particularly important in my compositional strategy: I avoid spatialising mono sources unless I intend a pointed result and instead create spatial images from clusters of sources. In this way I can more easily control the nature and behaviour of my sounds, scenes and musical counterpoint. In this composition I combine both methods.

One of the challenges with these methods is that diffuse reverberant qualities tend to be spatially ‘gated away’. To overcome this, I made ambisonics impulse response recordings which I could then convolve with some of my processed sounds to reintroduce the original diffuse sound field.

Technical information outlining the original spatialization techniques employed.

• Source recordings were made with the MhAcoustics EM32 microphone and two Dolphin Ear hydrophones.

• Spatial analysis and source extraction was carried out using beamforming techniques in Spat5, and spatial data tracked in my own MaxMSP patches.

• Spatialisation in 7th order HOA was carried out in Spat5 (spat5.hoa.encoder~ and Spat5.spat5~ / spat5.oper). Reaper was used as a container for sound and spatial data streams that were then passed into to MaxMSP using IRCAM’s ‘OSCAR’ vst plugin for data, and ‘BlackHole’ for audio.

• Feature analysis to explore frequency and amplitude variation, then used as data to control sound processing, was carried out using Flucoma and Spat5 objects within custom made MaxMSP patches.

• HOA impulses were captured with the EM32 and a cluster of Genelec loudspeakers (I did not have IKO or similar omni-directional speaker available). Convolution was processed using Kronlachner’s ‘MCFX’ vst plugin and spatially fine-tuned to suppress the directional bias of the IR using Kronlachner’s ‘ambix direction loudness’ vst plugin.

• Mixing was carried out in Reaper.

- Words from the Jury -

It is with great pleasure and admiration that we award Natasha Barrett the 3rd prize in our composition competition for her exceptional piece, "Impossible Moments from Venice: The Other Side of the Lagoon."

Natasha Barrett's composition embodies the essence of artistic exploration and creativity. In "Impossible Moments from Venice," she masterfully captures the enigmatic allure of one of the world's most iconic cities, Venice, and transcends its tangible reality into a realm of auditory imagination.

In her own words, Barrett takes us on a journey beyond the ordinary perceptions of Venice. Loaded with preconceived notions, she ventures into the city armed not with brushes or pens, but with microphones, ready to unearth its hidden treasures. Through her keen observation and acute listening, she navigates the labyrinthine alleys and canals, where every blind corner holds the promise of a hidden passage.

Barrett's composition skillfully manipulates sound to create a dreamscape that blurs the lines between reality and fantasy. As Venice awakens on a misty morning, listeners are transported to a place that feels both familiar and otherworldly, where the mundane transforms into the extraordinary.

It is through her meticulous craftsmanship that Barrett invites us to experience Venice in a way that transcends the limitations of sight and transports us to a realm where the impossible becomes possible.

Please join me in congratulating Natasha Barrett for her remarkable achievement and for enriching our artistic landscape with her visionary composition.