The auditorium of Jameos del Agua, “a volcanic tube under the rough skin of the island, which was a haven of silence for centuries, and today welcomes the most beautiful sounds of human creation and nature”, in the words of the Councilor of the Biosphere Reserve, Samuel Martín, hosted on Wednesday afternoon the premiere of the projection “Lanzarote, Reserve of the Sonosphere”.
Its author, the sound engineer and expert in nature recordings, Carlos de Hita, offered the public a master class about what he calls “seeing with your ears”, the desire to immerse yourself in sounds to understand the landscape, “something that forces you to go slowly and stop to listen”, he pointed out.
He referred to the different layers that make up soundscapes: geophony, which is the setting where the symphony of nature takes place; biophony, composed of the voices of the different living beings and phenomena that occur in the biosphere, such as wind, storms, tides or birds; and finally, anthrophony, the sounds of humanity that escape from their contexts and participate in the sound spectacle.
He recalled that, in a conversation with José Saramago, at the end of the broadcast of a radio program in which they both participated and where fragments of his recordings were heard, the Nobel Prize winner put his hand on his shoulder and said: “Until today, I have been deaf.”
“Silence, a rare commodity today, is the canvas on which the landscape is composed, which cannot be understood in its entirety without listening to its soundtrack, the story that nature tells of itself, with its own voices”, explained the creator.
The metaphorical power of Carlos de Hita's story was the perfect prologue to the screening of a concert that the author has provided with images to facilitate its understanding, although he suggested that the people present close their eyes and concentrate on listening. The alisio wind trapped in the blades of a windmill or dragging a gorse, the ocean impacting against the coast, the extensive catalog of bird trills or the voices of people from Lanzarote from another time, are the raw material of this beautiful work and an evocation of the island's past and idiosyncrasy.
De Hita's talk concluded with the story of his experience recording the volcanic eruption of La Palma and the advance of the boiling lava in Tajogaite “which resembles broken glass”. “Before that experience I thought that the storm in a forest contained the greatest sound power of nature; until I heard the roar of the volcano, which is like the breathing of a giant.”
The sound map “Lanzarote, Reserve of the Sonosphere”, the result of the collaboration between the Biosphere Reserve and the Art, Culture and Tourism Centers, can soon be enjoyed on the websites of both entities and will be permanently screened in the Jameos del Agua auditorium.
