“Water may be one of the main origins of the act of listening. From the watery maternal belly, passing through the resonance of the waves of the sea, the bubbling water in streams or the encounter of rain with solid surfaces of all kinds, the sound of water is constituted as a primary part of our acoustic DNA. Bosch & Simons bring with them a newly created work entitled Acuática, in which water becomes the main generator of musical discourse.”
Text written by José Pablo Polo. Full version at http://2019-20.vang.es/vang1 (in Spanish).
Special thanks to Ben Toth for correcting the English version.
Video: Acuática VII, ENSEMS, Palau de les Arts, Valencia, September 2024 (duration 1:34)
Sound recording: Acuática VII, ENSEMS, Palau de les Arts, Valencia, September 2024 (duration 5:11)
Acuática premiered in October 2019 at CentroCentro, Madrid, as the opening concert of the 2019-20 season of the VANG cycle of contemporary music. In Acuática we capture and mix the sound of air bubbles, produced by a compressor, in demi-johns filled with water. In Madrid we took advantage of the presence of an excellent PA, mixing the air and sounds manually and then amplifying them through a quadraphonic sound system. After the concert, the audience could go up on stage and listen to the sounds up close. The large number of sound sources resulted not only in a variety of water sounds, but also a thick layer of drones that almost sounds like electronic music.
Integral sound recording of the concert:
After this first presentation we investigated ways to present the work autonomously, seeking a soundscape of a meditative nature of an indeterminate duration. Due to the Covid-19 interruption in 2020, a physical presentation of this new concept had to wait until October 2021 when we premiered two new versions simultaneously, at the Teatre del Raval in Gandía and at the Museo Vostell, Malpartida de Cáceres, both in Spain.
Acuática IV, RRRR-Festival, Teatre del Raval, Gandía, October 2021
Acuática V, Museo Vostell, Malpartida de Cáceres, November 2021
In Gandía we introduced two new elements: We hung 7 demi-johns in fishing nets instead of placing them on tables or simply on the floor. An even more important change was the use of software and proportional valves to control the production of the air bubbles. These valves can open and close gradually, giving us the possibility to create a much greater variety of timbres and sound volumes with the air bubbles than with simple on/off valves.
At the Museo Vostell we used on/off valves which result in a less complex behaviour. This was largely compensated by a larger number of demi-johns (12) and interactive elements. Here the valves were not controlled by software, but by the movements of the public. The demi-johns were placed on metal bunk beds from an ancient hostel. These not only served as practical “shelves”, they also suggested a moment of rest, necessary to immerse oneself in the meditative sounds of the work.
Acuática VI, Espacio Esparto, Chelva (Valencia), Spain, 2024
In 2024 we have shown the project twice: a small version in Espacio Esparto, a cultural space in Chelva, the village where we live, run by Simone, and a rather large set-up in the opera house of Valencia, the Palau de les Arts. In Chelva we have been exploring the visual impact of a more extensive use of fishing nets, in Valencia we combined several elements from previous versions, leading to the most complex and best sounding set-up so far. The demi-johns were placed on ancient metal fold-away beds, together with rags of fishing nets. In seven of the demi-johns the bubble production was controlled by software and proportional valves and for six of them we used six motion detectors and on/off valves. The combinations of sounds that appear are continuously changing and influence the process: the more bottles are active at a given time, the less air is available in each bottle, resulting in a fragile and complex sound system, unpredictable up to the smallest detail.
images of all versions, starting with the latest.
In the COVID era, May 2020, we made our first autonomous version with twelve sound sources, Acuática III. We never have shown this version at an exhibition, but it is on display at the project “Cultura online” of the Consorci de Museus de la Comunitat Valenciana:
https://culturaonline.consorcimuseus.gva.es/es/simone-simons-y-peter-bosch/
Acuática III, May 2020