Sound sculpture by Tiziana Grandi – Annamaria Federici – Damiano Meacci
With a long-time companion in many adventures, Annamaria Federici, and a new friend, Tiziana Grandi, in 2024 we began working on the sound installation “Speranze” (Hopes).
This historical moment has plunged us back into international and national situations that, at least in Europe, we hoped to have left to the history books – the resurgence of wars, the growing fear of the different, the ever-diminishing solidarity towards the other, highlights more than ever the significant role of hope. As if this was not enough, we must face numerous global challenges, first of all the problems related to the climate crisis.
Hopes as the desire to achieve a goal, the desire for happiness, the desire for justice, the desire for a tomorrow to leave one’s children.
Desires as the driving force of society that is not satisfied or conforming, but also as intimate and propulsive elements in every one of us.
The Hopes, impossible to hold, grow, are born and die, becoming forms through the clay sculpture.
The Hopes become sound in the sculptures through their resonances and vibrations.
A first short installation video:
The sound of “Speranze”
The sound of Speranze is connected to the physical objects that make up the structure in the search for sonority and for a spatial distribution able to restore a strong connection between the physical and the sound components of the work.
The sound installation uses a series of exciters and speaker cones, in a multi-channel configuration, positioned inside the ceramic works.The arrangement of the works is therefore studied to highlight their symbolic value and conceptual rendering but at the same time to allow a correct sound rendition.
The use of loudspeakers with a non-linear frequency response (especially the exciters), a feature also emphasized by the interaction with the various elements of the ceramic work, is a strongly desired attribute with the aim of tightening even more the link between sound and sculpture.
The sound content is, therefore designed and built starting from this very particular “sound diffuser” through specifically studied choices, manipulations and gestures.
The sound structure thus constructed does not have a predetermined shape but evolves over time through the use of algorithmic composition tools and artificial intelligence which, thanks to the use of a probe microphone, exploits the acoustic feedback of the space to adapt the sound to the installation.