Kirsten Reese

Future Forest–Composer Kirsten Reese in conversation with Alexey Munipov

 

Why listen to the forest? How did it all start, and at what point did you decide it would become a composition rather than an installation or audio walk?

 

This project actually came about because I wanted to collaborate with Sandra Müller, a biologist working at the University of Freiburg. She is a sound ecologist, and we were talking about exploring the forest with acoustic and musical means. We started off by visiting certain areas in the Black Forest together, starting off from Freiburg. We made field recordings there, walked around, and she pointed to certain plants or birdsongs that we came across.

We also visited research sites. She talked a lot about what kind of research they are doing in the forest. And we just had some very nice days where we were in this area together, recorded, and talked.

 

Did you hunt for some specific sounds?

 

No, I didn’t have specific sounds in mind. What I found out, though, is that the forest actually makes noise. Wind noise, water noise, leaves in the wind. There’s a big noise floor. And of course, the sound there is also defined by all the birds.

 

Those are the main things that you can hear on the surface. If you would hear any forest recording, you could say, »Oh, that’s the forest.« That’s the starting point. And from there, I’m interested in becoming more specific. What specific sounds do we actually hear, and what sounds can we point to which go beyond the surface?

 

Did you have the idea what you would do with those sounds?

 

Not really. I usually start from a sound space. The question was: how can you put or combine the research questions with aesthetic compositional questions? How can you present that to an audience? Is there a way that that can come together in a concert space? These were the questions I didn’t have an answer to, but it was sort of the questions that were accompanying me all the time.

 

I was lucky that I could collaborate with the Experimental Studio, which is based in Freiburg, and of course, the Ensemble Recherche is also based in Freiburg. And I always had in mind that I would work with them. But what really interests me is the transformation of the sound.

 

So one thing was–well, what I’m doing is trying to transform data from research and also to transform sound into instrumental sound. Instrumental sound to me is a bridge between technical means. When we are recording, we always use technical means. When the scientists record data, they are doing this often today with artificial intelligence or machine learning tools.

 

So there’s always this sort of machine aspect. And then it reaches us as listeners. And the bridge there for me is the instrumentalists–both the instrumental technique and the musicians that embody these instruments and these sounds with their instruments. And that’s something that interests me a lot.

 

What is the biggest difference between the scientific listening and your own–artistic–listening?

 

The scientists work very differently. They have to do all these studies and collect data. They have to pose a question like we do, but then they really have to find evidence for this question. So they need a lot of samples. And I came to the conclusion that we as artists are lucky that we can set up hypotheses and just have an idea and work in an exemplary way.

 

So I can say, this is what I heard on that day. And then this or that came to my mind. And I don’t have to prove it to anyone. And scientists, of course, do exactly the opposite. But then again, it was really great that we went together with Sandra into the forest because it was really a mutual, enriching listening experience. Because Sandra suddenly was able to reconnect to the pure physicality and the orality of the sound.

 

And for me, it was more than the pure listening–just hearing something. But I could understand more what’s behind it. And I’ve worked with a few other scientists, and this really being together in the field, I think, is what makes the difference. And then, of course, we are not so different at all, because the questions we have are the same.

And also the methodology–in terms of really finding out something, and being very meticulous. If I compose for instruments, it’s actually not so much material, but it’s all totally chosen, you know? The meticulous approach is similar.

 

Did any scientific methods guide your artistic choices?

 

What I also did with Sandra is I went through the studies that they did, and sonified some of the data, which was really complicated because I thought I could do it more algorithmically, which I did first. But then, to really make it into something meaningful for our ears in a certain time, I ended up choosing exactly what I’m going to use, and really matching it with instruments–with instrumental sounds, for example.

 

She gave me hours and hours of monitoring recordings. They have little monitoring devices in different forests all over Germany. And I just listened back to them.

And if I found something that caught my attention, I grabbed it. And that’s probably half of the field recordings which form the base of the composition. So my approach was totally different. They use machine learning to get some acoustic indices that measure an area’s acoustic diversity.

 

And I listened to every minute and really focused on certain things that I hear there. But in the end, that came together, because I also sonified this acoustic diversity index data.

 

How did you choose the sounds? You’ve said that you picked something that caught your attention. What in particular were you looking for when listening to all those hours of field recordings?

 

These automated monitoring devices record one minute, then make a 10 minute pause, and then record another minute. And I was very surprised how much the soundscape can change within these ten minutes. Say, it starts raining, and ten minutes later the rain is much, much heavier.

 

And you really hear that. And then you hear planes. And then suddenly there’s complete silence again. Then sometimes you hear an animal–noises that animals make, not so many calls. Birds call a lot, sometimes also other animals. But it’s kind of hidden. And that’s really fascinating: to listen in to something which is just running all the time and knowing that this is going on in this forest where no one really is most of the time.

 

How do you use different microphones for that task?

 

Well, I have normal microphones. And then I also have two kinds of »earth mics«–they’re actually contact microphones. One has a very thin tip, and you can go into the earth with that. I have another one with a thicker tip, and I’ve connected that to tree trunks. You can hear the wind going through all the branches, and you really notice how differentiated this is.

 

The wind comes and starts up in one branch up there, and then it goes to another branch over there, and you sort of hear it moving. And then you can also hear when birds, for example, land on the branch–you can hear that in the microphone at the tree trunk. And then sometimes you come across some animal that lives under the trunk and scratches. And sometimes you can get beetles in the soil.

 

So I was doing a lot of recordings there, finding very small sounds. Hours and hours–and only a few minutes are really interesting or special, because you don’t always catch these animals. They are also hidden, even with the instruments that we have.

 

And I had a hydrophone. There’s so much about water in the forests–the streams, the little ponds. And the rain is very important. And if you connect a contact mic to any kind of wood and it’s raining, then you will always hear the patter of the raindrops in different ways, resonating through the wood.

 

How did you decide where to place your microphones? How did you choose trees, for example? It’s like choosing the actor for the film.

 

I just tried it out. There are trees that have a very sturdy trunk. They don’t necessarily let the sound pass through so easily. Although sometimes that’s also not true. You can go in between branches where the branches split up, and that’s where you can get a feeling for what’s going on in the trunk. But it was also pure luck.

 

And what I found under a trunk is really… I mean, that’s an amazing experience–there’s nothing, you are not expecting anything, and then you hear something, and you realize, oh, something’s there. And these contact mics are very amplified, so you really realize how much impact we have if we just walk on the soil. You can hear it.

 

And these little animals–they don’t necessarily hear in the same way, but they feel the sound. And you realize how different sensory systems work. And of course, this is a very special and important question regarding human and animal relations.

 

Were you also interested in the specific types of trees–like, what species they are, whether they’re rare, and not just how they sound?

 

Yeah, of course. That’s very important in the data. Basically, the more diverse a forest is, the more life there is. And so it’s always fascinating and nice to see if you turn around a corner, and suddenly there are other tree species.

 

There’s a whole industry of nature sounds now–ambient streams and functional forest recordings. Did you find yourself thinking about it at all? Obviously, your work is different, but in what way, exactly? What sets it apart?

 

The strategy is that you don’t listen for glamour or for something particular, but you just listen. You are just more attentive to differences. And this is really what interests me. I start the piece relatively nondescript, with just noise from wind, so that you don’t have this »wow« expectation. You also have airplane sounds in a lot of recordings.

 

Having said that, there are moments that are just spectacular–especially if you really listen into them, because you can hear the reverberations of a certain forest. That also depends on the tree species that are dominant there. And you can feel that it’s a very big space because you can hear the woodpeckers and how they resonate, for example. And you start to listen for little things–like really tiny birds or insects. Or you suddenly hear a wave of insects.

 

There were always some sounds where I didn’t know what it was–and Sandra also didn’t know. Some animal or something like that. So you start to really listen for that.

We tried to go very early and start recording at five in the morning. So we really got the last night bird, and we got the first little morning bird starting. It starts from one little bird, and then this builds up into this dawn chorus–it’s just a great experience. And it’s mainly the focus that you give. And that’s also the main intention of the composition–to give focus.

 

How does your way of listening to birdsong differ from, say, composers like Olivier Messiaen–who treated it as melodic material to translate into music?

 

I have a few passages where there’s imitation of birdsong, but it’s supposed to be a little bit edgy because it was transferred by an algorithmic machine. And it’s fascinating what comes out harmonically if that works.

 

But it’s not about birdsong. It’s sometimes about imitation, but also of other sounds–the creaking of the trunk, or wind, or rustling, or little beetles. Not in a literal sense. If you want to really listen to someone or something, you imitate it. That’s how children learn language. This appropriation of the other person’s and beings’ voice is how we communicate. It’s at the core of this ongoing work that I’ve been doing with other animal sounds.

 

So overall, I suspect it’s not a particularly soothing piece, is it?

 

I think it is, actually.

 

If you really are attentive and listen, that’s also soothing in a sense. But then there are also passages that are different, that have an airplane, for example. Or where it’s more agitated and other sounds come together.

 

And there’s a text to the piece, which people read while they listen and where we try to write down some of the questions that we’re talking about now. What happens if some forest has become dry? If there’s always airplane noise? If a forest is not diverse anymore? These questions are in the piece.

 

Speaking of the mics, do you use them as neutral devices? Because they’ve got their own character and history, and I suspect you know more about mics than about squirrels.

 

Microphones are never neutral. Loudspeakers are not neutral, too. No one is neutral. And maybe that’s also a difference to a lot of field recorders, or people doing ambient nature sound, because they try to have the very best equipment.

 

I have relatively good air mics. And I did quite some research to see what difference better technology makes regarding the earth mikes/sensors. But you need amplify so much that you would not always get more sound with more sophisticated technology. And it’s very difficult to get rid of noise level after a certain point, just because it’s amplified so much. So there’s always the microphone noise. And that’s part of the piece, because if it gets so quiet–say, at night in the forest–you will always have some technological noise.

 

The forest is a big part of German cultural imagination and memory In that context, listening to the forest is a very romantic gesture. And very German.

 

There is one question: do we romanticize this? The Black Forest of the 19th century or 18th century is not existent anymore. It was cut down to 20%. So all this romanticism is not true, if you really look at it. We were looking at it through science, and all nature that we have in Germany is nature-culture, just because it was used so heavily by humans. So there’s no romantization. It’s all already a cultural formation of what we see. No forest in Germany is wild.

 

It’s really also about diversity. But this diversity can be actively encouraged by not extracting too much and really making sure that you don’t use the forest industrially.

 

You mentioned that you and Sandra were into the same questions. What are these questions? Or put it another way, is there any message in this piece?

 

The message is: how do we save biodiversity and each other and the world? That’s sort of the big message, in a sense. But because I think this is clear, it’s not very interesting just to bring that forward too much. That’s also a question–how do you deaal with a message when you make a piece that centers around certain themes?

 

Often you would give answers that are obvious to the audience. So it’s really about sharing the experience of what we find out if we listen more. We are really connecting a contact microphone to a tree and experiencing that everrything is always connected. This could have some influence on how you see the world and how you act in the world.

 

When you’re entering the forest now, is it any different than before this composition?

 

Oh, yeah. I’ve done other nature-, landscape-related pieces in the last years, and animal-voice-related pieces, and that has really changed my focus. Actually, the main realization of mine is what diversity–and biodiversity–actually means. How rich it is, and how it always becomes richer.

 

And also, that evolution took all paths possible. It’s a big wonderland, basically. And in that sense, it’s not a bad message–not like: oh, the world is going down–but it’s more like: wow, this exists! Without these glossy nature films where you look at some exotic land somewhere, and you see all these great birds and dramatic chases or flocks of pelicans.

It’s just around the corner! And if we started recording here, you can find species. And some thrive in the city. It’s just very, very satisfying that it’s never-ending–things that you can discover.

 

Was there any moment that you thought like, »I never thought the forest would sound like that«?

 

Yes. These moments come when I listen more closely. It’s also a lot about spatial listening–you really start hearing in distances. And you hear woodpeckers, certain birds. You hear birds answering each other–you hear communication systems everywhere.

 

The force of rainfall, for example, has such a big impact. Forest is like one big hydraulic pump. It’s all about recycling water. It’s a scientific statement, but it’s something that you realize by being witness to these processes.

 

It’s not spectacular. But I’m not so interested in spectacular sounds anyway. They become spectacular, these little sounds. Be it a bird, or a little insect that has a pure hum.

And it’s great. It’s tiny, but it’s beautiful.

 

And sometimes you don’t know what it is, which is great. Sound doesn’t give away all the secrets.