Binaural audio installation
“[T]he world, the very emblem of all that is solid, moves beneath our feet like a crust over a fluid; one second of time conveys to the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would never create.” Charles Darwin, Beagle Diary
Earth Traces is a sound collage based on a series of seismometer recordings of earthquakes, infra-gravity noise, ocean- and weather-induced microseisms, and human and animal activity. The audification process involves converting the seismic data to low frequency audio files and transposing them to the human hearing range by playing the waveforms at different accelerated rates between 12 and 5000 times, and thus changing their pitch and duration. In this domain of listening, geological time becomes tangible and the naturally occurring seismic and micro seismic tremors take on musical qualities, revealing suspenseful sonic landscapes of subterranean processes as a slow-listening experience.
The practice of listening to planetary vibrations takes advantage of the ear’s ability to detect signals hidden in the noise much faster than the eye can scan a seismogram. Pioneered by seismologist Hugo Benioff in the 1930s, the practice developed into the field of auditory seismology, which was widely used until computers took over the task of data analysis in the 1970s.
The works were created in collaboration with seismologists at Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and University of Cambridge led by Prof Sergei Lebedev. The recordings used in these works were made at various seismic stations across the European continent, and by the SEA-SEIS network of ocean bottom seismometers in the North Atlantic.
David Stalling is a sound artist working with acoustic and electronic sound, field recordings and scientific data, often focusing on the relationship between the human, the natural world, and technology. He studied Music Composition at Maynooth University, Ireland. His works have been presented in Ireland and internationally. Recent projects included Assembly (2025), the Ireland pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale; Prelude, Eruption, Tremor, Sleep (2025) at Magma Rising, Heong Gallery, Cambridge, UK; all these words (from Beckett’s The Unnamable) (2021-22) at Museum of Literature Ireland, Dublin; Under the Feet of Shadows (2024) by EL Putnam and Mike McCormack at MART Gallery, Dublin, and 18th Street Arts Centre, Santa Monica, CA.
Webpage: www.davidstalling.com
Instagram: @stalling.david
On view from September 26. until October 11. at: HAUNT
RELATED EVENTS
Symposium: David Stalling and Sergei Lebedev October 3, 3 pm / Flutgraben – Projektraum
Click here for infos >
Photo: Earthquake audification, David Stalling © 2021