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Evocation of Saturn as Souls Return and Demons Depart

from Celestial Incantations by Sounds of Space Project

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Evocation of Saturn as Souls Return and Demons Depart
Location: Saturn (1.4 billion km from the Sun)
Date: 22nd November 2003

Saturn is a source of intense radio emissions as can be heard in this eerie recording, which was made by the Radio and Plasma Wave Science instrument on board the Cassini spacecraft on 22nd November 2003. These variations occurred at a rate of 30-80 kHz, well above the audio frequency range. To make these variations audible and interesting the emissions have been shifted downward by a factor of 44 and compressed such that 27 minutes is played back in 73 seconds.

The sounds of Saturn are luminescent and very much in the range of our cultural imaginings of the ‘sounds’ of space. Indeed, at one of our first public showings this question was asked, how could people imagine such a similar sound to the actual sound? Saturn has an astrological reputation that is dense and yet also potentially transcendent, hence the musical choice for the work. The strings move from solo instruments to large chordal sweeps that become vast, all played over an Iranian santour (hammer dulcimer), that pulses with composed imaginings of the sounds of the rings.

Artwork Inspirations: spiritual, celestial, all we can do is cling on after the flesh is gone, 'winds' of Saturn, sea spider as a soul or a demon?

The track cover design is a layered digital collage created by Diana Scarborough. Some source material is from BAS and Wikipedia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_constellations#/media/File:Suzhou_star_cartography.jpg

credits

from Celestial Incantations, released June 21, 2021
Kim Cunio electroacoustics, santour
Eliyahu Elias on violin and viola
Diana Scarborough track artwork
Nigel Meredith science and 'sound' curation
‘Sounds' at Saturn provided courtesy of NASA and The University of Iowa (space-audio.org)

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Sounds of Space Project Cambridge, UK

Sounds of Space Project is a collaboration with space weather research scientist Nigel Meredith (BAS), multimedia artist Diana Scarborough, and ANU Head of Music and composer Kim Cunio. Our projects emerge through a shared process of creative engagement and cross-disciplinary collaboration inspired by the 'sounds of space' from Earth to beyond the galaxy. ... more

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