Immersive experience
SONIC JOURNEY
All the voice overs in this project come from volunteers who for the most part recorded themselves remotely from their own homes using their personal devices and submitted their audios, adding their personal voice to this journey.
None of them were recorded at the same time or were reading the texts together.
YEAR:
2015-present
DIRECTOR:
Yaiza Varona
CONCEPT:
Yaiza Varona
A journey is something that takes you from A to B while challenging your comfort zone in the process,
Single Origin Hypothesis
According to the recent single origin hypothesis, human ancestors originated in Africa, and eventually made their way out to the rest of the world.
YEARS ago
It is believed, on the basis of genetic evidence, that all human beings in existence now descend from one single man who lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago.
SAN PEOPLE
Sonic Journey in an immersive, cross-disciplinary audio guided experience which describes the concept of travel and how it universally affects the man; how it impacts its identity, its story, the new thoughts it triggers inside. Both the positive and the unsettling elements of travelling.
It´s conceived to make the audience go on a virtual journey by experiencing what any traveller goes through: the excitement, the confusion, the drama, the challenge overcoming, the peace, the knowledge gained.
It also covers nowadays migration, the more individual and spiritual aspects of any journey, and all the questions these human movements awake inside.
The linking element for the story telling is the great migration from Africa of the first human beings, the Bushmen (San People), which started 60,000 years ago and resulted in the population of the whole globe while originating the different human races.
Theirs is the greatest journey ever, as it´s what actually gave place to our own; but more importantly, it also means that if we go back in time enough your grandfather, my grandfather and everyone´s in the planet are the same.
In order to explore a bit more of our own journey and celebrate our common origin, a series of folk tales from the Bushmen and other key texts are read by volunteers from all over the world and edited to form a storytelling with their experience. Also, using the contents (video, pictures) of the smartphones of the audience, we embed their own experience into the visual narrative of a virtual journey where the main character is the viewer.
After exploring its senses of adventure, excitement, the real drama and the spiritual journey present in every travel, this work reaches the present day, when it is up to us to decide how the journey will unfold, as we take it on us to continue what the San People started more than 60,000 years ago.
We reached here, today- and now, what?
We leave this question open and offer as possible closure for this opportunity a bit of quirkiness hoping that humour and tenderness may make the journey still ahead of us a bit more interesting….
The thesis there is that the first Bushman that left Africa was no different from any of us, here and now, as journeys democratically bring us to our default settings, before any constraints set us apart.
This is a proposal for walking not a mile but 60,000 years in the shoes of the Bushmen to recreate not their journey but to re-live our own. To switch places with what we were, maybe what we will be.
It’s not they walking, it’s me, it´s us. After all, we’re all San People.
TOYS
According to the recent single origin hypothesis, human ancestors originated in Africa, and eventually made their way out to the rest of the world.
BUSHMAN 2.0
Excerpt of suite Sonic Journey, Bushman 2.0 gently shows the paradoxical world of modern day hunter gatherers in their every day jungle. Visuals by Jesús Hernández
Dragons and Migration: the concepts behind
Dancer and choreographer Estela Merlos explains different excerpts of Sonic Journey
Visual artists:
VOICES
Marja Seidel
Jose Angel Estevez
Carmen Negrin
Itahisa Gonzalez
Mauro Armengod
Liu Yan
Jono Lavelle
Ishan Basyal
Gregorio
Alicia
Luis Alberto
Paula Paz
Ajjaz Awad
Titania Krimpas
Elliot Hadley
Becky Black
Tom Walsh
Alex Kirkland
THANKS
Journey Companions
If you want to arrive fast, go alone; if you want to arrive far, bring company
The Origin
According to the recent single origin hypothesis, human ancestors originated in Africa, and eventually made their way out to the rest of the world.
It is believed, on the basis of genetic evidence, that all human beings in existence now descend from one single man who lived in Africa about 60,000 years ago. The earliest groups of humans are believed to find their present-day descendants among the bushmen, also known as San people.
To the Young Moon
The Adventure
There are two journeys in every travel; whereabouts in the world you are going and the journey inside, so the same person that left may not be the same person arriving
A second type is carved on the screws of fiddles, since most dragons are fond of music.
A third is carved on the tops of stone tablets, because of dragon´s love of literature.
A fourth is found at the bottom of stone monuments for dragons can support heavy weights.
A fifth is placed on the eaves of temples, as dragons are ever alert to danger.
A sixth occurs on the beams of bridges, since dragons are fond of water.
A seventh is carved on Buddha´s throne, as dragons like to rest.
An eighth is placed on the hilts of swords, since dragons are known to be capable of slaughter.
The ninth is carved on prison gates, as these are dragons that are fond of quarrelling and trouble making….There are nine major types of Chinese dragons. These include the horned dragon, the winged dragon, the coiling dragon who lives in water, the celestial dragon who protects the Gods, the spiritual dragon which makes wind and rain for the benefit of mankind or the dragon of hidden treasures who keeps guard over concealed wealth.
The last of the nine is the dragon king, which actually consists of four separate dragons, each of which rules over one of the four seas, those of the east, south, west and north.
The Drama
Thoughts About Returning Home
He only awaits the return of the moon; that the moon may go round, that he may return, that he may examine the water pits; those at which he drank. He will work, putting the old hut in order, while he feels that he has gathered his children together, that they may work, putting the water in order for him. For, he did go away, leaving the place, while strangers were those who walked at the place. Their place it is not; for my father’s father’s place it was.
The Destination
For all what we wish and leave in the hands of the Gods. For all the hope in precious projects, for all what’s new and unknown, for all the brand new starts and the funny coincidences. For all the wishing wells, for all our faith growing warmer in our chests, for all the unexpected curves in the road and the surprises they bring. For the ability to surpass them with health and joy…
The journey of The Journey so far:
Sonic Journey has different versions that range from a solely audio experience to the full cross disciplinary immersive experience adapted to the space of the performance.
A first draft of this project, in its audio version, was premiered in experimental audio festival Audioblast 3 in Nantes, France in February 2015 and streamed globally in real time.
A second version including visual content from more than a dozen artists who provided their own vision of different stages of the journey and live visuals was performed in the premiere of tech festival Techtoberfest 2015 in London Fields, London.
Sonic Journey in Audioblast 3 (Friday 27th, 22:00h France time)
Sonic Journey in Techtoberfest 2015, 2nd October 19:00 London Time
Sonic Journey in Homeland for Nour Festival 2016, 5th November 16:00h London Time
Currently in R&D, it is our intention to keep exploring the different aspects of it and make it grow towards its full potential.
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