Sonar

In the concert and live installation Sonar by Mobile Homes the audience meets a string quartet, computer sound design and a video choir in interaction. The video material is a mix of geophysical recordings, animated satellite maps from the weather services, sonar scannings of old wrecks from the war on the sea floor, acoustic visualisations of the sea floor outside of the coast and portrait interviews from Nordland. 

Because Sonar by Mobile Homes was made on commission the concept was made through the process of gathering sound and video material plus various researches.

The work took shape through a slow approach to Bodø. Mobile Homes found it important not to put pressure on themselves via random ideas. Finding an appropriate title took time, and when Sonar came up it felt like a break-through because the title at one and the same time refers to the visual, the acoustic and to the local community.

From then on it was clear that the company should work vertically and to examine other dimensions than the horizontal. For instance, on the sea floor one can see traces made throughout thousands of years, one can see a trace of the curved line from space, coral reefs taking a million years to build, ship wrecks and crashed airplanes; memorials of a time no longer visible other places.

Sonar by Mobile Homes is from the start intended to be adjustable for new surroundings and it is intended to let the visual and the middle part of the composition develop continuously. The middle part originally consisted of a choral work, approximately eight minutes long. In Bodø this part was performed by a local choir of 40 young women.

In Stamsund the choral work was represented virtually on ten separate video screens. The original image and sound material has gone through a process and has been developed into an independent installation lasting approximately 15 minutes. The work is shown prior to and after the concert itself.

In Bodø Sonar was staged in the mall Glasshuset in the centre of the town, in Stamsund in a shut-down fishmeal factory.

SOURCES:

Mobile Homes, mobilehomes.no, 30.11.2010,  http://www.mobilehomes.no/level2/installations/sitespesific/sonarsitespesific.html

Stamsund International Theatre Festival, stamsund-internasjonale.no, 30.11.2010, http://www.stamsund-internasjonale.no/Old/2005/