Similar to its visual counterpart, a sonic landscape exists as an accumulation
of presences and absences. A topophone (from τόπος – place or location + phōnē –
voice) is a solar-powered sound device based only on analog electronic
components that intervenes in an existing landscape. Powered only by solar
energy and creating insect-like vocalizations of different rhythms and timbres
under changing light conditions, the topophones create connections between a
place, speech, and hybrid nature/technology sounds. The sounds emitted are
simultaneously disruptive and strangely familiar – technological echoes of
insect and bird voices. Each topophone is equipped with a custom-shaped
lime-green mouthpiece around its piezo speaker. This mouthpiece visualizes the
waveforms of spoken words. The visualized vocabulary recalls negotiations or
confrontations between technology, ecology, and profit. In this edition of the
project, we have shaped the topophones’ mouthpieces based on the audio-waveform
of names of highly toxic pesticides that poison and kill pollinators. These
names, which include Silencer, Swagger, Warhawk, Venom and Hero speak a history
of aggressive battle and annihilation that is part of industrial agriculture’s
perception of nature that can be easily categorized as good and bad in the
pursuit of ever increasing yields and profits.
Topophones
McMullen_Winkler