Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"I approached the River Lech as a memory machine: wide air and landscape, close water detail, and the river’s vibrations. These hidden resonances became the harmonic spine of the piece. 

"The composition stays faithful to the original source while drifting into abstraction: selective time-stretching and spectral sculpting reveal submerged textures; granulation turns droplets and foam into a fine acoustic dust; site-shaped reverberation merges perspectives into one blurred, dreamlike space. 

"What begins as a recognisable current slowly becomes a palimpsest: the river as presence, then as afterimage."

Section of the river Lech reimagined by Giuseppe Cordaro. 

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Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"A data sonification of the Lech River - the river as score

"A river does not compose. It erodes, carries, deposits. Over centuries it traces a shape into the land — a shape that is the accumulated record of rainfall, geology, seasonal flood, and human intervention. This project begins with a simple question: what does that shape sound like?

"Using computer vision applied to satellite imagery, I extracted the geometry of a segment of the Lech river. From this geometry I simulated 300 trajectories — triplets of coordinates describing the paths that small stones might travel as they roll along the water flow. Each triplet becomes a pair of pitches, derived from comparing the point's position within the river's width and the segment's length to a given musical scale. The data does not illustrate the river. It becomes the river's voice — oblique, distributed, never quite repeating.

Listening like a river bank

"The musical material is deliberately modest: long tones, broken arpeggios, pizzicatos. These are not interpretations of the data — they are its shadows. Harmonies emerge not from compositional intention but from the spatial distribution of 300 points across a riverbed. Some small musical forms surface briefly and dissolve, the way a eddy forms in shallow water and is gone before you have named it.

"The experience this work invites is close to a particular kind of attention — the attention of someone sitting on a bank, watching water. Not analysing. Not judging. Allowing the mind to follow the surface until the distinction between observer and observed quietly loosens. Patterns appear. Whether they are in the data or in us is precisely the question the piece does not answer.

"There is a specific joy available in this kind of surrender — in relinquishing the expectation that music should go somewhere, and discovering instead the pleasure of aleatory variety, of randomness that is not arbitrary because it carries the memory of a physical place.

History flows with the river

"The Lech is not only a natural form. It is a historical one. Its current shape reflects centuries of channeling, dredging, and management — the marks of communities that depended on it, altered it, lived beside it. The random paths of the simulated stones are therefore already entangled with human time.

"Late in the piece, this entanglement becomes explicit. The voice of a local Lorelei appears — drawn from my own translation of Andrea Zanzotto's poem "Femene che le lava", written in Venetian dialect. The poem recalls the women of his village descending to the river to wash clothes: an image so old it barely needs explaining.. Zanzotto's images — rooted in the Venetian foothills, in the sounds of a community already disappearing when he wrote — arrives as sediment does: carried from upstream, deposited gently, changing the texture of the riverbed.

"The voice does not resolve the piece. It passes through it, as the women passed through, as everything passes through.

Technical note

"Satellite imagery of the Lech river was processed using computer vision techniques to isolate the river's outline and identify its navigable segment. 300 coordinate triplets were then simulated within this area to model plausible stone trajectories along the water flow. Each point was mapped to two pitches by relating its X/Y coordinates to the river's local width and total segment length, using a fixed musical scale as the conversion frame. The resulting pitch sequences form the harmonic and melodic raw material of the composition, realized through sustained tones, arpeggiated figures, and pizzicato textures.

"I also incorporated some fragments of Francesco Ganassin's composition for the opposite side of the river, to blend our individual imagined soundscapes, together."

Section of the river Lech reimagined by Sergio Marchesini. 

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Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"A crowded procession of singular figures, images and imaginaries, possible futures 

"“Figures” is built upon a field recording of a threshold zone where the mountains begin to yield to the plains, and where the river itself is divided since a part of its water is withdrawn into a side channel for hydropower production.
The underlying approach draws on Steven Feld's proposition that attentive listening is itself a rigorous form of research. Given time and attention, sound ceases to be the object of study and becomes its instrument, a means by which human, natural, hybrid, and alien figures can be identified within the landscape, and within the constant flow of water. 

"Isn’t culture a constant flux? 

"Isn’t transmission/tradition a constant flow?

"The matter is: inquiry of this kind is subjective. Its situatedness is not incidental to Figures: it is its method. My personal geography is deeply intertwined with the river systems of Veneto: I was born on the river Brenta in Bassano del Grappa, I live in Rovigo between the Po and the Adige. In my life a flowing river has always meant home. In youth it was the mountains’ presence, and its trails, that shaped me; now it is the plain. But the river is a constant. By the way, what I brought to the field recording of Section 8 is not only a way of listening. I have used a set of different instruments I conceived to make that listening recognizable. 

"DzigaLoop, a digital tape looper I built on a Bela board and programmed in Pure Data, creates recursive temporal relationships between sonic materials, revealing the silences between gestures and embodying a conception of time as growing and living memory rather than a linear progression. And through DzigaLoop some sounds I have been carrying for a long time appear: the tinkling of small bells, flies, birds, the babble of distant voices, field recordings made at home, 16 years ago. Old personal memories that resurface here in the water.

"Loscillator, a synthesizer built for the MozziByte platform, contributes sustained oscillating layers that function as an harmonic ground. It is basically something between a multiple drone and a choral slow breath. 

"Aquadrone, a mobile app I developed in FaustDSP, adds a dimension of submerged, immersive resonance. It is active and somehow disturbing, suddendly disrupting.

"Within the piece, two further figures surface. A fragment from Bill McKenna's sonorization of Section 1 appears, like a homeless sonic memory traveling downstream with the water, arriving here as something half-familiar and half-strange. 

"A female voice processed through DzigaLoop, originally taken from Sergio Marchesini's composition for this same Segment 8, in my imagination is an anguana, the water spirit of Alpine and Venetian tradition, neither fully human nor fully other. Me and Sergio, old friends, in this case are two researchers listening to the same stretch of river independently, each on one bank, catching glimpses of each other across the water, listening to singular figures, images and imaginaries, possible futures.

"Deeply processed underwater piano and celesta sounds complete the procession, dissolving the boundary between acoustic instrument and environmental presence. They are more than a sound. They stand for an attitude, maybe for what Hildegard Westerkamp, in her keynote address to the ISEA 2015 in Vancouver, defined as the “preparedness to meet the unpredictable and unplanned, to welcome the unwelcome”."

Section of the river Lech reimagined by Francesco Ganassin. 

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Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"What stood out for me in the data about the segment as well as in the sounds themselves, were two things: (1) the fact that the river was channelized at that segment, (2) the distant factory siren, very reminiscent of the sirens I have heard on my visits to Kyiv in these last years. The starting point was thus the anthropic forces, i.e. modifications of the banks, part of channelization processes, as invasives into the intricate and fragile riverine ecosystem. For me this meant that I wanted to hear staccato, and broken rhythmical elements. 

"I sampled several pieces of the original recording to construct rhythmical patterns, synthesized the sound, and used granulators to break down and spread the bits and pieces. I also generated a sound at the same frequency as the siren, to give a hint of a sense of unease when I think about extractivist approach with which humans treat the landscape."

Section of the river Lech reimagined by Daina Dieva. 

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Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Upon first hearing the field recording, I struggled to locate the river in it — to connect the sound with the Lech’s path from alpine source to lowland plain. What I received seemed almost random: poor fidelity, heavy handling noise, footsteps as the dominant element. A crossing over a bridge in a gorge, vehicles faint in the distance, a fragment of a human voice.

"Not a single drop of water could be heard.

"I began to think this was perhaps the truest reflection of the modern river — a soundscape shaped by human control, containment, redirection. Civilization’s ongoing attempt to civilize wilderness until even documentation becomes abstract: distant, vague, almost artificial.

"In my own practice, I usually work with fine microphones, careful preamps, precise listening. I follow the sonic clues to where the voice of nature reveals herself. But here, I was given what felt like an over‑civilized recording — a sound with almost no trace of nature itself.

"So I chose to work with that absence. I took the envelopes of the steps, the clicks, the random disturbances, and folded them back upon themselves — composing intention out of accident. From those fragments emerged an imagined perspective of water molecules: indifferent to human structure, beyond our planning and control. Bridges, roads, microphones, even this composition — all are momentary. The river moves regardless.

"In the end, whether real or fabricated, organic or synthetic, the sound becomes its own current. A flow reconstituted from civilization’s residue."

Section of the river Lech reimagined by Michael Northam. 

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Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"For the Flow project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the University of Padova, and the University of Würzburg, I composed an original piece of music based on a field recording made by researchers along the Lech River near Höfen, Austria.

"Titled “A Sense of Place”, the composition brings together history, atmosphere, geography, and memory, reflecting the moment when the listener arrives inside the landscape. Ambient and restrained, the work carries a quiet archival weight, its textures shaped by the crackle and patina of early 78-rpm recordings. Rather than describing the river directly, the piece allows sound itself to function as a record, letting meaning emerge slowly and intuitively.

"The Lech is one of the last largely free-flowing rivers in the northern Alps. Its mineral-rich waters and shifting gravel banks have shaped both the surrounding landscape and the cultural identity of the Lechtal for centuries. This continuity—between past and present, place and memory—forms the emotional core of the piece.

"Within this context, “A Sense of Place” is intended to feel less like a composition and more like a discovered artefact—  something uncovered rather than authored. Timeless and quietly resonant, it invites the listener to inhabit the river’s memory and allow the sound to do the storytelling."

Section of the river Lech reimagined by  Jeff Düngfelder. 

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Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"A bridge suspended, a crossing over point. I decided to keep the idea of the river Lech as an abstraction. I live on the other side of the world so it took on this imaginarium. 

"The sounds of the hanging bridge floating brought to mind this liminal space of crossing worlds with the eternal flow of the river a metaphor for life itself . I thought about this being one of the first industrialised points. That industry intrudes on nature but eventually we all return to the source. 

"Every sound you hear is a manipulation of the original sound recordings , manipulated through signal processing or used to trigger a synth and made into loops. The water is mysteriously absent but just outside of the frame of the piece the life we cross over."

Section of the river Lech reimagined by Lisa Rae Bartolomei. 

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Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"In “Strands/Textures”, I weave together the field recording (as the main strand), with other strands of sounds inspired by the descriptive phrases and aerial images in the materials describing this section of the Lech. This piece was created in VCVRack2 using a combination of the original field recording, field recordings/foley sounds created specifically for this track, and modules available in VCVRack. 

"For the “string of pearls” imagery used to describe the appearance of this section from above, I added in recordings of beads and jingle bells being strung on a filament and recordings of plucking the filament. I incorporated “ears of the upper Lech” and the notions of taking space and time into the spoken word section, which is also a moment of calm and pause, but also of direction for moving forward. In a bit of word- and sound-play around the braiding of the river being constrained, I used a specific constraint for the sequenced parts of the track, I used Audible Instruments’ Macro Oscillator (the VCVRack version of Mutable Instruments’ Braids module). 

"The sequenced parts of the track represent the vibrancy of community in Stanzach around the river, but notes in sequences are randomized, bringing in additional dimensions of space and time."

Section of the river Lech reimagined by Stephanie E. Vasko. 

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Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"When choosing our sources of inspiration, we allowed ourselves to focus exclusively on the sound of the river. We deliberately chose a very active track, rich in sonic events, in which the river sounds like a veritable orchestra. We spent hours listening to this natural improvisation, searching for melodic and rhythmic tendencies in the apparent chaos, as well as evidence of the interaction between different elements. We tried to imagine how these sounds might have influenced the people living on the banks, generation after generation: their speech, movements, songs and music, psyche and thinking. 

"At the same time, we deliberately refrained from any documentary references—historical, ethnographic, ecological, etc.—preferring to let the psyche float freely and see what emerges. 

"Of course, there was a great temptation to employ a multitude of instruments, both arguing and supporting each other, but ultimately we decided to limit ourselves to just three (counting the drum kit as one) in order to preserve the ability to closely observe their behaviour. And the river itself remains as the orchestra, in which three seemingly familiar elements perform unimaginable somersaults. As you watch them, try to imagine yourself in the shoes of people whose entire lives are defined by such a soundscape. 

"Not a smooth, soothing pink noise woven from millions of equivalent elements, but a dispute, a clash, and at the same time a long, incomprehensibly long, joint activity of active characters."

Section of the river Lech reimagined by Bayun the Cat and Valentin Doychinov. 

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Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"For the beautiful Section 4 of Flow, I wanted to celebrate the rewilding projects that took place between 2016 and 2022 under the LIFE Lech “Dynamic River System Lech” at Elmen-Nussau and Vorderhornbach.

"I was immediately inspired by the photo of the sound being recorded at the bridge. Imagining being in that moment, overlooking the meandering turquoise braids of water, the gravel beds and the dark green forests and wondering what the ecology of this area would be like and that I'd need to hike here one day. So I wanted to bring together an ecological sonic landscape.

"The river is played using a rainwater-filled glass harp, guided by the geomorphic imagery. Using a recurring motion of playing the top of a wine glass, I wanted to embody the water movement of the River Lech. Moving not as a straight line but more in swirls, spirals and circles, flowing left and right.

"Varying the level of rainwater in each glass created a scale of resonating frequencies that formed individual braids of the river. I found joy in playing the glasses in the imagery of this section of the River Lech. Occasionally, using a particular resistance when playing the glass to give a sense of friction against the gravel beds and under the bridges, sometimes slowing the pace of the river down afterwards.

"I used the field recording of the river to create artistic interpretations of ten animal vocalisations from birds, amphibians, fish, and insects. By selecting out the matching spectral vocal range of these species. Many of which were on the LIFE Lech's target list.

"A low D whistle creates the feel of a riparian forest. Researching the rewilding projects, I discovered the number of important plants in the area, such as Dwarf Bullrush and German Tamarisk, and that, in the summer months, over 6,000 Lady's-slipper Orchids inhabit the forest on the upper left side of this section of the river. Botanical drawings of these plants were turned into sonic spectrograms, which were blended into the piece.

"At the Elmen-Nussau location, 10 groynes on the left riverbank were shortened by a total of 280 m. Included as 10 slightly intrusive faded notes panned to the left at their rough positioning of where they once sat on the riverbed, before the first rewilding melody of the piece.

"At the Vorderhornbach location, Linear and cross constructions were shortened or removed over a 2 km length on both banks. A particularly forested section, here I have made this section of the piece fuller and wilder before the sounding of the “Hornbach” tributary line, which joins the River Lech, moves us into the melody for the second time.

"I loved the idea of connection with other parts of the river, with the river being an important corridor between different habitats. I incorporated 6 seconds of a sound bite called 'Dusty Stem' that Bill McKenna kindly donated from section 1. I have taken the sound bite down by 3 semitones, imagining it carried down the river through sections 2 and 3, and into 4."

Section of the river Lech reimagined by Rachel Larsen-Jones. 

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Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.