Safe Place

Safe Place. The Time of Wind and Waters Author: beepblip, 2019 "Terrans tend to feel they've got to get ahead, make progress. The people of Winter, who always live in the Year One, feel that progress is less important than presence." — Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness They say time stretches out in a place where the pace of technological progress has not caught up with the people's ambitions. For a newcomer, the village of Letea, on the brink of the ancient Letea Forest connected to the vast wetland of Danube Delta, may be the place for quiet contemplation, the time to reconnect with the wild and find one's inner peace. It is peculiar how this imaginary safe unspoiled place full of wildlife is contrasted with the harsh infertile land, cruel and violent for human and non-human animals alike. The voyage to these lands was much deeper than expected. The piece is a psycho-geographical memory of the safe place of wind and waters. Sound piece created during the SONIC FUTURE RESIDENCIES organized by Asociația Jumătatea plină and SEMI SILENT to Letea Village, Tulcea County, Romania in June-July 2019. beepblip [Ida Hiršenfelder] makes immersive bleepy psycho-geographical soundscapes by use of analogue electronics, DIY and modular synths, field recordings and computer manipulations. She is interested in bioacoustics, experimental and microtonal music. She was a member of Theremidi Orchestra (2011–2017) DIY sound collective, performing at over 30 international venues for media art such as Piksel (Bergen), LiWoLi (Linz), Spektrum (Berlin), Radiona (Zagreb), Eyebeam (New York), Zagorje Noise Fest International (Trbovlje), Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (Ljubljana), Artos (Nicosia), KSEVT (Vitanje), Kino Šiška (Ljubljana). She collaborates with media artist Robertina Šebjanič and sound artist Aleš Hieng – Zergon on a series of chemical sound installations (Time Displacement / Chemobrionic Garden; Sound Disposition / Crystal Garden). She is a member of radioCona bioacoustics collective (Steklenik Gallery for Sound, Bioacustics and Art). Her solo album Noise for Strings, Vol. 1 (2019) was published by Kamizdat label. www.beepblip.org Recording, editing and mixing by beepblip for SEMI SILENT