David Monacchi in interview

• • What is »Fragments of Extinction«?
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  • »Fragments of Extinction« is a long-term interdisciplinary project which is recording, analysing, disseminating and communicating ecoacoustic data collected in the remaining areas of intact and currently undisturbed primary equatorial forest in Africa, Southeast Asia and Amazon. Through advanced 3-dimensional recording technologies, uniquely employed in these remote and extreme environments, the project is building an extensive sound archive of circadian cycles. These 24-hour spherical soundscape portraits are presented to audiences in the form of full-periphonic immersive installations, to foster awareness about the extinction crisis and the urgency of heritagization of the last sanctuaries of biodiversity, which high systemic integrity is surprisingly clear in their sonic processes.

• • What inspired you to do this?
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  • It is clear now that climate change is deepening the biodiversity crisis and for sure sonic habitats get impoverished and become less organized, at the same pace of regional and global extinctions, invasive species and habitat loss.

    Aware of this, our mission with »Fragments of Extinction« is not to trace ecological changes over time through sound, but rather to record 24-hour samples asap, in as many 'undisturbed’ equatorial primary forests, the ones containing the highest species richness, age, and ecosystem integrity. In there, specific spots are chosen where habitats overlap and create the most complex soundscapes, and microphones are oriented to reach equal perspective among soniferous species and individuals. Entire sound portraits of these very special places represent the eco-acoustic digital imprint of evolution, stored for future generations, but also immediately available to be shared in specific immersive venues for awareness raising, through the direct sensorial/cognitive experience of soundscapes with high ecosystem integrity.

    It is this subtle acoustic »intelligence« of balanced species composition that we are loosing with climate change, no matter how much protected that forest is. Although in order to create an evidence of that, long periods are needed with robust sensing technology – recording systems which are not capable of high quality audio. Our approach with Fragments of Extinction relies instead on »one shot« multichannel systems (32+4+2 tracks) with the highest 3D spatial resolution possible with current studio technology (which we brought for the first time in moist environments) in order to urgently produce heritage rather than indicators. 

• • What does ZKM mean to you?
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  • Presenting the project and producing the immersive concert at ZKM will be a pleasure and an great opportunity to inform your community that ambisonics and hi-quality immersive domes (as the one at ZKM) can be also used to experience primeval nature in its unaltered original form, and in explorative analyses and artistic integrations of the 3D data collected in the field.