An audio-visual piece performed by 15 musicians and 5 visual artists, in six distinct movements.

This performance is inspired by the Marine Ecosystem Service Optimisation (MESO) scientific model of Carr, Keen, Pegg & Tillin (2018) using sound and images to express an underlying Bayesian Belief Network. This network maps human pressures through ecosystem processes to model the effect these have in ecosystem services. Ecosystem services define the benefits provided to us, humans, by a natural ecosystem. Sub Littoral Mud is the dominant habitat of the lagoon and Salinas in Aveiro. It references the fine-grain sediment of this low energy estuarine environment. By interpreting some of the model’s parameters from an artistic perspective, this performance merges two complementary narratives, sound and image, seeking to represent how the Aveiro lagoon’s water ecosystem is impacted by human activities. The piece consists of six movements: Baseline lagoon, Habitat changes, Extractive activities, Physical changes, Contamination, and Cataclysm.

Images captured in the location during the week were combined with archival film from the legacy of Aveiro filmmaker Vasco Afonso Branco. As part of the process, both sound and visuals were produced separately as two distinct, yet complementary narratives responding to the same model and structure, meeting for the first time at the time of the performance. By envisioning future scenarios, we can plan for the recovery and sustainable management of fragile habitats, yet of vital importance, for the benefit of human and non-human inhabitants.

The MTF Ensemble

The MTF Ensemble was born out of a desire to create a multidisciplinary performance that would include and connect a large number of participants from different areas in the 2021 MTF labs edition in Aveiro. With 15 musicians of very different backgrounds and styles willing to perform, Ed Rocha Gonçalves (in the role of musical director) found there was a need to implement an organisational framework that would be able to achieve 3 main outcomes:

• An organized, coherent final musical performance
• Every musician would have equal time to perform
• Every musician would perform in the style of their choosing, without external impositions

Also, since the piece would be accompanied by live visuals, Pedro Carvalho de Almeida (in the role of art director) would also be needing a framework to organize the visual artists in order to:

• Have a thematic source and structure for image creation and manipulation
• Create a tangent connection between the music and the visuals
• Create visual performative content for live implementation

The music team (Ed Rocha Gonçalves, Moullinex, Surma, Klin Klop, João Pedro Cardielos, Dinis Mota, Madeleine Wöbbe, Gonçalo Guiomar, Guilherme Martins, Konstantino Damianakis, Luís Xandy Anjos, Nestor Peixoto, Rui Maia, João Melo and Mandi Chen) and the visual team (Pedro Carvalho de Almeida, Petra Naydenov, Bita Bordbar, Benham Dayyan and Pedro Ferreira) both agreed that, in the interest of allowing total creative freedom to all artists involved, ideally all restrictions would come from an external source, so the teams decided to approach some of the scientific presentations that took place during the week for inspiration. The physical proximity of the Aveiro Salinas and Lagoon (which the whole team visited on the first day) alongside the Marine Ecosystem Service Optimisation (MESO) scientific model of Carr, Keen, Pegg & Tillin (2018) presentation by Peter Keen drew the teams to brainstorm the possibility of connecting the two, and developing the framework from the model presented by Peter.

In essence, the chosen model maps human pressures through ecosystem processes to model the effect these have in ecosystem services. By mapping the human pressures to the musicians as “inputs” and the effects of the ecosystem services to the visual artists as “outputs”, our framework started to take shape. The different pressures and effects present in the model were grouped into 5 “families”: “Baseline lagoon, Habitat changes, Extractive activities, Physical changes and Contamination”. These keywords served as inspiration both for the visual structure and the formation of 5 different groups of musicians, which organized organically according to their musical styles and instrumentations in relation to the group names. By dividing these groups into movements, we could achieve a final piece that would enable all the musicians to freely interpret the concepts in a musical style that is natural to them, and also a unique and original musical composition deeply connected to time and location in which it took place.

An audio-visual piece performed by 15 musicians and 5 visual artists, in six distinct movements.

This performance is inspired by the Marine Ecosystem Service Optimisation (MESO) scientific model of Carr, Keen, Pegg & Tillin (2018) using sound and images to express an underlying Bayesian Belief Network. This network maps human pressures through ecosystem processes to model the effect these have in ecosystem services. Ecosystem services define the benefits provided to us, humans, by a natural ecosystem. Sub Littoral Mud is the dominant habitat of the lagoon and Salinas in Aveiro. It references the fine-grain sediment of this low energy estuarine environment. By interpreting some of the model’s parameters from an artistic perspective, this performance merges two complementary narratives, sound and image, seeking to represent how the Aveiro lagoon’s water ecosystem is impacted by human activities. The piece consists of six movements: Baseline lagoon, Habitat changes, Extractive activities, Physical changes, Contamination, and Cataclysm.

Images captured in the location during the week were combined with archival film from the legacy of Aveiro filmmaker Vasco Afonso Branco. As part of the process, both sound and visuals were produced separately as two distinct, yet complementary narratives responding to the same model and structure, meeting for the first time at the time of the performance. By envisioning future scenarios, we can plan for the recovery and sustainable management of fragile habitats, yet of vital importance, for the benefit of human and non-human inhabitants.

The MTF Ensemble

The MTF Ensemble was born out of a desire to create a multidisciplinary performance that would include and connect a large number of participants from different areas in the 2021 MTF labs edition in Aveiro. With 15 musicians of very different backgrounds and styles willing to perform, Ed Rocha Gonçalves (in the role of musical director) found there was a need to implement an organisational framework that would be able to achieve 3 main outcomes:

• An organized, coherent final musical performance
• Every musician would have equal time to perform
• Every musician would perform in the style of their choosing, without external impositions

Also, since the piece would be accompanied by live visuals, Pedro Carvalho de Almeida (in the role of art director) would also be needing a framework to organize the visual artists in order to:

• Have a thematic source and structure for image creation and manipulation
• Create a tangent connection between the music and the visuals
• Create visual performative content for live implementation

The music team (Ed Rocha Gonçalves, Moullinex, Surma, Klin Klop, João Pedro Cardielos, Dinis Mota, Madeleine Wöbbe, Gonçalo Guiomar, Guilherme Martins, Konstantino Damianakis, Luís Xandy Anjos, Nestor Peixoto, Rui Maia, João Melo and Mandi Chen) and the visual team (Pedro Carvalho de Almeida, Petra Naydenov, Bita Bordbar, Benham Dayyan and Pedro Ferreira) both agreed that, in the interest of allowing total creative freedom to all artists involved, ideally all restrictions would come from an external source, so the teams decided to approach some of the scientific presentations that took place during the week for inspiration. The physical proximity of the Aveiro Salinas and Lagoon (which the whole team visited on the first day) alongside the Marine Ecosystem Service Optimisation (MESO) scientific model of Carr, Keen, Pegg & Tillin (2018) presentation by Peter Keen drew the teams to brainstorm the possibility of connecting the two, and developing the framework from the model presented by Peter.

In essence, the chosen model maps human pressures through ecosystem processes to model the effect these have in ecosystem services. By mapping the human pressures to the musicians as “inputs” and the effects of the ecosystem services to the visual artists as “outputs”, our framework started to take shape. The different pressures and effects present in the model were grouped into 5 “families”: “Baseline lagoon, Habitat changes, Extractive activities, Physical changes and Contamination”. These keywords served as inspiration both for the visual structure and the formation of 5 different groups of musicians, which organized organically according to their musical styles and instrumentations in relation to the group names. By dividing these groups into movements, we could achieve a final piece that would enable all the musicians to freely interpret the concepts in a musical style that is natural to them, and also a unique and original musical composition deeply connected to time and location in which it took place.

In the city of Aveiro, Portugal, 50 experts from the MTF community representing 22 countries assembled to collaborate, experiment and plan how we are now going to invent new, sustainable, just and equitable worlds.

Like many cities on our coastline, Aveiro will be underwater in 30 years if we don’t do anything about it. SINK is a piece evoking the memories of a city that is about to sink, with singers performing in a sink, recorded with hydrophones. One of the project’s outputs was the creation of a free downloadable software instrument called the “Nestorphone” available for download on Github at: https://github.com/ekkolabs/nestorphone

• Néstor Peixoto
• Vesna Petresin
• Ed Rocha Goncalves
• Luis Clara Gomes

In the city of Aveiro, Portugal, 50 experts from the MTF community representing 22 countries assembled to collaborate, experiment and plan how we are now going to invent new, sustainable, just and equitable worlds.

Like many cities on our coastline, Aveiro will be underwater in 30 years if we don’t do anything about it. SINK is a piece evoking the memories of a city that is about to sink, with singers performing in a sink, recorded with hydrophones. One of the project’s outputs was the creation of a free downloadable software instrument called the “Nestorphone” available for download on Github at: https://github.com/ekkolabs/nestorphone

• Néstor Peixoto
• Vesna Petresin
• Ed Rocha Goncalves
• Luis Clara Gomes

Built improvised biological batteries with microbes and used the energy output of these to modulate MIDI signals.

• Gjino Šutić
• Daniel Rosero

Built improvised biological batteries with microbes and used the energy output of these to modulate MIDI signals.

• Gjino Šutić
• Daniel Rosero

Salinas of Aveiro Audio - Visual performance

Aveiro’s salinas, pools of salt in the making, the evaporating ocean, migratory birds, shrimps, highly adapted flora and fauna. This landscape space is at once an interface between the human and the more-than-human, a gradient from the native to extreme. Field recordings of the local conditions, the water acoustics of the pools, countless images and experienced moments are woven together to attempt to unveil the many stories of the salinas: as crucial spaces for biodiversity, as vulnerable spaces to rising seas and weather changes, as a potential for nurturing empathic interspecies development.

• Feileacan McCormick
• Sofia Crespo
• Robertina Šebjanič

Salinas of Aveiro Audio - Visual performance

Aveiro’s salinas, pools of salt in the making, the evaporating ocean, migratory birds, shrimps, highly adapted flora and fauna. This landscape space is at once an interface between the human and the more-than-human, a gradient from the native to extreme. Field recordings of the local conditions, the water acoustics of the pools, countless images and experienced moments are woven together to attempt to unveil the many stories of the salinas: as crucial spaces for biodiversity, as vulnerable spaces to rising seas and weather changes, as a potential for nurturing empathic interspecies development.

• Feileacan McCormick
• Sofia Crespo
• Robertina Šebjanič

As the sea levels rise, the former coast becomes diffused in entanglements of ocean and land. Aquatic life forms such as Mermaids move inland and adapt to a new terrain. Mermaid’s Lament aims to raise awareness of the environmental impact caused by the rise of sea levels and the loss of coastline. The sea is rising at an increasing rate in the last years and will continue to affect both the aquatic ecosystem and the population that lives in coastal areas with floods, erosion, storms and threats to the urban infrastructures.

• Sitara Kapur
• João Melo
• Assunta Alegiani
• Pedro Ferreira
• Guilherme Martins

As the sea levels rise, the former coast becomes diffused in entanglements of ocean and land. Aquatic life forms such as Mermaids move inland and adapt to a new terrain. Mermaid’s Lament aims to raise awareness of the environmental impact caused by the rise of sea levels and the loss of coastline. The sea is rising at an increasing rate in the last years and will continue to affect both the aquatic ecosystem and the population that lives in coastal areas with floods, erosion, storms and threats to the urban infrastructures.

• Sitara Kapur
• João Melo
• Assunta Alegiani
• Pedro Ferreira
• Guilherme Martins

Live performance over video of Vesna walking into the ocean

• Vesna Petresin
• Francisca Siza
• Luis Clara Gomes
• Néstor Peixoto

Live performance over video of Vesna walking into the ocean

• Vesna Petresin
• Francisca Siza
• Luis Clara Gomes
• Néstor Peixoto

LIMBO (2021) is a Live Sound and Live Visuals performance that reflects on the rise of the sea levels environmental issue, its impact and effects in our cities and countries. Being both the visuals and the sound designs constructed in an improvised live performance, that synesthetic relationship is also indeed dialectic: how to construct a live sound thinking of a visual impact and how to construct a live visual to be “disturbed” by the sound. Or, in simpler terms, how to paint with music and how to play music with paint. From this, the voyage about our impact in the loss of our cities, of our biodiversity, on our heritage is a meditative, immersive, and reflective act, and a both personal and collective experience.

• André Araújo
• Nuno Sousa
• Tiago Margaça
• Marta de Menezes

LIMBO (2021) is a Live Sound and Live Visuals performance that reflects on the rise of the sea levels environmental issue, its impact and effects in our cities and countries. Being both the visuals and the sound designs constructed in an improvised live performance, that synesthetic relationship is also indeed dialectic: how to construct a live sound thinking of a visual impact and how to construct a live visual to be “disturbed” by the sound. Or, in simpler terms, how to paint with music and how to play music with paint. From this, the voyage about our impact in the loss of our cities, of our biodiversity, on our heritage is a meditative, immersive, and reflective act, and a both personal and collective experience.

• André Araújo
• Nuno Sousa
• Tiago Margaça
• Marta de Menezes