FELIPE MACIA
→ WORK
→ ABOUT
→ PUBLICATIONS
→ PRESS
→ CONTACT
ARCHEOLOGY OF SKY WALL SOUND
DOANE OBSERVATORY, 2023
CHICAGO
VIDEO MAPPING
Archeology of the Sky transforms the memory held within tree rings into immersive sonic sculpture. Using sensors, an Arduino-controlled motor, and a linear actuator, the work scans cross-sections of wood, translating the subtle variations of climate history into sound. Here, it is not each ring that produces a note, but the rhythms of growth and their variance that guide the real-time composition—shaping tempo, tone, and texture in response to the material’s climatic memory.
The work arises from the question of how we might develop protocols for listening to the sky. Tree rings are a living portrait of both landscape and cosmos—echoing the vision of astronomer Andrew Ellicott Douglass, founder of dendrochronology, who first explored the relationship between solar variation and terrestrial climate. Douglass believed that changes in solar activity, recorded in sunspot cycles, were mirrored in patterns of tree growth. In this lineage, the sculpture extends his insight, shifting the medium from visual measurement to auditory translation, where the wood speaks in the language of weather, sunlight, and time.
This is climate listening: a shift from seeing to hearing, from scientific analysis to embodied attunement. The piece invites us to experience the material world as both archive and presence, where matter retains the imprints of planetary rhythms.
Presented within a deep Vento black frame, the installation uses negative space and the absence of light as a textural element, folding silence into the composition. Two kinetic components animate the work: a rail-mounted color sensor glides across the surface, while the wood cross-section itself moves, offering new segments to be read and played. In this interplay, the sculpture becomes a dialogue between movement, memory, and the atmospheric histories embedded in matter.