When people talk about Death, we seem to view it as a sign of gore, destruction, decay, decomposition. We quickly forget the beauty and eloquence behind it, how it can be inspiring. There's a medieval tradition and practice called Memento Mori (Remember that you must die), where we reflect on our time in this planet, how we transcend our flesh and live with Death, with knowing we are to die one day, but that doesn't have to be the end.
In this piece, I wanted to honor the mortality of our friends the plants by using their dying emissions as musical elements for a symphony. By having a tree's corpse present in the room we can feel nostalgia and that leads to mourning. The sounds the plants make are to high frequency for us to listen, so with samples of different specimen of flora amplified, I was able to compose a musical piece to help the audience reflect on the tree's life on this Earth. The infrared reflections of the sun are included in the piece, as well as the recordings in space made by NASA to make an atmosphere of mortal cycles.
Guillermo Bátiz, 2016.
Photosynthesis.
A forest of one.
The circles are the cycles of age.
Our story is but smoke and mirrors.
We travel space together.
The tree is a there to help us reflect life on Earth.
This is an excerpt of the 2nd movement of the Symphony.
