R-UMORE
R-umore is a research project in the field of experimental musical notation and network data art developed for my BA thesis at the Free University of Bolzano during the summer semester of 2015.
The project brings into focus the relationship between my mood and the environmental noises that daily surrounds me, from music to traffic, wind, creakings, people’s noises..
The title ‘R-UMORE’ comes from the Italian words ‘rumore’ and ‘umore’, which mean ’noise’ and ‘mood’.
I have chosen to deal with this topic because of a strong personal interest towards my aural perception of the world and the need to examine it also through the creation of new songs. I have always been curious about understanding how the mind can create new music sequences and improvisations. I think one possible answer lies in the interaction between our auditory everyday life and our mood, focus and sensitivity.
For two months I have collected sounds, emotions and environmental data (six times per day) with the support of the smartphone application ‘Reporter’, ‘Voice Memos’ recorder, and a little paper diary. Afterwards I have analysed and visually translated the material related to one month according to an alphabet of symbols specifically designed for this project. The graphical language that has been created is inspired by 20th century experimental musical notations, as well as Gregorian neumes and 'data art' infographics.
The final product consists in a diary, a memory, an archive open to multiple interpretations. Each day of April 2015 is represented by a foldable paper, which contains the visualization of six recordings (1 min each). Everything is vigorously made by hand because I wanted even the same symbols to look always different, to have some dissimilarities in intensity, thickness and dimension of the line. Each symbol stands for a certain sound and since it is almost impossible to hear the same precise sound twice, also the symbols must always be a little different each time. Finally, these symbols are not decided ‘a priori’, but they are created by pure spontaneous gestures of the hand on the paper while listening to the sounds.
