2010 / 6:00 / color / Live Audio with Video / USA

Video and Sound by Theo Lipfert

Beneath the Surface is a video piece with four-channel sound that is performed live. The footage was shot with my (favorite) Flip Camera and underwater housing in Captiva, Florida. My kids and I tied some fishing line to the housing then threw it way out into the surf. The footage was recorded as my camera washed ashore. Not only the images, but also the sound of the water smacking into the plastic housing and dripping over the case were interesting to me.
I also recorded my son’s friend Michaela as she narrated what happened in some of her dreams. This audio was also cut up into sentence fragments (45 of them) that are combined randomly to (sometimes) make sense. I used the Kyma sound computer to create the structure for the piece. A script loads audio clips from a folder and plays them in random order. While the video played, I can control the volume, amount of reverb, and spatial position of the sound in the room, all in real time.
The audio of spoken words and the water sounds (plus me and my kids screaming as we got pummeled by waves!) is different every time it is played thanks to the “random” script. Here is one version (in two channels, not four) that gives an idea of what it looks and sounds like.

Oct 2010 2nd Annual Kyma International Sound Symposium, Vienna
Jan 2011 SEAMUS, Miami