Aufpassen

"Upon first hearing the field recording, I struggled to locate the river in it — to connect the sound with the Lech’s path from alpine source to lowland plain. What I received seemed almost random: poor fidelity, heavy handling noise, footsteps as the dominant element. A crossing over a bridge in a gorge, vehicles faint in the distance, a fragment of a human voice.

"Not a single drop of water could be heard.

"I began to think this was perhaps the truest reflection of the modern river — a soundscape shaped by human control, containment, redirection. Civilization’s ongoing attempt to civilize wilderness until even documentation becomes abstract: distant, vague, almost artificial.

"In my own practice, I usually work with fine microphones, careful preamps, precise listening. I follow the sonic clues to where the voice of nature reveals herself. But here, I was given what felt like an over‑civilized recording — a sound with almost no trace of nature itself.

"So I chose to work with that absence. I took the envelopes of the steps, the clicks, the random disturbances, and folded them back upon themselves — composing intention out of accident. From those fragments emerged an imagined perspective of water molecules: indifferent to human structure, beyond our planning and control. Bridges, roads, microphones, even this composition — all are momentary. The river moves regardless.

"In the end, whether real or fabricated, organic or synthetic, the sound becomes its own current. A flow reconstituted from civilization’s residue."

Section of the river Lech reimagined by Michael Northam. 

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Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.