CLAIRAUDIENCES
Archeo-digital report

The W.S.D.A (World Society for Digital Archeology) is in charge of an in-excavation and survey taking place in the area No 4040755 of the former Internet Interface Sphere (AKA Internetsphere), corresponding to an approximatively 508 km2 in the 40o 40’N 7055’W of the global sphere parameters: the former Portuguese territory.

The first procedure for engaging with the exposed section and extract data is what we call “pick-and-shovel”. Almost like a classic earth digging but with digital tools and programming techniques.

A first encrypted residue was found on the exposed section or surface of the so-called WASTELAND#404, drifting between layers on the 215.0 pixels squares and the 232.0 pixels squares deep.

We had to turn to technology usually deployed in obsolete data surveys. After using the Bit locker 7.0 software (now deprecated) we were able to recover and access the encrypted data.

A highly decomposed audio file is what we found, what in classic archeology is called a “deeply weathered” feature. 00:02:34 duration, high pitch, granulated noise, short wave form. It is not possible to say if the audio corresponds to a sound recording or other kind of audio file, but from its coding and compression aspects, we can deduce that it could correspond to an .MP3 file. Who knows what was lost with the change of the algorithmic network of the recent years.

Report #1/ Bells and birds
date 28.10.2322

Going 50.0 pixels squares deeper the nature of the strata becomes more and more complex. The density of data changed, as well as the preservation state of data structure. We found three more files that were able to be recovered using the same software. The three of them were also audio files.

The quality of preservation has improved even though there is still evidence of erosion. Regarding what the cartography provided by the former mapping team of data survey in the WASTELAND#404 shows, we might not be reaching some material that should be found there. It’s very likely that we are even destroying features through the procedure of “pick- and-shovel” deployed since we have found small unreadable sound bits that could be a result of the rupture of data layers caused by the digging.

The first audio file shows what appears to be some sort of bell alarms. It might mean there were still religious sound-related ways of social control and a time-based social organization. Surely it is too early to speculate.

The bells appear to be constructed in metal materials, as most bells in the Iberian Peninsula and West Europe. The melody is repetitive and the different bells create a sort of harmony within the different melodies each bell plays. There is reverberation although sounds like an open space. The echo of the bells lasts for 23 seconds. Almost no other sound is heard apart from some birds.

It is known that if we found this kind of data on a given area of the Internetsphere, the possibilities of a human inhabited space become more likely. There might be more than one cultural layer under the exposed section, but for being able to know that, a new method and new tools are required.

Bird sounds were present in both of the other files. From what we can get from the technical aspects of the recordings, these were probably small-sized birds that lived among humans. We can hear them close to the sound recorder device deployed. Somehow it seems that the relation between the subject that records and the birds is one of closeness. There is confidence on the side of the birds that approach very close to the recording source.

We have send the file to the E.F.A.R.O. (Extinct Flying Animals Research Organization) to see if they can gather more information regarding the species and taxonomy through their Bird Recognition Software.

With these kind of encounters, we always come across the question of who might have done the recordings. And why. This second question might be answered with new findings.

Could we extract information from these audio files regarding the human-animal (specifically human-birds) relations in a given period of time and space?

We need to go deeper and start expanding the diameter of the in-excavation in order to find correspondences between material layers. Going deeper might lead us to older data, but also, from what we have found in the last 10 years of digital excavations within the Internetsphere, digital materials tend to drift while decomposing, even trespassing altitude- latitude parameters.

This means that we still cannot connect the features with the location in it’s global sphere parameters. Could this be a kind of Natural History Archive from the Portuguese territory? Is it maybe part of a national depository for scientific research?

Report #2/ What water can tell us
date: 04.11.2322

We have decided to try with a different tool in the second week of survey. The IGPR (Internet Ground Penetrating Radar) allows us to cover more ground and go deeper. At the same time, it doesn’t break data structure that may lead to a matrix de-configuration, and by doing so, leaving us only with bits and pieces. This tool works with pulses of radio waves thrown towards the exposed section. When they hit something they bounce back. That data is recorded and analyzed. The frequency used was of 40 mega hertz in order to penetrate down to 400.0 pixels square of profundity.

The first file we encountered was an audio file with a sound recording of water in movement. Sounds like shallow water over a surface of rocks. Probably in the middle of a forest. It is possible to hear the wind moving the leaves and branches of different kinds of flora around. Given the possible distance from which we can hear the sound of the leaves we can distinguish both tall trees and low bushes. Also insects and some birds. The same kind of birds of the last feature, but further away.

Taking into account the profundity of the archeo-digital site of in-excavation we can deduce that files found here are at least two thousand and fifty years old. But we are still not sure of the function of the survey site. No spoken language on the recordings. No “folklore music”. No cultural clues more than an interest or even reverence for nature and its sounds.

What are the relations between bells and birds, bells and water? And more important, what is the relationship between the recording subject (which we assume is human) and these soundscapes and sonorous objects? What is the motivation behind these recordings?

Until now, apart from the recording of bells, we have encountered mostly natural soundscapes. What is common in all recordings, is a fixed recording point, which leads us to a fixed listening perspective. The absence of movement in the way of recording leads us to question the very human presence behind these recordings.

By assuming we can describe a “motivation”, we are also assuming a human perspective in the recordings. By doing so, we are taking for granted that we can find human social behavior within these features. If they were recordings from a more complex machine- based monitoring system, from which we are only getting fragments that do not allow us to observe the magnitude and function of the apparatus, we are perhaps losing the meaning of these audio files.

Report #3/ Un-fixed knowledge
date: 18.11.2322

Carrying on with working with the IGPR system in the last two weeks we have come closer to a much dense region of information. What we could call a “broad fountain” of data. Several files were found and they seem to correspond to a closer nucleus of origin. All of the ten files founded are related through the recorded subject: water. It appears to be the same source of water, probably a river, but the approach in every recording changes. We could even say that the technology deployed for every recording varies. A specific file caught our attention: an underwater recording done with a sort of hydrophone.

In another file we can hear to a large group of people swimming and playing in the water, mostly children. Their voices express joy. In relation with the previous files related with water, this is the first explicit presence of humans and their relation with the water element. We are not sure if it’s the same water source (the river we have heard before), but the possibilities are high. What is the relationship of these people with water? Why is water being a such important element to record in this society?

It’s interesting to listen to these files that show a territory where water was very present. It may give us some ideas about the quantity of natural water sources this territory has (in contrast with the lack of natural water sources we have today). At the same time, taking into account that around those years the Global Warming -that led to the considerable Climate Change with which we are still dealing- was at one of its highest peaks, may also give us an idea of how precious water was for this society.

Maybe it’s wrong to think that a huge amount of water sources where at display in that territory, and on the contrary, this attention to water (through the sound recordings we have encounter) may be read as a concern for it’s disappearance. Perhaps these audio files correspond to the only source of water in the area, and the insistence on recording it responds to a desire to preserve it in other possible states: as an archive. But why are there no audiovisual representations of these water sources? These kind of data could show us a more direct representation of the territory we are encountering, while sound might keep us in a zone of in-definition and un-fixed knowledge.

Since we are only finding audio files, in order to being able to understand things from an aural perspective we have to abandon the searching for a fixed topography, and start to truly pursue for archeological questions through sound materials. What can we understand from a culture, society or way of living depending solely and exclusively on the traces of a sound-based human activity?

Report #4/ Sound fluids
date: 25.11.2322

This week’s main activity was a speculative dialogue between the members of the research team, trying to understand over what kind of soil are we “standing”. To be able to really deploy a sound-based research we are trying to take a step back and ask ourselves questions regarding the nature of the files we have found in the last weeks of survey. One of the most striking paradoxes relate to the absence of visual materials throughout the in-excavation. Some of the team members suggest that we might be dealing with files that used to be audiovisual-based, and due to time and digital degradation its visual aspects have been erased.

This idea is based on some reports published in the last years by the archeo-digital survey team of the University of Audio-visual Sciences in México City. Basically, what they propose is that sound files have a shorter obsolescence over time, and that therefore, archeo-sound pieces tend to have a longer life than those based on visual codes. Waveform-based files seem to perpetuate wave behavior within the Internetsphere, and by doing so, preserve the flow of information in a more constant way than visual files. This constancy activates the particles of sound fluids, turning these files into a sort of ever-present archives. As if they never turned into an archive state but keep resonating since the sound-event they “capture” and represent happened.

But going back to the question of the cultural and social origin of the exposed section we are dealing with, at some degree, everything still indicates that the origin of these recordings corresponds to a geographical or geological research, and we know that usually the tools implemented in these types of research include graphics, cartography and audiovisual tools. If we are wrong to speculate over a degradation and disappearance of visual layers within the files, we could ask ourselves: why sound as a medium of research?

This also raises the question of whether we are dealing with material that has been generated by the inhabitants of the territory or by foreign subjects. Until now we have assumed that the subjects who could have made these recordings were in a close relationship with the territory and one maintained over time, but at this point in the investigation every detail must be examined.

Even though we cannot still say with certainty that these files correspond to the residues of a geographical investigation of the area (and this would take into account that we are might losing visual data), whether by inhabitants of foreigners, that is the most general opinion within the research team. In order to eliminate other possibilities, we will try to go further holding the hypothesis that we are dealing with an exclusively sound archive and try to find clues that could bring us closer to identify more specifically the origins, subjects and motivations behind these files.

Report #5/ The small bells and the hand on the recorder
date: 02.12.2322

By the beginning of the last week of survey we encountered over thirty new files by increasing the megahertz frequency of the IGPR by 20.5 points, allowing us to go over 600.0 pixel squares deeper. Files were located in a more scattered way over a broader space spectrum of the survey ground.

We have been focusing on a specific file that has interesting correspondences to previous encounters. Both water and bells are present on this single file, but expressing in a very different way. For the first time, water is shown in another state than the flow of the river: it is recorded as rain hitting the ground. Bells, on the other hand, have decreased in size and no longer seem to be fixed to an architectural element such as a church, but instead they present forms of movement.

In addition -and before explaining our findings- an important discovery coming from the section of the team that has been focusing on gathering and assembling the residues left by the “pick-and-shovel” procedure we tried at the beginning of the in-excavation, could bring us closer to defend and stay with the hypothesis of the “exclusively-sound-materials”.

The margins and surfaces of the files where torn apart by the friction produced by the digging, leaving us just with a worn out portion of the file. Some of the fragments (that correspond to beginning and endings- or tails) still had intact information that allowed us to analyze them. What we could find out is that most of the files founded correspond to a human-made recording. We found sound-beats that contained what most likely appear to be the sounds of hand manipulation over the sound recorder: Finger clicks to start and end each recording. Skin friction against the plastic materials with which the recorder is made.

We have also encountered the sound of steps in the ground approaching what was meant to be recorded. A delivered act towards sound. A conscious decision of proximity with certain sound events or phenomena.

For now, we can dismiss the idea of a non-human archive depository. At the same time, we can reaffirm the hypothesis of an exclusively-sound-material archive. We still cannot be sure about the motivations that originate these recording, neither if they are part of a kind of geographical sound research. And maybe we shouldn’t even bother to try to answer those questions.

In a publication from two centuries ago, discarded as scientific material by research circles around archeology and sound, we have found a rather suggestive hypothesis that leads us to completely rethink the paradigm we are facing. It is a treatise of no more than fifty pages entitled “Clariaudiencias”, written by the Catalan musician, sound theorist and cultural agitator Víctor Nubla (1956-2020).