MATILDE MEIRELES

Campo Próximo (2015-ongoing), which we loosely translated to Near Field/ Next Field, is a situated sound work that plays with the perception and construction of places. For each iteration of the project, field recordings (image and audio) are collected in a way that relates the territory with the architecture of the venue, creating a dialogue between place and space. Each performance takes the audience on a journey along each recorded location through different multi-sensorial approaches.

For Campo Próximo, Convento São Francisco we drew a straight-line connecting São Gregório in Caldas da Rainha (where OSSO Colectivo is based), and Convento São Francisco in Coimbra. We explored various locations along this line, searching for their particular qualities, and captured them using sound and image

These materials were played back in the exhibition space, with a duration corresponding to the time it would take for sound to travel the same distance. Meanwhile, a microphone positioned in the centre of the room captures the sound recordings, and the result was played back alternately at each end of the room. This process was repeated several times, modulating the sound properties and merging the recordings with the acoustic signature of the presentation space, as in I am Sitting in a Room by Alvin Lucier (1969). The dialogue between the various field recordings and the room accelerated until complete convergence – when architecture and audience became protagonists of the listening process.

Research

Campo Próximo was included in the conference paper presentation Campo Próximo (Matilde Meireles and Diogo Alvim), NCMM Contemporary Music Conference, CESEM – Research Centre for the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music, FCSH-NOVA, Lisbon Portugal, July 2021