AV WORK

Last Whispers

Oratorio for Vanishing Voices, Collapsing Universes and a Falling Tree

IMMERSIVE ORATORIO
in two formats: Audio-video (AV) installation; and virtual reality (VR) experience

by Lena Herzog (Author / Director / Producer)

Sound design and compositions by Marco Capalbo and Mark Mangini
Visualization by Amanda Tasse, video by Tomas Van Houtyryve and Aziz Lechgar
Images by NASA, Bryan Nash Gill, Lena Herzog

 
 

Installation premiered at The British Museum, November 2016
Concert premiere at The Kennedy Center, February 2019

AV FORMAT:
INSTALLATION & CONCERT

» DOWNLOAD technical specifications


The work is simultaneously a film projection and a choral pre-recorded composition with “spatialized” sound design, resulting in a 45-minute long visceral experience—an immersive oratorio. The video consists of 3D animation, video drone footage and stills (all in black-and-white) poetically linking image and sound. The audio in the Oratorio is a chorus of extinct and endangered languages, both spoken and sung, composed from the historical recordings (speech, recitatives, incantations, songs and ritual chants) punctuated by the sounds of nature and of interpreted (made audible) gravitational waves of the dying stars (supernova) recorded by LIGO “The Listening Ear.”

Last Whispers is, in essence, an immersive experience of film and spatially designed sound composition of extinct and endangered languages (spoken and sung), an immersive oratorio.

Running time: 45 minutes.

Museum / Concert Hall / Cathedral Installation and Concert Specification

  • Last Whispers plays on a loop as an installation at the top of the hour or

  • Last Whispers plays as a choral concert and film event at a given time

  • Video screen projection of animation, stills and drone footage in black-and-white (1920 x 1080 resolution / 2K)

  • Audio projection (8.1 / 7.1 / 5.1 or binaural*) either via an 8.1 / 7.1 / 5.1 PA sound system or via headphones for binaural

  • Public and land art installation via a weatherproofed 8.1 / 7.1 / 5.1 sound system in public spaces and a large scale video projection

* Binaural or 8.1 (octophonic) / 7.1 / 5.1 “spatialized” sound projection is perceived by the human ear as distinct and genuine 360 degree immersive soundscape.

Such immersive sound environments prompt the brain to perceive these voices as “present” and “real.”

* 8.1 (octophonic) / 7.1 / 5.1 “spatialized” sound projection is made for public events; while a binaural version is for a private experience with headphones.