What would the sea tell us if we could listen to her?

Rumors from the sea(originally produced in Thailand in 2018) is a sound installation in the middle of the bay of Ilgwang Beach. A bamboo-flutes orchestra played by the water is performing unique concerts 24 hours a day, depending on the tide, the direction, tempo and force of the waves. As a potential listener, you are invited to define the beginning and the end of the music piece played for you, to encourage a unique listening experience.

In every coastal zone and culture of the globe the sea has been a means of livelihood, from fishing weirs to contemporary fishing industry, maritime transport or tourism. The ocean is associated both to resource exploitation and a place to find comfort and relief. Within ever changing times, the human relationship to the sea is becoming a challenge in order to preserve our ways of living. In some places, an adaptation strategy for sea-level rise is the construction of flood-barriers as levees, dikes and seawalls.

Rumors from the sea transforms bamboo seawalls from being barriers into a threshold for listening. This temporary sound installation offers a very special place to gather in public open space for contemplating while listening to the sea and to the environment. It creates a space for human dialogue with nature. The extended sounds of the sea invite us to understand listening beyond the sonorous realm, as a practice of taking care, looking after and paying attention to ourselves, our natural surroundings and others.

The sound installation consists of hundreds of bamboo poles with a bamboo flute at their top. At the bottom of the bamboo, a hole lets the water come in and out. Each wave comes inside the tube, pushing the column of air until the flute is played by the sea.

https://felixblume.com/rumorsfromthesea