The Beetles Fly at Dusk is a novel that the Swedish writer Maria Gripe wrote in 1978. The story follows three friends who accept the task of looking after an uninhabited house. One of the three, Jonas, receives a tape recorder as a birthday gift. From the sounds recorded in the solitary house, a series of disconcerting discoveries take place that will help clarify the past and the origin of the place.
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Beyond those in the novel, beetles, indeed, appear at dusk and in little-trafficked spaces. When walking, they move with the same faculties as someone who is drunk, determined and tortuous, towards a destination of which they seem convinced. As for color, icebergs are the most absolute contrast, and like white beetles, they drift around the poles. And the poles, like an eternal sunset in the stillness of a deserted house, hide secrets that, like most secrets, only become present if listened to in silence.
Dalai Lama says that, sometimes, silence is the prologue to the most appropriate answer to a complex question because, with silence, answers are not infected by emotions. But silence, as we experienced during the months of confinement, can become uncomfortable and a catalyst for anxiety, a reaction that is nothing other than the response to the fear we feel when we are forced into the inner journey that silence imposes on us. That is why some people live with the TV or radio on at all times, despite not paying attention, because in this way they avoid being swallowed by the spiral of stillness.
None of our up to five senses is prepared to understand anything other than the exterior that surrounds us. Or perhaps they are. But in any case, we have not trained them for any other purpose than this. It is probable, then, that we have underestimated them. That a high percentage of their capacity remains to be utilized. At the Laboratory of Bioacoustics Applications of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (LAB), they are clear about it. The LAB investigates the production and reception of biological sounds through which they seek to understand our relationships with nature.
Why hearing?
The hearing of mammals develops very early, while we are still in the mother's womb. Therefore, hearing is one of the first senses we put into practice. It allows us to feel the world around us. Before birth, we communicate to the rhythm of the heartbeat. And as we evolve, we even come to decipher music, sounds in rhythmic sequence that act as a channel to broaden emotions.
In this sense, the LAB studies the effects of sound produced by human activities and how this sound interferes with animal populations and their communication. For example, during confinement, you probably discovered the sound of your street or your neighborhood due to its absence. The sound that you previously took for granted in your daily life turned out to be, in reality, a constant interference that erased a part of your sensory capacity. For some people ---and for other species--- this discovery was a stroke of luck. For others, however, a bad experience that caused them loneliness.
The solitude of the poles: the secret to listening to silence
In 1934, during the winter he spent alone at a meteorological base in Antarctica, Admiral Richard Byrd wrote: "Those who survive with some degree of happiness are those who can live entirely on their own intellectual resources, just as hibernating animals live on their fat." Thirty years later, in 1966, John Dudeney, one of Antarctica's legends, spent two and a half years confined to Faraday Base. Dudeney was twenty-one then. Now he is seventy-five and lives confined to his home. He maintains contact with his family through videoconference, similar to when, in the mid-sixties, from Faraday, he exchanged Morse messages of between one hundred and two hundred words.
"Those who survive with some degree of happiness are those who can live entirely on their own intellectual resources, just as hibernating animals live on their fat," wrote Admiral Richard Byrd in 1934The elements presented so far: silence, isolation, staying at the poles, and sound recording is what has led Andrea Lamountto createSound Earth Legacy, the first non-governmental, non-profit organization in Barcelona that supports scientific and technological projects to provide solutions to the environmental crisis we humans live in and cause, as well as promote programs to mitigate climate change.Sound Earth Legacy is an ambitious project and has, as a launch campaign, to support the first bioacoustic expedition to the Arctic and Antarctic Poles: Listen to the Poles, a mission led by researcher and director of LAB, Michel André.
How was Sound Earth Legacy born?
Andrea Lamount, founder of the NGO, worked as a documentary film director. After working for the United Nations and Doctors of the World, among others, she entered the field of the music industry. Specifically in projects that link music and environmental sustainability. The origin of Sound Earth Legacy takes place in Colombia, when Andrea got involved in a report on the post-armed conflict.
This report led her to visit small indigenous communities that had been cut off. This lack of communication awakened her concern to discover how sound impacts our communication and social behavior towards the environment. In 2018, she planted the seed of Sound Earth Legacy. The driving force would be to raise awareness among the population about the impact of climate change through sound and music and, in this way, provide tangible support to scientific projects aimed at addressing real changes. This is how the NGO understands the world. This is how the mission to preserve the sounds of nature that, possibly, one day will disappear as so many already have, was born.
What is Sound Earth Legacy?
Sound Earth Legacy is a bridge between science, sound, and music that seeks to promote outreach and scientific work through unique musical pieces that can be downloaded exclusively through its Planetary Music platform, which will be launched in 2021. Great internationally renowned artists who have already joined the cause, ranging from electronic music, through film soundtrack musicians, to more contemporary and multidisciplinary styles, will be the creators of these unique pieces that will incorporate the sounds of the planet. The funds raised through these pieces will be used to execute projects to address and reorient climate change.
A conversation between music and science: the first steps of Sound Earth Legacy
In parallel, the NGO, through the Listen to the Poles project, by researcher Michel André, works to preserve the sounds of the earth in order to maintain balance in biodiversity, prolong the survival of species, including humans, and investigate how sound plays a decisive role in the most fragile places on Earth. Michel André is the precursor of LIDO (Listen to the Deep Ocean) technology, which allows monitoring the sound of the oceans globally. It currently has more than a hundred listening stations in oceans around the world with the aim of controlling and mitigating the negative effects that human-generated noise causes in marine ecosystems.
Recent studies suggest that certain sounds linked to the origin of time could reconnect us with emotions and empathetic capacity to face the climate crisis and the loss of diversity. Andrea believes it will still take years, but she is optimistic. Sunset beetles are also slow and optimistic on their way. And wandering, like icebergs.
Researcher Michel André will lead the first bioacoustic expedition to the Arctic and Antarctic Poles.
All this to recognize how we managed when Earth, everyone's home ---ours, too--- was an almost uninhabited house. Recognizing ourselves may help us understand how to live in harmony. Perhaps, in this way, we will know how to start over, if we are still in time.