cHeliđon fRAMe
sound-art _ data sonification _ electronic music
the list
data sonification
installation
multichannel
“The List” is a sound sculpture that seeks to translate the death tolls along migration routes to Europe into sound. Using data sonification, it presents an algorithmic composition based on figures from the list of victims compiled yearly by UNITED Against Refugee Deaths.
In a time when information is not a scarce resource anymore, it’s easy to fall prey to indifference. This is even more true when the same topic repeats over and over again, permeating the everyday lives of entire masses, becoming nothing more than a detail of an ever-changing yet immutable present. Here, artists have a power that they can’t shun: not just to inform, but to give information an appealing aspect.
“The List” tries to give an audible shape to the many lives lost in the Mediterranean Sea in the last quarter-century. Through a specifically designed algorithm, the long list of deaths in Mediterranean shipwrecks from 1993 to 2018 compiled by UNITED transforms into a combination of frequencies for 4 speakers. By abandoning the written form, pieces of data become an immersive experience, free from the rhetoric that is constantly associated with migrations. Fruition, therefore, requires a new reflection, a reboot of common feeling to go back and face this sum of numbers like the invaluable elements that they are: human lives, impossible to tell, essential to quantify.
As a sound sculpture that inhabits a space, it aims to become inescapable while simultaneously giving new form, substance, and weight to the numbers on the list, reconnecting the listener with the true meaning hidden behind them.
The project has been on display during MEMI Fest (Università Bocconi, Milan, 2019), BORDERS (Palazzo Albrizi-Capello, Venice), and St/Art RENCONTRE by Paratissima (Fondazione Amleto Bertoni Saluzzo, 2026).
exhibitions
MEMI Fest @ Bocconi University, Milan (11/09/2019 - 14/09/2019)
BORDERS - Itsliquid Art Space @ Palazzo Albrizi Capello, Venice (31/08/2021)
RENCONTRE - St/Art Saluzzo x Paratissima @ Il Quartiere, Saluzzo (09/05/2026 - 17/05/2026)
