Voices of the Cosmos
Voices of the Cosmos – a project created by two artists of sound: Rafał Iwański from Toruń (a drummer known from bands like ||ALA|MEDA||, HATI, Innercity Ensemble) and Wojciech Zięba from Grudziądz (performing solo as ELECTRIC URANUS, a manufacturer of custom musical instruments), along with astronomer Sebastian Soberski, director of the Planetarium and Astronomical Observatory in Grudziądz and a radio astronomer at the Nicolaus Copernicus University's Institute of Astronomy in Piwnice near Toruń. Voices of the Cosmos innovatively combines the advances in astronomy with electroacoustic music. The creators use original extraterrestrial signals (e.g., pulsars, planetary magnetospheres, the Sun, auroras, masers, black hole collisions) as received by radio telescopes and other astronomical instruments. They also use sonification and archival recordings from space missions. Instrumental works integrated with processed rhythms and tones of “cosmic sounds" are created using electronic instruments, both digital and analog, as well as various acoustic objects.
A 1925 popular science film, Our Heavenly Bodies, narrating the story of celestial bodies, AND a musical project using signals from space as its musical material? There will hardly be any more natural combination of film and music in the history of our festival.
