Tree of Life and Death

Tree of Life and Death is a eight-channel algorithmic composition based on field recordings. Recordings were made in 2017 and 2019 at Monte de Estépar, in the Spanish province of Burgos: a beautiful holm oak grove, and also the site of the common grave of 327 citizens assassinated by Franco’s Regime during the Spanish Civil War. Excavations of the site were completed by 2017. Field recordings aimed to capture both the general sound ambience of the place, as well as the inaudible sound registers of trees – where bullets from the executions have been found, and bullet holes are still visible – and ground. The recording techniques used included contact mics used to record tree bark, as well as the inside of the common grave itself.

Tree of Life and Death is a multichannel algorithmic composition based on field recordings. Recordings were made at Monte de Estépar, in the Spanish Province of Burgos: a beautiful holm oak grove, and also the site of the common grave of 327 citizens assassinated by Franco’s Regime during the Spanish Civil War. Recording techniques used included contact mics used to record the tree bark, as well as the inside of the common grave. The compositional principle of the work is that of a random walk algorithm traversing the recorded samples following the structure of a decision tree.

Website