João de Nóbrega Pupo is a Portuguese, Barcelona-based sound and intermedia artist whose master’s thesis at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona focused on Axonometric Composition: A study of Sonification of Buildings. His previous works – Sonified Nations (which referenced John Cage’s iconic Music of Changes and Cage’s Notations Book) and The Death of Truth (Colectivo Casa Amarela, 2020 and 2021) offered thought-provoking sonifications for philosophical issues.
Ao Ser Sereno (Being Serene) is another sound art composition investigating an existential human condition – being in a flux, at the intersection of order and chaos, structure and dissolution, noise and silence. It searches for a parallel sonification for such an elusive, constantly shifting condition. A sonification that oscillates, vibrates, dissolves, and re-emerges, just like a sound echoing through time, shaping itself within the landscape of its own meta-stability.
This five-movement Ao Ser Sereno suggests a minimalist, introspective sonification, a ritual of subtle, carefully layered resonances, or a sonic phenomenon in perpetual motion, oscillating its distressing tension between continuity and change, and adaptation and rigidity. There is no information on how João de Nóbrega Pupo produced the sounds, including the voice samples, but, as on previous albums, he recorded, mixed, and mastered the album.
Ao Ser Sereno employs silence and noises as interference but also as agents of renewal and uncertainty, allowing their provocative sonification to remain in a state of continuous reformation. As its 18-minute centerpiece, «A Ondulação Que Persiste» (The Persisting Ripple), is titled.
Ao Ser Sereno does not attempt to capture the state of mind of complete serenity, or to offer any kind of comfort. It accepts that all things must change, transform, and pass, as change is the very foundation of our existence. Therefore, it may be considered a work in progress, an intriguing sonic landscape of our often chaotic life, swinging between natural shifts and internal resistance. It urges its listeners to transform into a state of mind they have never experienced in a story that has already passed.
Eyal Hareuveni
João de Nóbrega Pupo (sounds)
