The project.



"Silenzi in Quota - capturing soundscapes at high altitudes“ is a project to enhance the Alpine area of Trentino-Alto Adige, in collaboration with the MONTURA brand (technical sponsor) and MUSE - Trento Science Museum.


Soundscape is co-created by the sound sources, landscape features and the listeners themselves. It is about how all the actors (us and the other living beings) contribute to it and how they perceive it.


One year after the start of the pandemic, outdoor activities and mountain tourism are experiencing a rediscovery by the general public with the consequent significant increase in human presence.


The project aims to immortalize and share the natural richness of the Alpine landscape and capture human perception of those settings through images, video footage, environmental audio and subjective data, representing the mountain as an ecosystem of natural balance to be respected while encouraging conscious and responsible tourism.


The project in 2021 consisted in:


  • 8 expeditions, at dawn or dusk on 8 suggestive peaks of Trentino-Alto Adige, different from each other in terms of landscape and geological conformation.
  • Making a short film.
  • Environmental audio shots at the top that will be reworked for Sound Design and soundtrack.
  • Realization of a degree thesis for the electronic music department of the F. A. Bonporti Music Conservatory in Trento.


The project grew in 2022: in order to further increase its impact and capture human perception in situ, Silenzi in Quota invites volunteers to walk and listen together and to witness this through questionnaires and recordings: Silenzi in Quota Experience. By adding the public engagement and research components, Silenzi in Quota guides participants to listen, a soundscape practice that should be the basis of sustainable tourism policies in fragile natural environments.


In 2023 Silenzi in Quota becomes international. Through a collaboration with University College London (UCL), Silenzi in Quota goes to Scotland to investigate the soundscape in one of the most beautiful areas of the Cairngorms National Park: Silenzi in Scotland! Silenzi in Quota has proudly hosted soundscape enthusiasts, sound artists, sound engineers, acousticians, national park staff, rangers, academics and enthusiastic hikers joining the expeditions and listening together to further spread the importance of managing acoustic environments. If you want to know more about Silenzi in Quota expeditions, browse through past soundwalks and participate in the next adventures, click on the links down below.

How to describe or define silence without breaking it? How can it be sought and found without distorting it?


Thinking of our mountains, some images immediately come to mind are immense spaces and infinite silences.


Each of us, at least once, exploring and conquering the mountain territory peak after peak, has realized how often silence is an integral part of this landscape and of activities at high altitudes.


It is curious how the frequencies to which our ear is most sensitive do not in any way belong to the anthropic world and how therefore a place where there is no "human sound" can be defined as silent. We could almost use silence as a measurement unit for the mountains' anthropization.


The mountain, one of the places that par excellence should be the custodian of silence, is increasingly anthropized and is becoming the destination of sometimes unaware tourism. In recent years the word "environmental tourism" is often used as a term devoid of meaning and content.

The SiQ Team

 

Simone Torresin

Researcher at the University of Trento and honorary research fellow at the Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering at UCL, he is passionate about the relationship between sound environment and human beings.

Researcher
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