The recordings for this track were made in the North East of Belgium, in the province of Limburg. The starting point was a visit to a nature park called the Sahara in Lommel, a peculiar sand landscape surrounded by needle-leaved trees and a lake in the middle. This nature landscape is the result of years of sand mining for the glass industry in the 1920s. Sound recordings took place in a traditional glass workshop, a sand mining area and the Sahara. The tones added to the track are made from recordings of singing glasses. “Land Surface” investigates the hidden underlaying layers throughout time, whereas the eye can only see the present result of this history.

Els Viaene (1979, Belgium) started her work as a sound artist/field recordist in 2001. With a setup of two small microphones she listens, zooms into and enlarges the aural landscapes surrounding us. The natural rhythms and textures of the sounds hidden in those landscapes form the basis of her work. Working on these sound materials for performances, sound compositions or installations she makes the listeners travel in imaginary and organic environments. Through the specific use and setup of sound within a space her installations create new spaces within existing ones, either emphasising or making disappear the physical borders of that space. In doing so she often plays with the notions of seeing and hearing, the perception of what we see and hear and how both interfere.

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