Susie Dureau’s Soundscape series translates the sounds of the landscape into vibrant visual celebrations of the earth and its creatures. Each piece is constructed with several digital layers of spectrographs – scientific graphs that convert recorded sound data into visual maps indicating frequency. The recordings have been made in and around the Sydney coastline.

In this piece, Magpie Warbling, NSW, the sound of magpies carolling is recorded and layered. These clever Australian natives converse with each other using referential sounds. Often their warbling indicates that there is a food source, but it could also be a warning such as ‘fire’. In the future, nature lovers will be able to decipher the clever lexicon of magpies.

Susie’s Soundscapes are composed via digital collage, layering spectrogram data from different days across the year to form compositions that encapsulate cycles of time and events in the coastal landscape. Neither abstract nor representational, the sound forms act as landscape motifs in the compositions. A landscape narrative emerges in each composition, partly by chance, partly due to aesthetic choices that reference painting conventions such as atmospheric perspective, horizon line and colour fields.

Susie Dureau was awarded a Creativity Grant by the Northern Beaches Council in 2022 for the development of these Soundscape artworks. Find more information via ABC News here.

Photos: Kayapa Creative Studio @kayapacs