VOICES OF THE COSMOS

VOICES OF THE COSMOS is a project founded by two sound artists: Rafał Iwański (HATI, ||ALA|MEDA||, ex-Innercity Ensemble) and Wojciech Zięba (ELECTRIC URANUS / INFAMIS) and astronomer Sebastian Soberski (head of the Planetarium and Astronomical Observatory in Grudziądz and radio astronomer at the Institute of Astronomy of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Piwnica near Toruń). The VOICES OF THE COSMOS project effectively combines the achievements of astronomy with electroacoustic music. The musicians use original extraterrestrial signals and sounds received by radio telescopes (e.g. pulsars, planetary magnetospheres, the Sun, the aurora borealis, masers) and other radio devices, sometimes using sonification and archival recordings from space missions. Instrumental tracks integrated with processed rhythms and tones of “space sounds” are created using electronic instruments, both digital and analog, as well as various acoustic objects.

VOICES OF THE COSMOS has so far published several materials on CD: “I” (2011), “II” (2013), “III” (2019), “IV” (2021) and on vinyl: “Interstellar Space” (2021).
The project has been presented many times in scientific institutions and music festivals, in the form of audiovisual concerts, also in the extended version with astronomical lectures and sky observations. This is a unique initiative in Poland, which uses original records of space.