"Borborygmus"

Arthur Gottschalk

United States

2016

Mexico Premiere

2 channels

​

Borborygmus - noun: bor·bo·ryg·mus; a rumbling or gurgling noise made by the movement of fluid and gas in the intestines.
In 1989 I acquired a very small hydrophone, shaped more or less like a pill, which gave me an idea. I swallowed the hydrophone, and recorded the results. In my enthusiasm, I had neglected to consider the effects associated with removing the hydrophone from my stomach, and the next hour was painful, for myself and for my unfortunate lab assistant. Nonetheless, I was successful; I labeled the results “Stomach Music” and filed them for future use. I then promptly lost them.
Last year, while reviewing the contents of a number of boxes of material to be considered for my archives in the Woodson Research Library at Rice University, I came across an old reel of Ampex tape. It turned out to be my missing stomach music. I had my engineer of many years, Andrew Bradley, apply his patented method of “baking” old magnetic tape, in order to restore the media long enough for one last playback and subsequent digital recording. I took that digital file with me this summer to the American Academy in Rome, where I was a Visiting Artist. Envisioning a piece that not only captured sounds of the body’s internal processes, but also imagined hearing external sounds filtered through skin, muscle, and digestive fluid, I recorded sounds from outside my window, high upon Rome’s famed Janiculum Hill. Taking my cue from the 1966 science fiction film Fantastic Voyage, I created a piece that allows us to “hear” an imaginary trip through one’s innards – Borborygmus.

​

​