RODOLPHE ALEXIS

I spent two months in protected areas of Costa Rica making multichannel field recordings of the different forest ecosystems of Central America. Armed with a quadraphonic setup (IRT cross), a parabolic microphone, a hydrophone, and a scientist's passport, I went to nine main sites to record: the coastal evergreen forest, the tropical dry and deciduous forest, the mangroves, the wooded riverbanks and floodplains, and the forests altered in cultivated areas. The recordings were made at the Santa Rosa National Park, Caño Negro National Wildlife Refuge, Tortuguero National Park, Sarapiqui (private reserve), Tapanti National Park, La Amistad International Park, Marino Ballenas National Park, Bahia Drake (private reserve) and the Corcovado National Park. An edited version of these recordings exists as a multichannel sound installation and as a live spatialised diffusion : Dry, Wet, Evergreen. Located on the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, The Costa Rica is a biodiversity hotspot. Territory refuge for many neotropical species in danger of extinction, the country has moved in just 40 years, from a critical state of deforestation to a radical awareness of environmental issues.