A soundscape-poetry collaborative experiment.

Inspired by Audrey Carmes’ album “Quelque chose s’est dissipé”, this project invites people from all genders, races, religions, and countries to recite the poem “Be Free, like Birds in the Sky” in different languages.

The aim is to bring something positive to this world and inspire people to dream big without fear. If there are enough versions, this may result in an art installation where visitors can click their language version with/without music, and hopefully that makes people reflect on dreaming and being free…

We could do this with computer-generated translations and text-to-voice apps. Here are some examples of synthetic voices:

In French (by synthetic voice):

In (Brazilian) Portuguese:

In German:

However, these computer-assisted approaches miss the poem’s rhythm, pauses, and slowness. It also limits me in what I can do with it in Ableton/Logic Pro or combine it with custom-made soundscapes.

An example of an “in the mix” experiment:

Therefore, I would like to invite real humans to translate the original poem with Google Translate, correct it as needed to keep the poem’s spirit, record the poem with their smartphone, and send me the MP3. I will take care of the rest.

Here are some of the first human voices:

In Dutch (by Petervan)

In French (by human Céline)

In Australian English (by human Josie)

In Romanian (by human Ioana)

In Italian (by human Matteo)

In Italian (by human Elisa)

In Italian (by human Roberta)

In Russian (by human Ksenia)

In Mongolian (by human Erdenetsetseg)

In Hindi (by human Archana)

In Spanish (by human Eugenia)

In Spanish (by human Almudena)

In Greek (by human Nektarios) – retranslated version

In German (by human Nadja) – retranslated version

In Chinese (by human Sharon) – retranslated version

In Arabic (by human Karim)

In (Brazilian) Portuguese (by human Marina)

In Japanese (by human Marina)

In Japanese (by human Matt)

In Türkisch (by human Canay) – retranslated version

In Serbian (by human Kosta)

In Danish (by human Mathias) – retranslated version

In Estonian (by human Eia)

For some versions, I started experimenting with soundscapes

Or generate some visuals in Videosync and remix them in Logic Pro X

Who’s next? I have a more detailed cheat sheet available. If interested, contact me via the contact tab of this website.