Wind1

Wind Memory #1 Name: Leonardo Edde Time:

Around 1999 or 2000, Autumn

Location: Home in the front of the Lake of Geneva, Switzerland Interviewer: Jiuming Duan Interviewed time: 16th April 2021

L for Leonardo

D for Jiuming Duan

D: Could you please tell us an impressed experience of you with wind?

L: Basically, I was very like in this very room here, 18 years ago. So my family and I had just moved in that very house. It happens like, I can't remember exactly we moved in drink autumn or something. It happened within the first few months less than a year of being here.

And I've always slept quite late in the night. Even as a child, I've never sleep really before. 11 or 12. That's very nice.

We could hear a storm coming up before. So around dinner time or something the like there was pretty much a storm outside and then went to sleep. Everyone can fell asleep. I didn't as always.

As the hours went by the storm, becoming louder and louder and louder.

We have a chimney here. So the winds will come in which minute wishing sounds but like very, very piercing loud sounds. We had all of the hurricanes and like everything was kind of moving and the roof like you could feel like it will, you could feel like it would like at some point just fly away, get like ripped apart because it was so loud. I was like what the *** it was like. I'm never going to sleep and I said to, I didn't know I start to doubt structure of the house like would be strong enough to protect us.

And my room is at the end of the building. So I felt like kind of isolated and vulnerable. And around 12. My mom, my sister. We're awake, too. That I didn't know they woke up because it was so loud. My dad went to sleep downstairs. He didn't tell anyone. So like. We didn't know. My mom was like, where the hell is my husband? He was sitting downstairs because he couldn't sleep. It was so loud. Whereas she had woken up and my sister had woken up and my brother as well. He couldn't sleep really, but he was like very, very young, 2,3 years old.

We didn't talk to one another. So everyone was like just kinda my dad wouldn't give a *** because he was downstairs. He knew the house to like get destroyed. My mom was kind of like freaked out. My dad was because like we didn't even have a place to sleep downstairs, basically like he slipped on the seller. How could we expect him to be there?

There was that sort of anxiety at that, like first level of the house of ground, like first level four. We're all like stressing outs. But for my mom, her husband told her like, don't you worry? It won’t break.

I was like, like I just want to be safe and be able to sleep. And eventually the night like the day after.

Like we all had like very dark eyes like we with very bad slept last night. It has been one of the loudest storms.

Like one of the most brutal storm, hurricane. In fact, in Switzerland and in Europe, it had the name, Lothar. People have died. Many trees have been destroyed. Took a walk by the lake in the next days. Do you like those disaster like broken ships and stuff from the lake.

You can see the chimney on my neighbour’s house. So the shape isn't quite straight, but like a curve. The wind really goes in. That was loud, man. That was very, very loud. That's scream really.

D: Yeah. So, I think around which you said it's like 1999. Is that right?

L: 1999 or 2000.

D: Is this place always very windy?

L: It's very windy. So we have winds coming from the North, which is called love this? How do you spell that? I guess b I s that these and it's just like when you have that these blowing, it tends to be that this is a day where that this is blowing, so very beautiful but it's, very, very cold. And just like this, it's a windy place.

D: Yeah, I think. It's like because you have to leave the here for like, not quite a long time. Do you think the wind there, it's like different from another place or it can represent that this place you lived?

L: I never had a moments that was linked to like i, never had a memory good or bad, which was related to the winds blowing before. I guess it's the first time I witnessed like such a storm or something. So, now I would say no. I don't think it has shaped my perception on the place where I live.

Or maybe it's very unconscious and it has like I associate Switzerland and that's very down with winds. But unknowingly. I don't notice a lack of wind when I travel. I'm not like, wait, there is no wind anymore.

It's not like.

D: Yeah, I see. And could you please like use your breath or your mouth try to mimic? The sound you heard? That wind. Is that okay?

L: Yeah, sure. Sure.

I don't have a how do you say like you have a grave voice device or oh yeah, there you go. They're long and constant, such as that's more like even more stringent know.

Uh, it gets very high, high pitched. Like a loud scream, like a loud scream. You know, think of a banshee.

D: Actually, my next question is that wish you to use one object or something to describe and represent this sound.

L: I have a very good idea of what that object would be.

Can I go and get it? I'll be back in a second.

That's it. That's the one.

Uh it's a bounding knife. You will go like if you have a piece of meat.

Which is attached to a bone. With that knife, you just go like very close to there, go like very close to the flesh with that section here.

Like you kind of. Correct. Scrub it away with that angle here at the curve. Which you can see, you can go like. And really garve, the meat out of the bone.

D: Could you please send me the name later? What's up? Name of the.

L: You want a picture?

D: That will be great. Sure.

D: I just want you to describe the environment. At that time the experience in your memory, to describe your room.

L: Yes, so basically I felt at least, edge of my house. Kind of like what started of the house was be detached and I'll be just like exposed.Like, vulnerable to the storm. I have very high ceilings. When you're like 10 years old, you're short. So the proportions were accentuated. So i was like kind of because the beds is at the corner like the away from black, the core of the house, my bed is bare and I was like there. Just like you can see up here on the screen that parts is higher. So like my whole perspective was like you're tiny and you're like exposed and you're very vulnerable at, the end of the place. Yes. Interestingly from the bed, you can check the door, which is safe. Like it makes you feel safe because you have that control. But at that moment, the threat will come from the outside. You're not safe anymore.

Like in that case, the escape will be to go more insights. Now, I'm like the first just a way I could be from the inside of a safe place.

And the walls, which would be like a protection. I didn't really trust these walls. I was like, no, it's gonna I don't know. Like I felt exposed.

D: How's the house to live in like? The whole the, whole house.

L: It's a Long house, I would say we have two floors like grand floors and first 11. As the west, east. At the. Wait, let me place that on a map.

East sides is my parents' room, and I'm completely at the west side 0f a room. So I'm like 10 meters away from them or something. It's a long but narrow house. And I'm at the west side.

D: Did you hear any sound from the house yourself like the structure? The material?

L: It's wood. Like the roof is made out of wood and you hear cracks.

That's true. Ii have forgotten about that. Whenever the wind blows quite strongly, you like you can hear of cracks in the roof and so um.

But that was one part that wasn't so well conceived. But the isolation between the rooms eventually I think they cracked on that very night because the wind was so strong. But on the daily basis, we like whenever the wind blows, we can't hear cracks sometimes like every now and then just like here. Something has moved. But when there is a storm and, when it's like a very, very strong storm. Then you have cracks, woodtrucks, yeah.

D: Yeah, thank you. I think just I finished.

Sound Design Making Progress The experience happened in his home, and the sounds were all about the house. So I choose to use household objects to simulate the sound, especially the objects in kitchen.

He mentioned the scream sound made by chimney, and it was like the scream of banshee. So I use the boiling sound of a kettle to make the pitch part of the wind.

And I use the sound of an electrical kettle for the low frequency part.

He gave me the boning knife to represent that experience, and the wooden cracking sound was also a part of the wind. I used the knifes to scratch on a wooden chopping board to part another layer of the texture.

I repeated the way he used his breath to mimic the sound of the wind.