“Crackling Clay” is part of a (non-exhaustive) series of videos exploring sound activations carried out in the heart of the Gorafe Desert. During my last trip, I was immersed in a landscape that felt both motionless and silent. Recording sound proved to be a challenge: the slightest movement or breath on our part would interfere with the captures. Listening to the desert is a peculiar exercise, one dominated by the wind and distant echoes.

Faced with this difficulty, I decided to produce sounds myself, with the aim of revealing the sensitive materiality of the place. These interventions—what I call forms of ecological ASMR—are part of a broader visual and sonic archive, enriched throughout our long walks in the desert. The intimacy of the produced sounds holds a central place in this work, which also questions the practice of field recording.

Indeed, after long periods of waiting and listening to the “everyday” life of the arid canyons, subtle variations eventually emerged: the sudden cry of a bird, the collapse of a rock, or the murmur of a distant spring. Our sonic gestures thus complement this endemic soundscape and propose a new way of listening to and perceiving the place.