Willem de Rooij

“Farafra”, 2012
digital audio recording, 3 speakers, amplifier, DVD player, 13’05“

“Farafra” is Willem de Rooij’s first sound installation. The work consists of sound recordings from a camel farm in the desert area Farafra in the west of Egypt, near the border with Libya. The composition based on these recordings constitutes an intimate, moving aural encounter with these normally so quiet animals. Without natural enemies the animal had no natural need to develop sounds as a defence mechanism. The camels’ sounds emerge as indefinable wailing, groaning and complaining. Detached from its origin and played back in an otherwise empty room, the sound in Farafra also seems strangely human.