Project Five Lakes
Deep Listening and the Fragility of Territory
This work emerges from attentive listening practices developed while walking across the five lakes surrounding Mount Fuji in Yamanashi, culminating in an August ascent to the crater.
Through field recording and images, the project observes how climate, topography, and human intervention continuously reshape the landscape. Geological forces, water, wind, animal life, and tourism intertwine within the soundscape, forming a territory in constant friction.
Unfolding through sustained observation, these pieces reveal instabilities and subtle shifts within the environment, reflecting on the fragility of the place and the urgency of attention.
The Fuji Five Lakes (富士五湖) lie north of Mount Fuji, in Yamanashi Prefecture. Although they share the same volcanic foundation, Kawaguchi-ko and Yamanaka-ko were formed through independent eruptive processes, while Motosu-ko, Sai-ko, and Shoji-ko are remnants of the ancient Lake Senoumi (瀬の海).
During the Jōgan eruption (864–868 CE), a lava flow fragmented this ancestral lake and gave rise to the Aokigahara plain; beneath its porous basalt layer, subterranean aquifers continue to keep the three lakes connected and level to this day.
Shoji-ko
Shoji-ko (精進湖) is the only one of the five lakes to partially freeze during winter, due to its shallow depth. The movement of the ice—its audible cracks and fractures—renders perceptible the encounter between solid and fluid matter. Where once a river of lava was solidifying, water now pulses through cycles of freezing and thawing: matter remains in motion.
Also available on YouTube.
Geophony
The same phenomenon was recorded using a geophone, an instrument based on seismograph technology, designed to detect low-frequency vibrations by converting physical movement into an electrical signal, capturing sounds inaudible to the human ear. This subterranean listening reveals an invisible acoustic layer, linking present-day sound to the geological processes that shaped the region.
Also available on SoundCloud
The Shift
While monitoring the capture of these deep sounds, my gaze was forced back to the surface of the present. Finding this discarded tire in the lake waters, trapped in the ice, altered the course of my listening. It was a silent alarm, a friction between the contemplation of the natural and the degradation of man that redefined the very purpose of this journey."
The listening continues.
See you soon.
Gus