Archive of Subterranean Acoustics

Archive of Subterranean Acoustics is an installation and multi-media presentation hosted by Hongbo Cai, A4’s 2025 Van Lier Fellow in Music Composition. This event marks the culmination of Cai’s fellowship and presents a collection of prototyped artifacts, simulated spatial environments, and world-building video installations that together reconstruct the mythical, subterranean sonic civilization of Agharta.

Across millennia and continents, civilizations share a belief that sound is a tool to measure, order, and interpret the universe. This project asks what might it mean to reconstruct the “sound-world” of an ancient city, and what if the city itself could become a giant instrument shaped by winds, waters, labor, and ritual?

“Agharta” is borrowed from legend of a mythical city said to lie beneath the Himalayas or Tibet, on the Earth’s inner surface. Through 3D modeling, the project attempts to bring this fictional city to life, designing virtual instruments that blur archaeology, mechanics, and invention based on Asian civilizations. The resulting installation invites audiences to inhabit a world where sight serves sound, instruments are indistinguishable from social order, and music is not mere art but the very infrastructure of life—an ambiguous and haunting echo of how ancient Asian peoples may have experienced their worlds.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and The New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowships. The featured project has been selected as part of the Venice Biennale College – Blend and is sponsored by Flora AI.