The sea

Some say that conch shells conserve in their memory the sound of the waves that witnessed their birth, giving credence to the belief that it’s possible to hear the ocean even from thousands of miles away by putting a conch shell to your ear. 

Conch shells make a virtual landscape possible, understanding virtual as something that is not necessarily tied to technological media. When our mind is provoked by the slightest sensation or emotion, be it through an image, smell, or sound, it can defy the odds of space and time. Entering and leaving the past and memories, it mixes images and situations. In this way, the mind moves through virtual landscapes so vivid that they fill us completely. 

The snail, when inhabited, wanders with its house on its back, perhaps because it inhabits such a vast territory that it has no need to settle in a fixed place. Later, the shell alone, with the sound that resonates inside it, has the power to evoke a landscape that, like the container itself, becomes erratic.