Environmental art
This video was commissioned by the peer-reviewed Journal of Embodied Research for their special issue on Ecologies of Embodiment 5.2 (2023). It is a video essay and co-composition with mangroves and with members of The Music Box Project. This project explores the relationship between cinematic art and how we experience ecology.
Cinematic dispositif in ecology
The concept of the cinematic dispositif comprises of people, production, transmission, distribution, staging, costumes, cutting, editing, and grading; and just like cinema, a river is also a production, of organic processes, tides, temperatures, gusts of wind. It is also a production of knowledge structures, institutions, administrative mechanisms, social norms of behaviour, all influencing how the river is shaped.
Mangroves as a form of forest therapy
Figures 1: The interaction between the self, the body matrix and the different body representations
Reference
Parente, A. & de Carvalho, V 2008, Cinema as dispositif: Between Cinema and Contemporary Art. Cinémas, 19(1), 37–55. https://doi.org/10.7202/029498ar
Marine Education Society of Australasia: http://www.mesa.edu.au/mangroves/mangroves02.asp
Riva, G 2018, The neuroscience of body memory: From the self through the space to the others. Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 104, 241–260.
The whale fall event is a process where whales descend to the ocean floor after their death. For millennia, this has been a critical part of the life cycle of oceans – ecosystems form around the whale fall, feeding and thriving off its flesh and remains. Creatures that are part of the ecosystem include bacteria mats, vesicomyid clams, galatheid crabs, polynoids, and a variety of other invertebrates. In recent times, pollution has had devastating effects on whales, who are said to be the most polluted animals on the planet. How do these creatures survive in such polluted conditions? The fall of this polluted whale symbolises the fall (or failure) of our society to act on pollution and the human-caused effects of climate change.
The music is interwoven with sounds of the bowhead whale in the foreground with frequency modulation and the minke whale in the background that sounds like a low ambient rumble. The third section contains a low frequency falling tone of the blue whale. The whale song has lowered in pitch due to climate change so this has also influenced my use of a falling tone in the music. The archival whale recordings have also been detuned. I used a frequency shifter which changes the partials of the recording and gives it a ‘disharmonic’ sound. This is what I mean when I say ‘decomposing sounds’. They are sounds or compositional processes that reflect the decaying or decomposition our environment. The recordings are also low in quality so the sound is naturally muffled and distorted. The sound of water in the recording obscures it further. There is also instrumental acoustic distortion from the heavy bowing and scratch tones from the violin and the cello.
The blue whale has a much larger auditory nerve, which means they are able to do more complex auditory processing. The thicker and firmer the basilar membrane is more attuned to higher frequency hearing. Baleen whales, on the other hand, have exceptionally broad, thin, and elastic basilar membranes. These characteristics contribute to the low frequency hearing range.
The score uses iconography that relates to the difficulties whales face due to climate change. The basis of the work is to derail our ideas of biopolitics, anthropocentric power dynamics, and our domination, ownership, and control over animal life. The use of icons allows for this symbolism to play out in the performers imagination as well as being a practical way for them to categorise and identify repeated musical fragments. By linking the icons to a sequence of actions the musicians were able to group chunks of ideas faster within a sequence. They can also respond to the icons by ‘sensing the ideas’ – by being in touch with their personal response to the icon and its meaning in the world to influence their musical shape and flow, shading of texture, or flexibility of time.
References
Darlene Ketten & Kate Madin, How to See What Whales Hear
Biomedical imaging reveals new insights into marine mammal ears, Oceanus, 2005 – https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/how-to-see-what-whales-hear/
Jen McWeeny, ‘Sounding Depth with the North Atlantic Right Whale and Merleau-Ponty: An Exercise in Comparative Phenomenology’ Journal for Critical Animal Studies, Volume IX, Issue 1/2, 2011.
Rebecca Giggs, ‘Whale Fall’, Granta Issue 133 ‘What Have We Done’ 2015 – https://granta.com/whale-fall/
Cloud Pulses
Audio paper abstract: ‘Cloud Pulses’ is about systems outside anthropogenic ways of knowing, interspecies processing of incoherence, the importance of First Nations practices, and decolonial perspectives. Audio credit: Daniel Portelli (voice, seeds, bird whistle, balloons)
Antibiosis
Life out of balance
This film is a reaction to a deeply felt concern, that we, the current generation, are not prioritising the needs of future generations through our degradation of the environment and its limited resources. The film is based on the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child – “Mankind owes the child the best it has to give”. It’s a film that looks to explore this greater social issue through archive footage and ghostly images that remind us of how fragile both our world, and our future are. The work is visceral, poignant and bleak, and highlights the careless interactions humans have with the environment, animals and our natural resources. Scored for chamber ensemble: flute (including piccolo), clarinet, tenor sax, piano, percussion, cello and uses a recording of a german lieder.