28 Jan 2021

Requiem for the undersea


released January 27, 2021

Mastering by La Plant Studio, Belgrade

hydrophone made by Jez Riley French




Review by Nina Čalopek on kulturpunkt.hr >>> here <<< 

Requiem for the undersea is a collection of works based on noise pollution observed at the heart of Korčula town in South Adriatic. Hydrophone recording sites are urban reconstruction sites, that comprehend undersea digging with heavy machinery, such as the reconstruction of the West port as well as ACI marina docks. The recording of a forklift scrapping the sea bed, the recording of a large pneumatic drill, and the sound of pouring a large amount of concrete into the sea bed – are foundations of electro-acoustic constructs, which are further de-contextualized with musical appropriations of several objects treated as instruments: metal laundry dryer, cardboard tube, AM radio signals, electromagnetic waves from electrical outlets, etc. With additional field and hydrophone recordings from the sites: island of Vrnik, Ražnjić Lighthouse, Lenga open quarry, St. Nikola’s Monastery, as well as improvisational sequences on cello – the intention to capture the moments of anthropogenic impact evolves into anxious necrologies for the undersea. 

A lot of time will pass until we make legislation considerate toward the health and conservation of the undersea in coastal Adriatic towns. Both ecosystem and micro-environment are political nonentity and are openly perceived as free resources. The spectrum of negligence is so vast that is hard to even imagine an evolutionary mechanism that would recover marine life from such a variety of aggressive pollutants, both visible and invisible. We live in a dying landscape. My continuous archiving of the undersea sonic imprints in South Adriatic is a narrative of its own kind and is revealing the anatomy of ignorance, and the depth of apathy-driven capitalization of natural resources. Without an urgent and radical change in the attitude toward marine life and the environment in coastal towns, there is no basis for hope that common sense or scientific research can come up with in the context of marine palingenesis. These are unprecedented times of the Anthropocene. 


credits





>>> images by Manja Ristić, January 2021. All rights reserved <<<