A site specific soundinstallation, 2018

Raw footage of the installation June 2018, Emerson College, East Sussex, UK.

Background
The reason and mechanisms of the tides are not at all obvious to the human spectator.
The installation Tides aims to provide an experiential platform wherein – in an intuitive way – to discover and connect to the invisible powers that drive our world.
Our globe is compound of many different materials that respond and react to each other in sympathetic or opposing ways. Some of the most profound and important natural phenomena arise not only because the components of the Earth interact. They are influenced by elements of the Universe who interact with each other to evolve and sustain life on Earth.
The Moon and the Sun interact with the Earth in a way that the tides arise. They infuse movement into the Earth. The tides might have been an important factor in evolution creating various and numerous different biotopes and habitats for species to develop. People who have grown up by the sea where the tides are present and prominent will attest to the deep connection with this rhythm that – more in earlier times than now – influences daily life and paces time.

Composition
The core of the multimedia installation is a sound installation (12:26 min). Most visual components are site-specific.
The sound installation aims to provide a sense of the tidal rhythms and an experience of the forces behind.
The sound recordings took place at the Northern Sea coast in Denmark on the island of Fanø, at the place of the former low tide driveway to Mandø south of Ribe and at the Bristol Channel at Porlock Bay and Minehead.

The composition is an arrangement of ten tracks. Tracks 1 and 10, and 2 and 9 are arranged in symmetry around the centre-composition which consists of 6 tracks. Some of the tracks in the centre of the composition are modulated in a rhythmical fashion to mirror the astronomical rhythms.

Experience
The visitor enters a round space filled with dense vapor. Besides the more obvious association to sea fog the intention is to reduce visibility and hereby help the individual to centre itself in its inner experience. The beginning sequence (track 1) leads into the experience by steps going into the water gently playing into sounds of the tide going out (track 2). The sound experience then morphs into a more abstract rhythmical soundscape. Just as the forces that are at work but completely invisible and not consciously to be experienced by us. A background soundtrack (track 3) supports the rhythmical tracks representing semidiurnal (track 4), diurnal (tracks 5 and the hydrophone recorded track 6), fortnightly (track 7) and monthly (track 8) tides. Leading into a sequence of the tide going out (track 9) the composition rounds off by the final part sounding with steps walking out of the water.

Process

Rhythm studies, 2018

Working