Ghost nets
Jan 17, 2023, 09:36 PM
"Simon Holmes: The start of the project revolved around the sample itself and the pulsating rhythm of the seismic shooting. I wanted to manipulate the sample to create other sounds representative of the natural rather than the human underwater world, aware of how man has generated such destructive sound pollution in the Arctic environment. Firstly I was interested in evoking ideas of sonar and echolocation linking the piece to endangered marine wildlife and secondly creating a sound of the ocean floor where scuttling crustaceans roam. Both of these sounds can be heard in the final piece. The project then evolved into generating an ekphrastic response to Paul’s poem ‘Ghost Nets’, particularly focusing on the line, ‘Our plangent requiem welling up like a whale’s lament from the depths’. The idea of these abandoned nets causing such suffering and destruction really focused the creative process, helping to generate a soundscape reflective of this.
"Paul Nash: Further manipulation of the seismic shooting sample led me to explore a deep sense of ‘inner extractivism’ during an ‘age of exhaustion’ in this track. With the addition of electronic beats and a foghorn bass line representing the insidious creep of human technological advance, it became clear to me that the tensions between the human and non-human worlds that are so damaging to our planet would inform the unease at the heart of this soundscape. The final mix attempts to reify the shadow biosphere of the polar ocean floor – a dark nexus of seismic shooting from above and the plaintive infrasound of whales welling up like a lament from the depths. ‘Ghost Nets’ may not only be the dying cry of a ruined Earth, but also in our carbon profligacy and perhaps now inevitable subsequent extinction, it is one hopes the beginning of the end of anthropogenic noise that blights marine environments."
Seismic airgun reimagined by Simon Holmes / Paul Nash.
Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds.
"Paul Nash: Further manipulation of the seismic shooting sample led me to explore a deep sense of ‘inner extractivism’ during an ‘age of exhaustion’ in this track. With the addition of electronic beats and a foghorn bass line representing the insidious creep of human technological advance, it became clear to me that the tensions between the human and non-human worlds that are so damaging to our planet would inform the unease at the heart of this soundscape. The final mix attempts to reify the shadow biosphere of the polar ocean floor – a dark nexus of seismic shooting from above and the plaintive infrasound of whales welling up like a lament from the depths. ‘Ghost Nets’ may not only be the dying cry of a ruined Earth, but also in our carbon profligacy and perhaps now inevitable subsequent extinction, it is one hopes the beginning of the end of anthropogenic noise that blights marine environments."
Seismic airgun reimagined by Simon Holmes / Paul Nash.
Part of the Polar Sounds project, a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity (HIFMB) and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Explore the project in full at http://citiesandmemory.com/polar-sounds.