Frozen memories
Jan 15, 2023, 12:03 PM
"My research has taken me across all of the world’s oceans, but I haven’t made it to the polar regions yet. I imagine them as the magical worlds where time is frozen and ice holds memories of the past. With climate change and melting ice these memories are fading away.
"Even though I haven’t been there, this recording evoked a strange feeling of nostalgia in me. Maybe in my previous life I was there, perhaps as a whale, which is why I chose to study them in this life. As a marine biologist and bioacoustician I worked with different species of marine mammals, focusing on their social learning, vocal communication and culture. The longest I spent studying the songs of humpback whales, which inspired two electronic music albums that I released. As an artist I find endless inspiration in the sounds from the ocean. It is the place which feels like home, but at the same time like another reality. To these mysterious polar sounds which are new to me I added some of my own recordings in order to capture this feeling of familiar yet strange and mysterious environment. I used lots of reverb and delays to represent the sound propagating through the ocean, and echoes of ancient times coming from ice. I hope that my composition with its enchanting sounds will inspire people to think about our impact on this planet and all its beautiful and fascinating creatures."
Weddell seal reimagined by Sara Niksic.
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.
"Even though I haven’t been there, this recording evoked a strange feeling of nostalgia in me. Maybe in my previous life I was there, perhaps as a whale, which is why I chose to study them in this life. As a marine biologist and bioacoustician I worked with different species of marine mammals, focusing on their social learning, vocal communication and culture. The longest I spent studying the songs of humpback whales, which inspired two electronic music albums that I released. As an artist I find endless inspiration in the sounds from the ocean. It is the place which feels like home, but at the same time like another reality. To these mysterious polar sounds which are new to me I added some of my own recordings in order to capture this feeling of familiar yet strange and mysterious environment. I used lots of reverb and delays to represent the sound propagating through the ocean, and echoes of ancient times coming from ice. I hope that my composition with its enchanting sounds will inspire people to think about our impact on this planet and all its beautiful and fascinating creatures."
Weddell seal reimagined by Sara Niksic.
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.