Quiet ocean

Jan 17, 2023, 08:48 PM

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"We were drawn to working with the silent ocean recording– an increasingly rare location of minimal ‘human’ activity.

"The ‘soundtrack’ to this ‘silence’ was an in-the-moment capture while staying in rural Maryvale QLD, and after a community gathering. Clearly resonating was a genuine simplicity and appreciation of life and nature – a joy of living on country unencumbered by the wasteful conversation noise about material life crammed into metropolis living.
 
"The ocean recording is repeated throughout the work with no editing to honour its consistent presence.

"Nature sounds from around our home are embedded in all of our work. This is an ecocentric reminder that nothing is removed from nature – we are all nature. It’s a human concept that we own this block of land yet this concept has no meaning for the ecosystem that share this location.

"For us our music is inherently personal and an outcome of a particular moment, recorded simply on mobile phone. The music itself represents how human activity can at times reach a state of harmony with nature, where at other times it imposes and overshadows, leaving what is divinely natural barely discernible yet still existent.

"On our current trajectory this balance will reverse – the current catastrophic anthropogenic impacts in nature will eventually decline. Life will persist long after we are extinct...

"This work was created across the lands of the Githabul, Keinjan, Jagera, Yuggera, and Urgarapul peoples of South-East Queensland – we pay our respects to elders who have guided the past, walk with us in the present and lead us into the future. These lands have never been ceded."

Silent ocean reimagined by Sherman and Field.

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