2014 – Sensing Our World

Rare Earthenware

Title: Rare Earthenware
Artists: Unknown Field Division in collaboration with FIX
Source: Neural Magazine
Sense(s): visual
Issue(s): toxic e-waste, metals, pollution

The Unknown Fields Division is a ‘nomadic design research studio that ventures out on expeditions to the ends of the earth to bear witness to alternative worlds, alien landscapes, industrial ecologies and precarious wilderness’.¹ Therefore, it is concerned with the various problematic interactions between nature and society. A particular project from the studio, Rare Earthenware was foregrounded in Neural in 2016. This project concerned visibilising the e-waste in the form of toxic metal, integral to the production of digital technologies such as smartphones and laptops.

In the Rare Earthenware project, documentation from areas of rare earth metal production were combined with ceramics production to create a visual and material representation of the toxicity of production of digital devices. The project traced the global supply chain of rare earth metals to ‘their source at a toxic lake in Inner Mongolia’.² Mud was taken from this lake and vases were created from the mud, in collaboration with ceramicist Kevin Callaghan. The vases were exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2014, and an accompanying video was also produced.

GhostFood

Title: GhostFood
Artist(s): Miriam Simun and Miriam Songster
Source: Neural Magazine
Sense(s): Taste
Issue(s): Food loss due to climate change

This piece explores the loss of biodiversity due to climate change, but in the form of smell and taste of foods threatened by climate change. The artists therefore created a performance piece, whereby they installed their work in a food truck that ‘served’ taste experiences of flavours that may be threatened by climate change, such as cod, peanuts and cocoa. The users ordered from a menu of food they would like to taste. However, what is presented to the client is not the food itself, but a device that directly stimulates the olfactory (taste) sense, giving the impression of experiencing the food. The device is worn on the face, and directs smells into the nose. This olfactory experience is supplemented by a ‘climate resilient textural substitute that will mimic the texture’ of the soon to be unavailable food.¹ It is known that the sense of smell influences how food is tasted. Therefore, by designing these devices as a thought experiment, the authors are making ‘smelly’ and ‘tasty’ the effects of climate change, while asking the audience to consider their visceral response to these substitute materials.

What is unusual about this project is that it invokes ‘olfactory memory’ ² to evoke visceral responses to climate change. This also evokes a sense of attachment to food, and the relative disgust at eating synthetic substitutes of food that no longer exists. Thus, the project reveals that not only can environmental issues be visibilised and sonified, but made olfactory also.

Where are the wild ones?

Title: Where are the wild ones?
Artist(s): Kaffe Matthews
Source: TBC
Sense(s): Audio, visual
Issue(s): Environmental health of water

This project is a place-based study of the river Tyne, charting through sound and visuals the journey of the Atlantic salmon, and revealing material from the source, long the length of the Tyne, to its mouth. The work is presented as sound and video, and ‘will weave myth with scientific data to make new music’.¹ The installation therefore mixes originally composed music, with sonic data from the river, along with Environment Agency of the UK data on pH levels, temperature, flow rates, oxygen and ammonia levels in the Tyne. These multiple data points ‘were used to define melody structure and rhythmic quality’.² Along with these environmental data points, Matthews also included data on fish populations and mortality (ibid.).

This project aims to engage ‘audiences of all ages’ (KM site), in a place-based environmental narrative of the river Tyne. Its contributions therefore are in how it engages local communities on matters connected to an aspect of their local environment.

Trees: Rendering Ecophysiological Processes Audible

Title: Trees: Rendering Ecophysiological Processes Audible
Artist(s): Marcus Maeder
Source: NEURAL
Sense(s): Sound, Installation
Issue(s): Environmental impact of climate change

This research project by Marcus Maeder seeks to render audible certain processes of trees and forests. Maeder recorded various sounds of trees using scientific measurement tools (Neural). He then presented the work in spatial audio installations, where the speakers playing the sounds are ‘suspended in the shape of a cube formed by 9 columns of 4 speakers each. Using virtual imaging techniques field recordings of climate conditions are projected outside of the boundaries of the installation, while recordings of the acoustic emissions of trees are reproduced within the installation on individual speaker columns’ (Neural). In addition, the environment in which the installation is playing, is fed by environmental data from the trees/forest, such as temperature affecting the loudness of the installation.

Thus, the installation provides a complex sonic landscape from both outside and within the forest installation. However, in creating a feedback loop from within the forest installation that affects the sounds itself, it echoes the feedback loops created by society upon nature. It is therefore relevant for this project. Indeed, ‘the combination of both recognizable and previously unheard sounds create a sonic representation of natural processes, attempting to convey the complexity of specific ecological systems through correlations between processed environmental data and recordings of acoustic phenomena’ (Neural).