by Darren Copeland and Andreas Kahre
Based on a series of underwater recordings from various locations on Gabriola, Fish on Air is an installation that explores sound as the poetic nexus between the human and non-human world.
Five locationshave were chosen for recording underwater soundscapes in order to create a live "mix" of the marine and human soundscape that surrounds Gabriola. Recordings were made between March and July 2008, using a "Dolphin Ear" commercial hydrophone system and then processed digitally, and used as raw material for a series of acoustic portraits.
In July 2008, radio expert Bobbi Kozinuk help a community workshop to create low-powered FM transmitters based on a design by Media activist Tetsuo Kogawa, which were then kicly lent to the project for the duration of the installation.
Each "station" transmits a continuous loop of that site's underwater soundscape, which can be accessed by any FM radio, in a freuqncy range between 88.3 and 89.7 MHz. Frequencies vary slightly with each transmitter, and with the conditions of the site. Audiences are be able to "tune in" to the underwater soundscape anywhere within the effective range of the transmitters; approximately a kilometer from the source, opening a window into the acoustic ecology of marine life in the Gulf islands..
Fish on Air explores the underwater soundscapes of five Gabriola locations: Silva Bay, Descanso Bay, Taylor Bay, Degnen Bay and El Verano Beach. From January to July 2008, we collected underwater sounds, using a "Dolphin Ear' hydrophone system. Each place has very distinctive acoustic features:
Descasno Bay is periodically dominated by the sounds of the MV Quinsam ferry traffic and human sound especially near the campground beach.
Degnen Bay is a mixture of the distinctive sound of wooden hulls moored at the government wharf, mixed with small fish, crabs, and some avian sound.
IIn Taylor Bay, small marine life and human sounds are predominant, but floatplane traffic can frequently be heard as a distinctive sound.
In Silva Bay we found is a mixtiure of macine sounds, and the busy marina, but we also found a very lively world of small fish, especially near the West side of the Bay, near the Boat school.
El Verano Beach has a distinctive character because of the strong tidal curents which create movement among the bebbles, along with tiny crabs, alternating with the sound of pleasure boats and human presence.
Among the animals we found to inhabit the soundscape are various species of crab, seals, small fish, oysters, who create a very distinctive sound when they release bubblestreams.
Fish on Air expands on the work Darren and Andreas began in 2007, with "The other night, Underwater", a 50 minute audio art piece commissioned by Deutschlandradio Kultur in Berlin. It explored the notion that the human and non-human world are both separated and inextricably linked by sound and language.
Opening: Thursday, August 21st, 1:30 pm, the Gabriola Public Library
Darren Copeland
Darren Copeland is an electroacoustic composer and sound designer who has produced work since 1985 for concerts, radio, theatre, dance, and site-specific installation. He is also the Artistic Director of New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA), which produces electroacoustic and experimental sound art events in Toronto (Canada). Darren is an Associate Member of The Canadian Music Centre, and currently serves on the board of directors for the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology (CASE). He writes: “Without conscientious efforts to approach environmental sounds with some imagination and a sensitive social awareness, the language for coping with the everyday sound world will remain crude and ineffectual. If sound shapes people's experience in the world, than a vocabulary for documenting this interrelationship needs to develop.”
Andreas Kahre
Andreas Kahre is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, writer, and musician, whose work involves images, sound and text in many different configurations. He has been involved in the creation of more than a hundred interdisciplinary projects with theatre, dance and music ensembles across Canada, and specializes in sited interdisciplinary performance. His collaborative project with Darren Copeland explore the aural, historical and lyrical dimension of the underwater domain by combining hydrophone recording, text, and sound processing to create interactive ‘performance installations using holosonic speaker systems — tightly focused beams of sound that work like audio spotlights. Recent examples include a shortlisted proposal for Toronto’s Harbourfront festival and a commission for Deutschlandradio Kultur in Berlin scheduled for 2008.
