BLENDED WORLDS 2024

ANCIENT ECHOES – SOUNDSCAPES ACROSS WORLDS

An intermedia installation of sound and moving image artwork that responds to how soundscape might inspire greater empathy in the face of the unknown and the practice of putting down thanks for water and life through soundscape visualization and experiential cartography.

How Might Soundscape Create Greater Empathy? …How Might Water Unite Life?

This place-based floor projection is constructed from a sage ring and a meteorite marking magnetic north. Seven soundscape visualizations are projected onto the floor as viewers experience a portal of light, sound, and motion.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Title: “Ancient Echoes – Soundscapes Across Worlds”, on exhibit Sept. 21, 2024 to Jan. 4, 2025, “Blended Worlds: Experiments in Interplanetary Imagination”, JPL-Getty PST, at the Brand Library & Art Center, Glendale, CA
Date of Work: Sept. 2024
Running Time: (21:56)

Lead Investigator: Artist/Astrophysicist: Annette S. Lee

Fabricator & System Design: Kelly Carlton; Technology Liaison: Eddy Vajarakitipongse; Scientist in Planetary Interiors and Geophysics: Corey Cochrane, JPL; Anne Simonis, Underwater Acoustic Ecology; Carmen Gavin Vanegas and boys, Water Honoring Song (Ojibwe, Dakota, English & Romanian); Biologist, Mequon Nature Preserve: Gary S. Casper; Author, Naturalist, Wildlife Photographer: Stan Tekiela ; Nathan Ziegler, Minnesota Cold; PI/Director, Ocean Worlds Lab: Kevin Hand, JPL

Curator: David Delgado – NASA – JPL, The Studio

Blended Worlds – Experiments in Interplanetary Imagination on exhibit Sept 23, 2024, to Jan. 4, 2025

_{^{Still images from the Soundscape Tapestry: ‘Ancient Echoes – Soundscapes Across Worlds’, (top left) sound of Ice Singing (Nathan Z.); sound of water moving (A. Lee); Thank You Water Song; (bottom left) sound of interstellar space (NASA Voyager); sound of crickets (S. Tekila); sonification of Europa’s Induced Magnetic Field (C. Cochrane-JPL), produced by Annette S. Lee ©2024. All rights reserved.}}

The projection is centered inside a sage ring. Plant medicine holds the space aligned to the cardinal directions at the Bland Gallery. Star metal (or meteorite) marks the North direction, while the other three compass directions (East, South, West) are indicated with red string. The animation soundscape visualization is an ensemble of seven parts: the four cardinal directions plus above, below, and center.

Whale song (blue whale, humpback, sperm whale) opens the journey. North starts with sounds of space, starting with the Big Bang 14 bya. East is dedicated to the sounds of water in Earth’s oceans over 4 bya. South acknowledges 400 mya when life came out of the water and onto land – frogs, insects, then birds. West direction contains sounds of our human species 2 mya – heartbeat and song. The final three directions -above, below, center- acknowledge Europa’s magnetic field, ice shell, and liquid water ocean. Dolphins and Blue Whales close the journey. The piece is ‘Putting Down Thanks’ for the tapestry of life, focusing on water as life and kinship between waterworlds-Earth and Europa.