Ocean Networks Canada Residency

In 2022, I was selected to be Ocean Networks Canada’s Artist in Residence. During that year I composed new electroacoustic works for steelpan and percussion that explore contemporary issues and data surrounding the oceans. I would like to extend my deep thanks to ONC for supporting my work and teaching me all about the oceans and contemporary issues affecting them. I hope you enjoy these works and learn something about our oceans in the process.

List of works

Other resources

Solid Carbon

Solid Carbon is project by Ocean Networks Canada to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and inject it into ocean basalt, below the seafloor, where it will mineralize into rock. Since the carbon mineralizes into rock, the solution is permanent. This is what is known as a negative emissions technology. Most of the focus has been on a reduction in emissions, but that won’t be enough. What we really need is to not only offset emissions, but to also remove carbon from the atmosphere. There are several solutions proposed and Solid Carbon is ONC’s approach (which they are conducting research to further demonstrate its viability).

When ONC told me about this project, I was captivated by it for several reasons. First, I have long thought that negative emissions technologies are vital. However, more than that I loved the image of carbon dioxide particles flitting about in the sky until they are captured and turned to stone and I wanted to capture that musically. In this piece, there are repeated juxtapositions between flighty, high-pitched sounds and long, slow low pitched sounds. The CO2 dances nimbly, high in the sky until it gets transformed into the basalt and becomes part of the foundation upon which the oceans rest.

In this piece, high pitched sounds are recorded and processed to lower and smear their pitch. The annual CO2 emissions from the last 270 years controls the effects as the flittering high frequencies gradually transform into an ever-present foundation of bass tones. The emissions dataset is used in reverse order since the goal of Solid Carbon is to effectively “roll back” the clock on carbon emissions. Solid Carbon is currently working on lab experiments and modeling to demonstrate the effectiveness of the process. If you would like to learn more about the project and support their work, please visit their website (https://solidcarbon.ca/).

Resources:

Hot, Sour, Breathless

The title of this piece is derived from how ocean scientists are starting to refer to the future of our oceans: their temperatures are rising (hot), they are becoming more acidic (sour), and the amount of dissolved oxygen is reducing (breathless). Each section of the piece seeks to sonify these aspects if various ways.

The first portion uses equalization and recordings of water heating to portray the rising temperatures. I create a makeshift wave drum by dropping BB’s into a frame drum and swirling them around. I think play an unsettling rising melody on the steelpan. The audio for both of these are fed into an effects chain that uses echos and pitch shifting to further reinforce the rising sensation.

As the water in the recordings begins to boil, synthesizer sounds designed to sound like rising bubbles emerge. I then move from the steelpan to a variety of cymbals: a bell with sizzles, a sizzle china, a broken crash, and a splash designed to sound like trash. As the piece processes, the abrasive cymbal sounds represent the acidification of the ocean as digital audio effects eat away at and degrade the electronic sounds.

Sounds of ocean waves then fade it, accompanied by the wave drum. This then becomes the backbone of the audio track for the remainder of the piece. At this point I perform a cymbal ritual as I slowly add mute to the cymbals, choking them. As the mute accumulate, the cymbals are unable to produce their fullest sounds, becoming dull, lifeless hunks of metal. Simultaneously, the electronics audio begins to produce dropouts. It slowly loses its voice as it becomes breathless.

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Trash Vortex

This piece is based on the Pacific Trash Vortex (also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch). The Pacific Trash Vortex is comprised to two large garbage patches in the Pacific consisting mostly of non-biodegradable materials – especially plastics. Instead of degrading or decomposing, these plastics break into tinier and tinier pieces as they swirl around the Pacific, creating a microplastic slurry on the surface of the ocean. Once they’ve broken down enough, the microplastic bits are invisible to the naked eye, but are floating in the water.

This is a very serious problem for the ocean as the plastics in the water are harmful to marine wildlife. As they take in water to breath, it can be filled with microscopic plastic. This creates problems for fish and other wildlife just as it would for humans if were to ingest significant amounts of plastic. In fact, this is becoming a more serious problem for humans since many people eat fish. As plastics become more prevalent in the ocean waters, they also become more common in the fish we eat.

In Trash Vortex, everything I play in every performance and rehearsal is recorded by the computer on a loop. During playback, little pieces of the recording is played back randomly and broken down in random way – just as the plastics in the ocean are broken down. Every time the piece is performed, it is accompanied by the detritus of past performances. This process happens automatically and stochastically. As the loop records over what came before, the sounds slowly fade as new ones are overdubbed. In this way, the past is always there, but grows fainter and fainter until it is not so much heard, but becomes a slurry of sound to accompany new performances.

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Oil & Water

Oil & Water is the centerpiece of this residency. The original proposal is based on the relationship between the steelpan and the oil industry. The steelpan was invented in Trinidad around the 1930s. It was able to mature into its modern version in the late 1940s when Ellie Mannette experimented with building one from an oil barrel. The larger size and and structural strength of the steel allowed for more notes, better tuning, and increased longevity of the instrument. Conveniently for the early steelpan builders in Trinidad, there was an abundance of oil drums left behind after World War II since the US and UK navies used Trinidad as a staging area. Trinidad is also an oil producing nation. Every year in Trinidad there is a large steelband competition called Panorama with dozens of steelbands competing. In the large category, each band will have over a hundred players onstage. In order to sustain this art form, many of these bands are sponsored by companies from the oil and energy sector – further reinforcing the connection between the steelpan and oil. It was these relationships that inspired me to use the steelpan as a lens through which to explore the connection between the oil industry and the oceans for the Ocean Networks Canada Artist-in-Residence program.

Oil & Water started as a two minute composition for an online art exhibit curated by the American Geophysical Union, but has now grown quite a bit. It begins with a blend of field recordings I made while aboard the Coho Ferry as well as hydrophone recordings made from ONC’s vast array of underwater microphones. After the introduction is the original version of Oil & Water. In this section, the steelpan plays a beautifully hypnotic melody, but is eventually overtaken by explosive sounds generated probabilistically using oil production data from the previous 120 year. Since oil production has increased dramatically in more recent years, the majority of the intrusions come at the end of the section.

The remainder of the piece features a bass synthesizer throughout. The timbre of the bass synth is derived from per capita oil consumption data for countries from around the world. The data from 1965 for each country/region in the world is transformed into a “wavetable” that is used as a custom oscillator for the synthesizer. Then to generate the notes, the synthesizer cycles through the wavetables at the proper frequency. As the synthesizer plays, its sound is determined by world oil consumption.

The middle sections of Oil & Water are inspired by reflections on the ocean. It also features a quote from a song by the band Incubus that shares the same title as this piece. The end section is inspired by the music played at Panorama in Trinidad (the world’s largest steel band competition). However, the harmony and melodies are written to feel slightly discomforting. The feel of Panorama drives the end section to highlight the connection of the steelpan to Trinidad and its construction from oil drums.

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Reflection in Waves

Reflection in Waves is a piece commissioned by Ocean Networks Canada to be broadcast 2 km deep in the Pacific Ocean as part of the Radio Amnion project. As I composed the 62 minute piece, I was fixated on the image of the moon reflecting off of the ocean. That struck me as a seemingly eternal image. Thinking about music for such ancient bodies, I decided to create a piece on a much longer time-scale than I usually work with. What seems like a long time for us is minuscule in comparison to how long the moon has been hanging over the oceans. In that vein, I constructed the piece from time-stretched and processed steelpans notes. However, these artificially elongated notes are probably still quick blips in time from the perspective of the oceans. Reflection in Waves is just over an hour long, which is long by human standards for music, but imagine if it were compressed to last only a moment. For something eternal, this hour-long work is just a fleeting moment of noise.

Stream of live performance

The original stream of the live performance of the premieres of all of these pieces is available on the University of Victoria website.

Publicity

Listed here are various articles and interviews about the residency.