In the summer of 2022 I embarked on an expedition with The Arctic Circle Arts and Science residency program, following the Gulf Stream all the way to the North Pole. During this time, I started doing audio visual documentation on what will eventually become a series of observational short films with an immersive sound component, exploring the interconnectedness between Puerto Rico, the North and South Poles.
Below you’ll find a collection of images, work in progress and sculptures created with the data and materials I’ve collected during my expeditions.
Svalbard, High Arctic
Pictured below: Underwater audio recording in front of the receding Blomstrand Glacier in Svalbard.
Below: Location, Blomstrand Glacier, Svalbard. Video documentation of field recordings being captured in front of the receding Blomstrand Glacier.
Pictured Below: sketch of receding of Bloomstrandbreen from 1936 until 2007.
Video Below: Location, Vesle Raudfjorden. For this session, I wanted to get the sonic perspective of ice after it has been separated from the glacier itself.
Puerto Rico, the Caribbean
A conveyor belt of warm ocean currents begins its global journey in the Caribbean, collecting sonic details of our individual secrets and communal memories. This journey concludes at the northernmost point of the Arctic Circle where all of the Earth’s time zones simultaneously converge, making the concept of time null, empty, non-existent. It is in that timeless place where our secrets and memories transfigure. They become remnants of a collaboration between sound and water, a storytelling entity and the sonic archive of our time before the loss of time.
Pictured below: documentation of sonic data collected around the coordinates 18.477839,-66.700195 and the sculpture created to play it back as installed at Recinto Cerra Gallery, Puerto Rico. Materials: upcycled / prepared speaker, found fishing net, rope gifted to me by fisherman from the area.
Video Below: Sound fishing at Lake Carite, Puerto Rico. Documentation Video by Nono Rivera
Pictured Below: Lake Carite Sounds as presented at Cuchifritos Art + Project Space. The records are part of a “Sound Fishing” series where I use a hydrophone with a manufacturing defect to capture underwater sounds that highlight both, sound pollution in marine environments and the lack of it. I also use a refurbished stereo microphone to capture the source of either the human-created sound pollution or natural sounds, from the point of view of the land. The record player used to play back the 7” records, was also deemed faulty by factory standards.
