flurina mia häberli
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SUBMERGED FREQUENCIES - transforming underwater noise pollution into sonic practice

 

Over the past two years, I have collaborated with musicians, inviting them to engage with my field recordings of anthropogenic underwater noise pollution. They were asked to improvise in response — to 'tune in,' to communicate with the aquatic material, to interpret these human-made soundscapes through their instruments.

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This piece is built from fragments of those sessions—intuitive responses, sonic conversations, and interpretations of noise beneath the surface, filtered through human ears and hands. 

For this performance, I’ve brought a glass cube of seawater into the New Music Lab. It serves as both a physical object and a resonant body. Speakers covered in plastic bags send sound into the cube, while hydrophones pick up the vibrations within it—transforming it into a listening, and sounding entity. These watery transmissions are then diffused through a multichannel speaker system, interacting with the space, the performer, and the instrumental fragments around them.

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Musicians: Joel Gester Suarez (Prepared Piano), Pedro Gonçalves (Bassoon), Clara Levy (Violin), Julia Robert (Viola), Anaïs Moreau (Cello), Leo Giger (Drums)

Field recording sites: Port of Rotterdam, Zeeland, Tiengemeten Island

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Noise pollution in our environment on land is known, understood, and abated through applicable existing ordinances. Unfortunately, this is not the case with respect to our underwater environment. The act of regulating anthropogenic noise pollution in the oceans is much more difficult due to the physical propagation of underwater sound. Human-made underwater sounds originate from many sources, including shipping, seismatic activities from oil and gas exploration, military activities, pile driving during construction of offshore windfarms, and deep-sea mining. Marine mammals use hearing as primary sense to detect predators or prey, orientation and to communicate with cospecies. There is an overlap in the frequency range in which marine life can hear/produce sound and anthropogenic sound; as a consequence, marine life gets interrupted. The increasing noise level can negatively affect marine life and their ecosystems in complex ways, including through acute, chronic, and cumulative effects.

 

This research project will deal with the soundscape of underwater anthropogenic noise pollution as a foundation for compositions and live performances. By exploring ways to work with this sound material and incorporate it into my practice, I aim to create more awareness about noise pollution. How does the increasing anthropogenic noise pollution influence the biggest ecosystem of our world, the oceans? What are the possibilities to decrease anthropogenic noise? Can decreasing noise levels help counteract the ongoing species extinction due to climate crisis? How can I put those questions and facts into artistic musical work?

 

The theoretical part of my master's thesis is subdivided into four topics: research of hydrosphere acoustics, composition techniques, field recordings, and research of different types of hydrophones. For example, regarding composition techniques: how can I include data of ocean noise maps in a composition or use it as a tool to create structures for following pieces? The practical part of my master‘s project is subdivided into five topics: collecting, recording, recreating, composing, and performing.