SUBMERGED FREQUENCIES -
transforming underwater noise pollution into sonic practice
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25.06.2025
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New Music Lab
Institute of Sonology
Amare, Den Haag (NL)
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20’
glass cube of seawater, hydrophones, transducers, field recordings, instrument samples
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12.2 speaker setup
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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.
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.
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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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