Wk 27 // Sound and video work + misc thought writing
- annabensky
- Aug 18, 2023
- 7 min read
Updated: Aug 20, 2023
Feeling very up in the air as we head towards the last half of this year... I know what I'm looking at, and interested in, an researching. But the question of how this will all come together in a finished installation is still a mystery... Though the more I think on it, the more comfortable I am with the idea of an open ended project being my final work for the year - something in progress, something in flux... We'll see.
Upskilling - Blender geometry nodes and morphing forms:
Returned to fiddling around in Blender, this time with morphing point clouds between forms. Am enjoying the dynamic feel of them, but still unsure how to potentially apply it in a finished work... Still, am going to attempt to create a simple 5 minute fly-through video over the coming week - walking through a shifting digital landscape and meditating on ecological fluidity... Still learning how to work with this; hoping to have better colour results and less segmenting visible in future experiments:
Below are also some images from the source files (photogrammetry meshes from a recent volcanic rock study at Takapuna Beach, where I was mapping and listening to the Lake Pupuke lava flow and fossil forest.) The moving image work is currently rendering (on frame 55 of 1000) - will post a link to it when finished.
Simpler things
Aside from my Blender tinkering, I've also been returning to simple video capture - mostly of macro or close up shots of coastal and volcanic environments. Since I'm on a limited upload plan for this blog and don't feel like paying more money to upload files, I won't post the clips here but will embed links to trial works from Vimeo when I remember.
Part of me wonders if a simple montage of images or video segments would be enough of a nod to all the things I'm thinking about... I'm still unsure where I want the hierarchy of importance to sit within my work. But the more I think on it, the more comfortable I am having multiple things happening at once (it's how I usually work, and it kind of lends itself to the whole ecological fluidity concept anyway). Still thinking on space imagery and fiction and gaze and rock... intending on trying out some night-time photography when the tides line up (likely in a week, when I won't get washed off the rocks at night).
Sound work - deep listening:
The contact microphone recording has been going well - I've figured out how to 'boost' the signal from the rock forms I've been listening to (still focusing on volcanic material in situ, coastal greywacke and sandstone cliffs) by using a small piece of aluminium wire between the microphone and subject. This doesn't change the sound coming from the rock, but does make it a lot clearer (which means less work is needed to clean it up - something I'm still struggling to learn to do!).
My aim is to create a short soundscape for the upcoming seminar. I'm still undecided if this will revolve around listening to a singular place, or to listening to multiple separate entities in different locations at once... Next time I'm out on a research fossick I intend on setting myself a time parameter by using the predicted fishing bite time as the window of recording.
Current reading list:
Nonhuman Photography by Joanna Zylinska
Islands of Abandonment by Cal Flyn
Groundwork, Bianca Hester from Perimeter Books
Staging the Moon: Resource Extraction Beyond Earth by Francelle Cane and Marija Maric (a current favourite)
various interviews and speeches by Ursula K. Le Guin
Diary thoughts: the new space race, deep sea mining, and the commodification of the natural world
On May 25th 1768, British explorer, cartographer, and naval officer James Cook began his first expedition to the Pacific as captain of the HMS Endeavour. Commissioned as a scientific voyage by the Royal Society of London, the purpose of this journey was to observe and record the 1769 transit of Venus, information which allowed European scientists to calculate the distance of the Earth from the Sun. On completing this venture in Tahiti, and with the guidance of Tahitian navigator Tupaia, Cook went on to map the circumnavigation of Aotearoa New Zealand. He then undertook a secretive directive: to locate and claim the theorised resource-rich continent of Terra Australis for British rule.
This instruction came at the request of the Royal Navy, who in agreement with the Royal Society sought to use the expedition to discover new trading routes and opportunities, bolstering the power of the British Admiralty on a global scale. Insidiously, the directive also instructed Cook to take possession of any land that had not been discovered by Europeans in the name of the King of England and to place its inhabitants under British rule. While the fabled continent was not found, the expedition led to what is thought to have been the first encounter between Europeans and Aboriginal Australians, and on August 22nd 1770, Cook declared Australia to be under the King’s possession.
Celebrated on his return to England in 1771 for contributions to science and exploration, Cook’s expedition had devastating consequences for the indigenous communities encountered on its voyage and the ecologies in their custodianship. This, along with two subsequent expeditions by Cook, contributed significantly towards colonisation within the Pacific - the impacts of which are still profoundly felt today. As outlined by the National Library of Australia, “territorial ambitions could be concealed behind the more benign exploratory goal of expanding knowledge of the world.”
On its 1971 mission, the fourth manned landing on the Moon, Apollo 15's command and service module CSM-112 was given the call sign Endeavour. This was decided on due to the scientific focus of the mission, on the grounds that Captain James Cook had commanded the first "purely scientific sea voyage" some two hundred years earlier... Among the crew's belongings was a small piece of wood claimed to be from this original vessel.
On May 7th 1992, almost 224 years to the day of Cook’s departure into the Pacific, the NASA Space Shuttle Endeavour launched its maiden flight. The craft’s name was chosen following a nation-wide competition amongst American primary schools, with the criteria given being that it should be named “after an exploratory or research vessel [and] easily understood in the context of space.” The name was chosen in celebration of Cook's voyage and its contribution to Western science. NASA’s Endeavour went on to conduct 25 launches over the course of its lifetime – missions that included providing materials for the servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope, the assembling and delivering of equipment to the International Space Station, and the conducting of its own scientific experiments and observations. After its final voyage, it was decommissioned in 2011.
Most recently, the SpaceXCrew Dragon announced the naming of its own 2020 crew capsule: once again, the Endeavour. This naming came some time after its first flights were completed, having passed the necessary hurdles for manned space flight, and was attributed to the "incredible endeavor" that SpaceX and NASA had undertaken in its creation - funded through the joint contract between SpaceX owner Elon Musk and the government administration.
Meanwhile on earth, in off the coast of the Cook Islands this year, the ocean research vessel RMS James Cook was commissioned to prospect for rare earth deposits on the ocean floor. The Metals Company, a small mineral-focused start-up, is lobbying for permission to mine for small manganese-rich nodules on the ocean floor in the name of clean energy and in the face of increasing global demand for electric vehicle batteries.
These Endeavours are not the only oceanographic and space exploration vessels linked by name and scientific intention. Challenger, Atlantis, Columbia, and Discovery are shared both by NASA’s early space shuttles and the research vessels operated following Europe’s Age of Enlightenment. This linguistic and ideological link between ocean exploration, cartography, scientific expeditions, and space exploration is well established, with space often described as a new frontier for exploration into the unknown. However, much like Cook’s expeditions saw immense impact on indigenous peoples and ecologies in the name of progress, so too are concerns being raised about space and deep sea exploration as framed through the lens of growth and expansion - especially now, following the signing of America's Space Policy Directive 1. The directive allows for collaboration between the country's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and private, international, and commercial partners - opening the field of space travel and exploration up to private interest, and allowing billionaires such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to participate in the field, with any intention. With the dawn of a new space race of sorts, the issue of capitalistic ventures in the name of science and progress has been raised. While NASA’s Endeavour and Hubble Telescope have contributed valuable information about the known universe that has expanded humanity’s understanding of space and our place within it, the vision of space as terra nullius is concerning.
This comparison between the Endeavours isn't to suggest an equivalence between the harm caused to ecology and the trauma felt by indigenous communities at the hands of settler colonialism. Rather, in exploring these connections between these two vessels in the context of a post-colonial, globalised world, and in an age of increasing concern around humanity's impact on ecology, I feel there is an opportunity to question the ideologies that sit behind such ventures. I believe there is a direct correlation between the aestheticization and associated commodification of the natural world, especially that which took place within and following settler colonialism. The impacts of these histories continues to be visible today, taking place in everyday encounters and around both private space exploration and deep sea mining ventures today. On one hand, there’s this great sense of wonderment at viewing an unknown entity - an asteroid, underwater nodule, or other non-living entities and environments - at such a great distance, and a genuine value to the scientific study of the unknown. On the other hand, there is a concerning awareness that such projects are also taking place within a global culture of commodification and industry, the roots of which can be traced back to the ideologies of industrialisation, settler colonialism, and capitalism. The measuring of minerals on celestial bodies such as the Moon, Mars, and known asteroids - for both scientific data and prospective mining operations - is already underway today, as is the proposal of deep sea mining which would see fragile ecosystems disrupted in the name of 'progress'.
As with all technologies, both their creation and use are rich with the influence and ideologies of their creators and operators. It is vital that in an age of increasing awareness of ecological fragility, post-colonial discussion, and a renewed interest in space exploration, that these intersecting histories and ideas are examined. In doing so, perhaps, we may come to understand what we carry with us into the future, whether intentional or not. What are the Anthropocentric and colonial ideologies being brought into the future, and what changes are necessary to disrupt their perpetuation?
Comentarios