Aug 25, 2023

Wk 28 / reflections + small documentation of experiments

Updated: Aug 27, 2023

Reflecting on media use and attunement

Following the last seminar, one of the questions I've been wondering about has been how to balance the subject of ecology with the choice of media I am using. There have been several moments over the past month where I've started and stopped an investigation because I felt that the medium I had chosen was distracting from the subject too much - i.e. it didn't feel that something was being added by recording in point-cloud, a particular video perspective, etc., but that it was adding another layer of distance between myself/viewer and ecology. For this reason, I've been leaning more towards 'basic' video capture for more in-your-face ecologically focused works where I want the complexity of what is there to be the focus; while leaning towards the heavily mediated data-set style aesthetic in combination with writing for the more speculative experiments. Still learning how to make this judgment call, but enjoying the process of it all... For the upcoming seminar, I'm planning to present a simple video projection + audio, focusing on either the geological stratification at Waiwera Beach, or the fossil forest at Takapuna/Milford (currently leaning towards the latter, but keeping the former in mind for EOY and more developed time-generous projects). This is a bit of a return to less obvious mediation (macro/static video rather than edited point cloud fields), but I hope it will be a good chance to test some hunches about the audio component I'm working with currently...

Waiwera

This is somewhere close to where I grew up. It is a really vibrant ecology - where the Weranui River meets the ocean, and with multiple underground hot springs that emerge on the beach. There are large shellfish beds, multitudes of sea birds, and a vibrant reef system that emerges at low tide where squid, crabs and Snapper among others can be seen in the water...

Geologically, it's a fascinating place. The cliffs are an example of Waitemata Sandstone, which sits beneath most of the Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland region - its below much of its volcanic geology! This sandstone was deposited on the marine floor of the 1000-2000m-deep Waitemata Basin between 21-18 million years ago, with the Basin itself formed through a shift in the then newly active Pacific-Australian plate boundary. This caused a subduction (lowering) of the area, sparking the development of the sandstone...

This Sandstones consist of alternating layers of sandstone and mudstone. The top of each layer is what would have been the ancient sea floor, which progressive built upwards as sediment was deposited over time. If the layering is not visibly flat, it shows that the ancient seafloor was tilted, or even folded, either soon after layers were formed by seafloor slumping or millions of years later as the whole area was slowly pushed up by tectonic shifts. Each layer was carried to the seabed in a slurry of sand, mud and water called a "turbidity current". The lower parts of each layer are the coarsest (featuring the heaviest particles) while finer sediment was carried further along the basin floor. Between the sandstone layers (aka beds) there are thin layers of mudstone, created from a combination of mud deposited by the end of the turbidity slurry and mud which dropped out of suspension in the ocean water. While each sand layer was deposited in a matter of hours, each mud layer was deposited over hundreds of years - around 1cm/100 years.

On the northwest slopes of the Waitemata Basin, erosion of the Northland caused sand to be deposited into rivers, near where Dargaville and Wellsford are today, which flowed into the sea. Earthquakes also shook piles of sand loose from the top of underwater slopes. Occasionally, plant matter was also carried by the river into the sea during storms, which can be seen in dark layers between the sandstone and mud beds. Within the upper parts of some sand layers, burrows left by marine organisms that lived on the sea floor at that time can also be seen.

Other thick dark layers of coarser sandstone called Parnell Grit can also be found in the cliffs - composed almost entirely of volcanic material, with red layers caused through the oxidisation of on-land eruptions. These dark volcanic beds came from a once active volcano which would have been near the mouth of the Kaipara Harbour or Whangarei Heads today.

The Waitemata Sandstone was approximately 800m thick in total. To the East (i.e. the Hunua Ranges, Motutapu, Tiritiri, Kawau, Leigh), all of this has been eroded away. To the West, most of the still exists below ground in what is now Waiuku, Huia, Waimauku, Helensville and Kaukapakapa.

I could spend eons here and never get sick of it.

Catching up on some uploading; none of these are finished works, just experiments in the mix. Will post another entry with my current focus projects in it this coming week pre-seminar :)

Deep Listening playlist (ongoing)

Playlist of lightly edited contact mic recordings which combine multiple recordings of Takapuna's fossil forest and Waiwera's sandstone cliffs. Trying to listen to the orchestra of relationships happening in the space - the slow erosion of the rock, the tidal shift, wind patterns, biotic inhabitants... Need to figure out how to make these sounds a little less harsh on ears though... Hoping my music-making friends can help.

I'm happy with the resonance of the Takapuna recordings but I think the Waiwera ones turned out a little harsh... My idea is to combine these recordings with moving image of the rock forms that have been recorded from, but I am still deciding whether this should take place in "chapters" (i.e. an album of short recordings in a montage format) or a concatenation (sounds layered upon each other). Untitled (Low Tide) is an example of the latter, although I need to adjust the volume towards the end... They sound better on speakers than they do headphones oddly enough. But that's giving me good ideas for the installation space...

Also unsure if I'll combine the deep listening recordings with the existing recording in each video component, but will resolve this this week...

Video recording

Still recording short clips of the geology around Takapuna and Waiwera - below is an example clip (with the original audio). I'm leaning towards this kind of macro-esque shot, as the longer I stare at it the more it seems to play tricks on my eyes and begin to move. I'm hoping this will help counteract some of the "staring at a brick wall" feeling that may be a concern (it isn't to me, but not sure what other people will think of it...).