biodiverse/earth
Audio Visual Installation,2020.
Commissioned by Imperial Lates.

Collaborators: Jenna Lawson (biologist), John Hooper, Dr Steve Aishman, Louise Beer and Melanie King.

super/collider’s biodiverse/earth commission by Imperial Lates explores the impact of human impact on the forests of Costa Rica. We present Jenna Lawson’s findings as an immersive audio-visual experience, as we journey from biodiverse forests, untouched by human hands, to disturbed plantations of palm and teak, where a haunting silence exists due to the loss of life as natural forest ecosystems are removed.

It is our hope that from this experience, you can better understand the sheer diversity of life in our world, and the startling loss when we destroy these incredible ecosystems for everyday products that we all use, whilst reconnecting with nature and enjoying the health benefits from immersing in the sounds of the natural world. The results from Lawson’s research will be used to understand the threats that exist and guide the protection and restoration of native forests, connect forest fragments and increase populations of the spider monkey.

Using the sound collected during the research project, John Hooper has constructed a journey through the forest. We begin at dawn with the natural sounds of the spider monkeys home and from there we approach the edge of a plantation. The final sounds of the spider monkey fall away and the patches of land turned over to plantations ring out with the sound of insects. Here, John has overlaid the ghostly sounds of animals which would have once roamed these areas before the intervention of humanity. The ghostly sounds are made from Jenna's recordings of spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, macaws and toucans. John has layered them and changed the speed and pitch to suggest a disruption of the natural world. From the plantation we return to the natural sounds of Los Planes where the animals return. We repeat the process traveling through another plantation and ending in Piedras Blancas. The disparity between these environments is truly brought home to use via the soundscapes, acting as not only a sonic break but a break in the natural order.

Steve Aishman wrote a JavaScript program that makes drawings based on the interactions of various sounds. Whenever a sound reaches a certain level, it makes a ring that then diffractively interacts with other rings from other sounds creating an effect like ripples interacting on a surface. The rings in the drawings are based in a program called “Ripples” by Saiki, S. (2019).

The collaborators for this project are Jenna Lawson, John Hooper and Dr Steve Aishman.