Artist: Andrea Polli
Title: Commonwealth Scrape Ice | Observation Hill Hike | ©
Date: 2008
Duration: 10′11
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photos by: Andrea Polli
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THE SOUND
section 1.
Today Hassan and I went to visit a couple more LTER met stations, one on top of Commonwealth Glacier in Taylor Valley. If you put a mic right down to the surface, the sound of a glacier is incredibly reverberant, almost as sound was going into a giant hollow space with highly reflective walls or through a tangled matrix of hollow glass tubes. It was too cold to record any melting sounds underneath the surface, but I was able to scrape and otherwise manipulate the surface to get some interesting and weird sounds. What I find weird in this short mono recording is the kind of high pitched squeaking and clicking that occurs behind the main scraping sound.
section 2.
Everything about this binaural recording is wrong: there’s wind noise, sounds of clothing rustling, radically fluctuating audio levels, but somehow when I listen to it (through headphones), I feel like I am right back on that hill.
THE ARTIST
Andrea Polli is a digital media artist living in New Mexico. Her work addresses issues related to science and technology in contemporary society. She is interested in global systems, the real time interconnectivity of these systems, and the effect of these systems on individuals. Polli’s work with science, technology and media has been presented widely in over 100 presentations, exhibitions and performances internationally, has been recognized by numerous grants, residencies and awards including UNESCO. Her work has been reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, Art in America, Art News, NY Arts and others. She has published two book chapters, several audio CDs, DVDs and many papers in print including MIT Press and Cambridge University Press journals.
links: http://www.andreapolli.com/
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