UNHEARD POETRY OF THE DEPTHS

The more our existence encroaches upon those seemingly unfathomable borders of things that can hardly be heard, the more it can lead us to the evocative sounds that are alive in the depths of the Antarctic Ocean.

Even if the surface of the Antarctic appears to be a place of silence, under the water’s surface — by way of contrast — there is an immeasurable fullness of sound, and these are sounds that can [invigorate and] intoxicate.

Layer upon layer of sound opens up to form a soundscape. It begins with the cascade of neutrinos upon the ice, which are ultrasonic, and continues with the infrasonics of vocalizing blue whales, or even the resonant motion of the planet.

Accompanied, metaphorically speaking, by ephemeral entities of indeterminable provenance.

Using acoustic recordings of the PALAOA - Perannual Acoustic underwater Observatory of the Antarctic Ocean from AWI Alfred Wegener Institute Bermerhaven, the composer has arrived at creative conclusions based on individual human experience.

Employing FFT sound analysis, Brüggemann has combed through the recordings of the PALAOA observatory in her search for poetic sounds, in order to make those sounds audible to audiences and to translate them into abstract acoustic images and landscapes. In so doing, she has used effects and filters from the field of digital modulation. She has researched the impact of playbacks of recorded soundscapes, ones that occupy the very edges of our auditive perception.

Her approach to underwater sounds is informed by her artistic and associative work as a composer and pianist.

In short, Brüggemann is striving to attain her own cosmos of sound, her own cosmos of individual expression.

                                                                                                                     Translation

Stephen Ferguson