Intertidal Chorus – fieldtest – Westerschelde River – videostills 2024
The acoustic ecology of the North Sea is deeply impacted by human noise. The sea sounds like a deafening industrial plant. These beings may have never heard our biological human voice, just our machinery, for over 100 years since the industrial revolution. Imagine doing that to your human neighbours. It is time for life underwater to hear our human voice. Time for us to properly introduce ourselves. The ambition of Intertidal Chorus is singing. Partly because whales sing, but even in humans, singing is thought to be older than speech. In any case, it is a form of expression we share as mammals. Pirates, sailors, fishermen, whales, mermaids, they all sing. It is as if the sea evokes songs. Singing under water is very difficult. Currently I'm prototyping masks that enable humans to sing longer and act as resonance chambers for the voice. Guided by voice experts the aim is to form local choirs along the coast that walk into the sea together to create and sing a song for the sea.
Seaweed suit – fieldtest – Oosterschelde River – videostills 2020
As part of a field research team for the Embassy of the North sea, which consists of geoscientist Maarten Kleinhans, sociologist Darko Lagunas and myself, we've been looking at the future of the river delta region from more-than-human perspectives. The long and tragic history of the Dutch delta islands, with its many floods and over 170 drowned villages, has lead to engineering being the dominant language when we speak about the future, climate change and sea-level rise. It is looking increasingly likely that the region will not exist much longer. Discussions about the future have become stuck. Meanwhile seaweed continues to dance in synch with even the smallest movements of the water. With this suit I attempt to feel what this is like. Diving into the water was deeply disorienting and in a way dis-embodying, making it unclear where my body ends and the sea starts. Adaptability being a key ingredient to (climate) resilience, this suits acts as a listening devise for dynamic processes.
Note: The text above was written by the Artist. No modification was made by COCA.
Theun Karelse
Netherlands
Theun Karelse, Amsterdam, NL: as a youngster I was interested in drawing as a way of learning about the world and subsequently studied fine-arts at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam before joining FoAM, a distributed group of transdisciplinary laboratories operating at the interstices of art, science, nature and everyday life. My interests and experimental practice explore edges between art, environment, technology and archaeology. I practice and support ecosystem and landscape regeneration in Europe, India and Afrika. My outdoor studio consists of several gardens that serve as testing grounds for urban biodiversity, climate adaptation and indigenous knowledge systems. I'm a board member of the Embassy of the Earth, part of the Future of the Delta team at the Embassy of the North sea and Speaker for the Living at Zoop CCU.