RISE
Rise (2019) is an audiovisual installation that explores the impact of climate change on our oceans, including rising sea levels, ocean warming, acidification, and loss of marine species. Created in collaboration with activist and composer Peter Sloan, it combines art and music to reflect on environmental changes and the concept of solastalgia, a form of distress caused by environmental loss. The installation features underwater recordings from the Arctic Ocean and oil drilling sounds from the Gulf of Mexico, played in surround sound. This multi-layered artwork includes a 55-foot video wall as a backdrop to three sculptural pools. Speakers under the pools vibrate with live music, making waves. The performance, lasting about 45 minutes, tells a story that starts with the celebration of oceanic biodiversity and ends in a quiet, mournful tribute to loss.
Over the course of the performance, rising water levels in the three pools became more polluted. Gas can sculptures dispersed colored water into the pools through valves that opened and closed in a pattern matching a dataset of global temperatures in the last century. I achieved this by using solenoids programmed by Arduino microcontrollers.
The musicians are mimicking the recorded sounds of sea life and marine traffic as instructed by the score. The featured performers are Ilana Waniuk (violin), Juliana Gaona-Villamizar (oboe), David Aguila (trumpet), Paul Roth (alto sax), and Kathryn Schulmeister (bass). Sea life sound recording archive access was provided by Professor Dr. John A. Hildebrand's Whale Acoustics Lab.