MOVEMENT BY OCEANS

During a one-week research residence at Satellietgroep Den Haag compser Stef Veldhuis and I explored new ways of translating oceanographic data into sound and movement. We started collecting facts and points of interest on the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic and Antarctic oceans before deciding to kick-off the Movement By Oceans project at the Arctic ocean.

The Arctic ocean is has a canary-in-a-coalmine function when it comes to climate change and looking at the deterioration of this icy landscape paints a bleak picture. Every summer the sea-ice recedes only to expand again in the winter. Comparing satellite images from 1984 to satellite images from now shows us that this winter expansion decreases in volume every year. Climate scientist predict that the summers in the Arctic will be ice free somewhere this century, which will lead to flooding and rising temperatures worldwide.

We used data collected by ARGO which allowed us to create with nature. ARGO is an international program that uses profiling floats to observe temperature, salinity, currents, and, recently, bio-optical properties in the Earth's oceans. These profiling floats sink to a depth of two kilometres where they drift on underwater currents for ten days after which they resurface to send out data to a satellite. We found two floats, no. 2900941 and no. 2900941, that had been deployed only a few days apart, and decided to use these as a source of data for the dance and composition because their trajectories where uniquely parallel.

Movement by Oceans was created with the help of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. 

COMPOSER
Stef Veldhuis

DANCERS
Merel Franx
Femke Verbeten
Elena Lachininoto
Isa Hoornsman
Nikki Rasing

MUSICIANS
Sarah-Lynn Huizing
Jurriaan Klapwijk
Rogier Hornman