CD – 3 tracks – 50m 11s
6-panel digipak
Photography by Jon Wozencroft
Track listing:
1. Aquaculture 18:00
2. Isolation/Measurement 12:11
3. Sense of Latent Power 20:04
Armed with four 8011 DPA hydrophones, DPA 4060 omni mics, a Telinga parabolic reflector mic and a Sound Devices 744T digital hard disk recorder, Jana Winderen studies and records wild places which have a particular importance in our understanding of the complexity and fragility of marine ecosystems.
The recordings were made on field trips to the Barents Sea (north of Norway and Russia), Greenland and Norway, deep in crevasses of glaciers, in fjords and in the open ocean. These elements are then edited and layered into a powerful descriptive soundscape. The open spaces of Greenland, northern winds, ravens and dogs in an icy landscape provide the setting for these haunting but dynamic pieces. Sounds of crustaceans, fish such as cod, haddock, herring and pollock recorded as they are hunting, calling for a mate or orientating themselves in their environment, are all included in the mix. The result is a powerful, mesmeric journey into the unseen audio world of the frozen north.
Artist statement:
“I like the immateriality of a sound work and the openness it can have for both associative and direct experience and sensory perception. I have been occupied with finding sounds from unseen sources of sound, like blind field recordings. Over the last four years I have collected recordings made by hydrophones, from rivers, shores and the ocean, and more recently also from glaciers in Greenland, Iceland and Norway. In the depths of the oceans there are invisible but audible soundscapes, about which we are largely ignorant, even if the oceans cover 70% of our planet. I am also experimenting with different types of microphones to collect sounds which are not obviously recognisable, but give room for broader, more imaginative readings. I use these sounds as source material for composition in a live environment or to create installations, currently also for film, radio, CD and vinyl productions.”
Artist biography:
Jana Winderen is an artist educated in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College in London, and with a background in mathematics, chemistry and fish ecology from the University in Oslo, Norway. She has since 1993 worked as an artist, curator and producer. She currently lives and works in Oslo, Norway. Her most recent sound works include “Evaporation” (2009) at TodaysArt festival in The Hague, Netherlands, “Sub Pelagic Voices”(2009) for ISCM World New Music Days, Sweden, “Colonisers of the undergrowth” at Botanic Sounds in Göteborg Botanic Gardens; “North Atlantic Drift” (2009) for JunKroom in Kyoto, Japan, based on hydrophone recordings in the Barents Sea; “freq_out 7” curated by CM von Hausswollf at the Happy New Ears festival in Belgium (2008); “Submerge” (2008) for Färgfabriken Norr, Sweden and the 6 channel sound installation “+4°C – from Folgefonna to the North Sea” (2007) at Sleppet during the centenary Greig07 in Norway.
She recently released the CD “Heated: Live in Japan” (2009) on Touch (UK), the audio cassette “The Noisiest Guys on the Planet”(2009) on Ash International (UK), the USB stick, “Ants”, the digital download “Submerged” (2009) on Touch and the 7 inch vinyl “Surface Runoff” (2008) on Autofact (USA). Future projects includes an audio commission for the AV festival and the Environmental Agency in Newcastle (UK) working with the river Coquet in Northumberland, the audio piece “The Land Between” for ‘The Morning Line’, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Istanbul 2010. Jana also works on a collaborating with ‘Mobile Homes’ for the performance ‘Passing Place’ in Norway and she is currently working on a commission for a permanent sound installation at the Knut Hamsun Centre in Hamarøy, Norway. Recently Jana’s underwater recording was played on BBC Radio 3’s “Late Junction”, and BBC Radio 4 followed Jana on her recording trip in the Barents Sea for the radio series “World on the Move”. Jana has exhibited and performed her work in Canada, Japan, USA, Spain, China, Thailand, France, Hungary, Italy, Denmark, England, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Belgium and Sweden.
