Also refer to audio recordings, e.g. Belmont baths

We rely on our senses to experience the world but much of it is inaccessible. Even though it may be right next to us parts of the world may be too small to see, too large to comprehend, too remote to access, or simply hidden from our view. Below the surface of any body of water is hidden from our view, or at least our hearing, and this project extends that sense below the surface of several local wetlands and creeks and the lake and harbour.

At six locations around Newcastle synchronised recordings were made above and below the surface of the water using a field recorder and hydrophone. These recordings can be experienced in two ways. Experienced remotely, all are available on a web page – Soundings : above and below. As the project was initially developed for the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens response 2 sculpture exhibition a descriptive plaque with QR code was installed there.

Experienced in a gallery the recordings are shown as an exploratory interactive visualisation based on the audio frequency spectra of the paired recordings projected at a large scale (4 m wide). Using a simple touchpad interface the viewer can select any pair of recordings, navigate through the recording and adjust the volume balance between above and below the water. In contrast with listening to the recording at the location where it was made, the gallery experience is separated from the ‘place’ with all its multi-sensory stimulation and personal and cultural associations, and presented with the sounds themselves alongside an alternative way of visually perceiving them. Aside from the novelty of the sounds from below the water, in this environment the viewer can distinguish sounds from above that they would not normally be receptive to.

While there is little to be heard at some of the locations, save for the muffled sounds from above, others are rich with the sound of life and machines. Snapping shrimp and boat propellers dominate the saltwater locations, but elsewhere the life below the water and the sounds that penetrate from above are much more subtle but definitely present. This contrasting mix of above and below sounds can serve as a reminder of the complexity of the social, physical and biological systems in which we exist.

Further development

This is an ongoing research project, and each location was sampled for only a short period. The work was inspired by the scientists and environmentalists specialising in marine and underwater ecology and a more careful future study would include some of those specialists and could consider questions of:

• What creatures make the sounds?
• Whether the sounds change through the day or with the season?
• Can the mechanical noises be used to identify the boats and machines that create them?
• Does the noisy underwater harbour influence the creatures and their habits?
• What might other locations reveal?

The sounds themselves with the spectral visualisation in the linear form shown here or as alternative visual forms, such as the radar spectrum shown below, can operate as localising geospatial content for the ongoing research project You Are Here.

Exhibition history

July 2023 Response 2, a concurrent exhibition at Hunter Region Botanic Gardens, Heatherbrae and Watt Space gallery, Newcastle

Acknowledgments:

• This research is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.
• Recording equipment made available by the University of Newcastle, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences.