Sounding Lines lis­tens to the echo of how we humans have sha­ped the sea­bed of the North Sea over the last 200 years. With the advent of steam powe­red ships, we fis­hed away almost all of the wild oyster beds during the 19th cen­tu­ry. The 20th cen­tu­ry saw a rush on the oil- and gas­re­ser­ves of the North Sea, and the con­struc­ti­on of dozens of off­sho­re dril­ling plat­forms, and many kilo­me­ters of pipe­li­nes. In the next few deca­des we’ll build hund­reds of off­sho­re wind­mills and a who­le net­work of sub­ma­ri­ne elec­tri­ci­ty (and other) cables, restruc­tu­ring the sea floor for the third time in two centuries. 

Stijn Demeulenaere reflects on the­se past, pre­sent and futu­re chan­ges of the North Sea sea­bed. The instal­la­ti­on brings the sounds from off­sho­re wind­farms together with recor­dings from some of the last remai­ning wild oyster beds in the North Sea, and pro­ces­sed sea shan­ties. The sea shan­ties are sung by an ama­teur ladies choir from Ostend, embo­dying a tra­di­ti­o­nal and gene­ra­ti­o­nal bond to the sea. These three voi­ces come together in an immersi­ve spa­ti­a­li­sed sound instal­la­ti­on.

The pie­ce exists in dif­fe­rent forms, as a con­cert, as binau­ral expe­rien­ce wading through the water, and as an 8 chan­nel sur­round sound instal­la­ti­on. Sounding Lines offers a spa­ce whe­re the audien­ce can reflect in how we deal with a spa­ce so dif­fe­rent from ours, how far our hands reach, pon­der about how intertwi­ned our soci­e­ty is with the sea, how com­pli­ca­ted that balan­ce is, and won­der whe­re they see them­sel­ves in this relationship.