Residencies

• 03.06 > 13.06.2021
• 26.04 > 02.05.2021
• 25.01 > 14.02.2021
• 07.01 > 12.01.2021

In our North Sea, under water, sight is limi­ted, often just a few meters. At most it is about 30 meters. Sound howe­ver tra­vels much much fur­ther under water. And for this rea­son it is cen­tral to a lot of the mari­ne life, for com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on, navi­ga­ti­on, fora­ging and mating. A true sonic world, a lan­gu­a­ge that is mys­te­rious to us, and often beyond comprehension.

However, The North Sea is one of the busiest in the world, almost eve­ry inch of it knows some form of human occu­pa­ti­on. And the­re­fo­re the North Sea is also one of the loudest in the world, human sounds blan­ke­ting the who­le sea floor. Noise from the count­less ships, but also dril­ling, oil­rigs, the con­struc­ti­on of wind farms, fis­hing, and fish farms. At the moment researchers are trying to figu­re out what a nor­mal base­li­ne for back­ground noi­se could be, and how it might affect wild­li­fe. Some of the research is done with the aim of trying to regu­la­te, and sub­due, the human noi­se in our waters.

Zijlijn / Linea Lateralis is an artis­tic research into the rela­ti­ons­hip bet­ween the biopho­ny (sound made by mari­ne life), and the antro­pop­ho­ny (sound sprin­ging from human acti­vi­ty). Stijn first made under­wa­ter sound recor­dings along the coast of Belgium, from the Western Scheldt right up to Dunkirk. Then he tra­vel­led to Norway to make more recor­dings in the waters around Bergen, cap­tu­ring the sounds­ca­pe at both the sou­t­hern and nor­thern bor­ders of the North Sea. True to its name, Zijlijn brings the­se sounds into a late­ral struc­tu­re. 6 spea­kers on a line play a com­po­si­ti­on made with the recor­dings from the North Sea. The row of spea­kers con­front a line of sam­ple con­tai­ners: nine sam­ple tubes con­tai­ning sea­wa­ter from the main recor­ding loca­ti­ons. The instal­la­ti­on explo­res vari­a­ti­ons in both small and lar­ge move­ments in sound, giving the spec­ta­tor the choi­ce to come up clo­se or stay at a dis­tan­ce. The spec­ta­tor is basi­cally his or her own fader, expe­rien­cing the com­po­si­ti­on, and the balan­ce bet­ween biopho­ny and antro­pop­ho­ny, anew with eve­ry new lis­te­ning position.

The tit­le of the instal­la­ti­on, Zijlijn or Linea Lateralis, refers to the organ in cer­tain fish that detects pres­su­re vari­a­ti­ons in the water, and is con­nec­ted to their hea­ring. This linea late­ra­lis evol­ved from the same pro­to-organ that our own ears evol­ved from.