Attuned to Oliveros\u2019s notion of deep listening, Havini\u2019s twenty-two-channel sonic installation juxtaposes the varied temporalities and scales of the seas. Like much of her practice, Answer to the Call<\/em> is deeply informed by the traditional knowledges of her birthplace, Buka Island, part of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Islands, the ocean is a fact of life. As I-Kiribati and American poet Teresia Teaiwa points out, \u201cWe sweat and cry salt water, so we know that the ocean is really in our blood.\u201d3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 3 <\/a> - Teresia Teaiwa, quoted in Epeli Hau\u2018ofa, \u201cThe Ocean in Us,\u201d The Contemporary Pacific<\/em> 10, no. 2 (Fall 1998): 392.<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Yet, for many from a younger generation, the \u201cability to read, connect, and treat the Moana <\/em>(Ocean) are now minimally understood and mostly mediated through the use of modern instruments and western science.\u201d4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 4 <\/a> - Cresantia Frances Koya Vaka\u2019uta, Lingikoni Vaka\u2019uta and Rosiana Lagi, \u201cReflections from Oceania on Indigenous Epistemology, the Ocean and Sustainability,\u201d in Tidalectics: Imagining an Oceanic Worldview through Art and Science<\/em>,ed. Stefanie Hessler (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018), 128.<\/span> Reflecting this intergenerational loss of knowledge about the ocean, Havini\u2019s Answer to the Call<\/em> draws parallels between the use of sound to disseminate scientific information and the role of oral tradition, storytelling, and music in creating, sharing, and mapping Indigenous knowledges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hydrophone recordings collected aboard RV Falkor<\/em>, traditional marine chants, words spoken in Havini\u2019s first language, Hak\u00f6, and an original score by the Bougainville composer Ben Hakalitz are collaged through an enveloping acoustic landscape. Envisaged as \u201ca dialogue between these different ways of knowing,\u201d5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 5 <\/a> - Taloi Havini, \u201cAnswer to the Call,\u201d Taloi Havini, accessed May 12, 2023, accessible online.<\/span> Havini\u2019s work moves beyond Western empirical cartographic projects to delve into the layers of Indigenous traditions that intimately populate the seas with memory, tradition, and songlines. Her sonic environment submerged visitors in a constellation of pan flute, drums, and the humming sound of sea, wind, and waves. At Ocean Space, the soundscape was presented in a room filled with all-encompassing hues of indigo and cobalt, with a central aquamarine platform that mirrored the geological shape of Havini\u2019s native Buka Island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWithin the sonic installation are textures of all kinds of sounds that relate to activities that take you on a journey across the oceans and below sea-level, right down to the twilight zone, and then back up into the atmosphere,\u201d Havini explains, \u201cit\u2019s all about the interconnectedness of ocean\/life systems.\u201d6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 6 <\/a> - Taloi Havini, quoted in Amah-Rose Abrams, \u201cTaloi Havini\u2019s First Sonic Work Dunks the Listener in an Ocean of Sound,\u201d Wallpaper*, last updated October 12, 2022, accessible online.<\/span> In Answer to the Call<\/em>, she invokes forms of knowledge that inform our understanding of the world ocean and its ecosystems. In the spirit of Oliveros\u2019s endeavours, the work is a call to pay attention and listen to the harmonies and dissonance, and at times to the disorienting stories and histories that are intrinsically connected to the seas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Seeing Havini\u2019s installation in Venice, I am reminded of my own experiences with the ocean. I have been scuba diving recreationally for a number of years, and it is a passion that always seems to hover between fear and fascination. I am equally mesmerized by the eeriness of underwater creatures and by the loss of control and enhanced awareness of my own body in water. Immersed in the three-dimensional liquidity of space, my body seems free from gravity, experiencing sometimes sensory overload and at other times a form of sensory deprivation. These experiences have not only been profoundly enriching, helping me reach a more nuanced and empathetic relationship with the ocean; they have also had a tremendous impact on the ways I engage with artists\u2019 practices. The profoundly disorienting effect of diving has also been a productive point of departure for the Santa Barbara-based English professor Melody Jue. In Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater<\/em> (2020), Jue posits that diving has the potential to help us emancipate ourselves from what she calls \u201cterrestrial bias,\u201d7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 7 <\/a> - Melody Jue, Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater<\/em> (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020), 8\u200a\u20139.<\/span> which she describes as a tendency to prioritize a land-based perspective, often at the expense of a more nuanced and \u201cliquid\u201d understanding of the world. In this sense, \u201cliquidity\u201d is understood as an immersive experience of being-in-the-world; a horizontal way of knowing, in opposition to a vertical (or hierarchical) way of encountering our surroundings.8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 8 <\/a> - Bridget Crone, \u201cLiquifying Selves: Toxicity, Tales and Transindividuation,\u201d a lecture presented as part of The Liquidity Cohort at Goldsmiths University, London, United Kingdom, December 9, 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n This immersive and transformative potential of water has been of interest for many artists, notably Oliveros\u2019s work as a composer. Throughout her career, she developed a musical vocabulary rooted in the liquid qualities of sound. Water was not only an inspiration, but also became one of her mediums. Her 20-minute-long composition, Time Perspectives<\/em> (1961), is one of her most important pieces from the 1960s and an early example of her acute interest in the sonic properties of water. Sporadically dispersed throughout the piece are the sounds of single droplets of water, sped up and slowed down. The presence of water, bubbles, droplets, and steam is palpable throughout the composition, for which Oliveros used a bathtub as a resonant recording device.9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 9 <\/a> - Martha Mockus, Sounding Out: Pauline Oliveros and Lesbian Musicality<\/em> (New York: Routledge, 2008).<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Most famously, in 1988, Oliveros travelled to a disused water cistern north of Seattle, along with trombonist Stuart Dempster and singer Panaiotis (Peter Ward). The trio recorded music in the two-million gallon water tank employing trombone, didgeridoo, accordion, conch shells, voice, and pieces of metal. The watery echo of the cistern became the medium of their improvisation, whose resonant tones seem to slowly surface like waves. Oliveros titled the track \u201cDeep Listening,\u201d a term that ended up becoming central to her practice for the following decades. She was passionate about the relationship between sound and space, and how sound travels through different mediums. In her own words, \u201cwe locate ourselves through detecting echoes and reflections, but we don\u2019t have it at a very conscious level \u2026 like a dolphin or a whale sounding in the ocean, sounding the spaces.\u201d10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 10 <\/a> - Mockus, Sounding Out<\/em>, 169.<\/span> From the early 90s, she started organizing her \u201cDeep Listening Retreats\u201d in New Mexico. Participants were invited to immerse themselves in the sounds of ecosystems through meditation, tai chi, and sonic collaboration.11<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 11 <\/a> - Helen Bullard, \u201cInterview with Pauline Oliveros: Listening to Cicadas (2013)\u201d in Posthumanism in Art and Science: A Reader<\/em>, eds. Giovanni Aloi and Susan McHugh (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021), 218\u200a\u2013\u200a24.<\/span> She later went on to collaborate with the nature-inspired musician, composer, and philosopher David Rothenberg. In August 2013, Oliveros, Rothenberg, and the singer Timothy Hill formed the Cicada Dream Band to record tracks that combined the vocalizations of a humpback whale, frogs, and birds, alongside Oliveros\u2019s live improvisation on accordion, Rothenberg\u2019s on clarinet, and chants by Hill.12<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 12 <\/a> - David Rothenberg, \u201cHow to Make Music With a Whale,\u201d Opinionator\u200a\u2014\u200aThe New York Times<\/em>, October 5, 2014, accessible online.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Reflecting on Oliveros\u2019s and Havini\u2019s practices, I am compelled to engage with underwater sonic landscapes that I encounter while scuba diving. To my human ears, the underwater soundscape feels blurry, or even womb-like. It is clear that the bodily disorientation that Jue reflected upon is also rooted in a potent sonic disorientation. What feels particularly poignant is the blasting sound of bubbles bursting and the mechanical frequencies of my regulator expelling air. The loudness of such sounds feels at odds with the subdued nature of movement underwater. A diving instructor once told me that my air bubbles are so loud as they burst at the surface that it disturbs sea creatures, leading many of them to avoid scuba divers. Perhaps surprisingly to our human ears, sound travels almost five times faster underwater than through the atmosphere. Many aquatic species rely on sound to find prey, avoid predators, guide their navigation, locate mates and offspring, and socialize with each other.13<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 13 <\/a> - \u201cWhat Is Ocean Noise?,\u201d National Ocean Service (NOS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (website), 2019, accessible online.<\/span> However, ocean noise, or underwater noise pollution, derived from human activities, hinders the ability of marine animals to hear natural sounds in the ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The complexity of underwater soundscapes has been the focus of the Norwegian sound artist Jana Winderen\u2019s practice. In February 2022, she presented her exhibition The Art of Listening: Under Water<\/em> at the Lenfest Center for the Arts at Columbia University, New York. Conceived as a site-specific 360-degree spatial audio installation, the composition underscores how the vulnerabilities of ecosystems are compounded by the constant invasion of human-generated sounds in the underwater environment. A juxtaposition of recordings from various locations around the world, (including the Arctic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Indian Ocean), the sound piece was edited to highlight anthropogenic sounds. With a background in mathematics, chemistry, and fish ecology, Winderen is concerned with the constant disturbance of oceans and bodies of water by human activities\u200a\u2014\u200afrom industrial undertakings to military sonar, cargo and cruise ships, seismic air guns, personal watercraft, tankers, and fishing vessels\u200a\u2014\u200awhich cause underwater noise pollution that negatively impacts aquatic life.14<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 14 <\/a> - \u201cThe Art of Listening: Under Water,\u201d Columbia University School of the Arts (website), accessed April 1, 2023, accessible online.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n In an earlier work titled Energy Field <\/em>(2010), Winderen\u2019s focuses on the Barents Sea, in a composition that incorporates the sounds of glaciers, crustaceans and fish. The Barents Sea, which is part of the Arctic Ocean, holds some of the world\u2019s largest populations of cod, herring and sea birds, but because of climate change, the region is opening itself up for further petroleum production. In the last decades, the oceans have become increasingly noisy due to human activities such as shipping, oil and gas exploration, and military sonar.15<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 15 <\/a> - Emily Heaslip, \u201cWhat\u2019s the Deal with Ocean Noise?,\u201d SOFAR<\/em>, accessible online.<\/span> This sound pollution affects the behaviour and communication of marine mammals and fish, and may cause long-term damage to their hearing.16<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 16 <\/a> - Emma McCormick-Goodhart, \u201cUnderwater (Un)Sound,\u201d e-flux Architecture (website), August 2020, accessible online.<\/span> Yet, most of it remains largely unregulated. The anthropogenic sonic saturation of oceans was also a concern for Oliveros, whose foundation, the Deep Listening Institute, hoped to foreground Occupy Oceans, \u201ca movement to demand protection for all ocean creatures, especially whales and dolphins, from man-made ocean roar.\u201d17<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 17 <\/a> - Anne Lebaron and Pauline Oliveros, \u201cA Conversation Between Musicians,\u201d accessed May 12, 2023, accessible online.<\/span> Attuned with the spiritual thinking underpinning her practice, she called for a \u201cheightened awareness of the interconnectedness and respect for all things, from boson to black hole, from microbe to macrobe.\u201d18<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 18 <\/a> - Lebaron and Oliveros, \u201cA Conversation Between Musicians.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Winderen\u2019s practice is more didactic than Havini\u2019s, they share an undeniable love for the bodies of water that are intrinsically part of human life, and a desire to draw attention to sonic landscapes that are inaudible to human ears. They both use sound, and field recordings, to conjure different modes of knowledge-making and to address the different scales of human impact on ocean worlds. By foregrounding the practice of deep listening, their acoustic compositions follow the pioneering path laid by Oliveros, as they attend to the entanglements of ecologies, stories, and histories that are essential for a nuanced understanding of the world\u2019s marine ecosystems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n London-based curator Marie-Charlotte Carrier\u2019s research focuses on art practices that deconstruct networks and ecosystems in which individuals, groups, and machines cohabit. She has worked at the Barbican Centre, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and Arsenal Contemporary Art. She is currently Assistant Curator at Hayward Gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/109_DO_Carrier_Taloi-Havini_OCEANSPACE_TALOI-HAVINI-\u00a9-gerdastudio-03-C.jpg\")
Taloi Havini<\/strong>
Answer to the Call<\/em>, exhibition view, The Soul Expanding Ocean #1<\/em>, Ocean Space, Venice, 2021.
Photo: gerdastudio, courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/109_DO_Carrier_Taloi-Havini_OceanSpace_04.jpg\")
Taloi Havini<\/strong>
Answer to the Call<\/em>, exhibition view, The Soul Expanding Ocean #1<\/em>, Ocean Space, Venice, 2021.
Photo: gerdastudio, courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/109_DO_Carrier_Taloi-Havini_OceanSpace_01.jpg\")
Taloi Havini<\/strong>
Answer to the Call<\/em>, exhibition view, The Soul Expanding Ocean #1<\/em>, Ocean Space, Venice, 2021.
Photo: gerdastudio, courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Jana-Winderen-the-art-of-listening\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/109_DO_Carrier_Jana-Wenderen_TheArtofListening_photo_Jose-Alejandro-Alvarez_06.jpg\")
Jana Winderen<\/strong>
The Art of Listening: Under Water<\/em>, 2022.
Photo: TBA-21 Academy & Jos\u00e9 Alejandro Alvarez, courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Jana-Winderen_EnergyField_Greenland2007\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/109_DO_Carrier_Jana-Wenderen_EnergyField_Greenland2007_photo_Jana-Winderen_02.jpg\")
Jana Winderen<\/strong>
Energy Field<\/em>, documentary picture, Greenland, 2007.
Photo: courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n