Absent Voices is a live 10-channel audio performance based on Jana Winderen's recordings from the hidden depths of water and the darkness of the night. Jana Winderen will present this piece live as part of TUNE on 26.10.24. Afterwards, the performance will remain in the auditorium as an 8-channel + 2 subwoofer audio performance.
The artist from Oslo centres the awe-inspiring sound of the natural world and in particular soundscapes that are challenging for humans to access – deep underwater, hidden in ice, or in frequency ranges beyond our hearing. She performs her sound recordings and creates impressive sound installations and environments with a hope to promote a new understanding of immersive listening, not only in remote locations but also in our everyday lives.
Absent Voices features recordings from both the tropics and the Arctic Ocean, from the North Pole to the Equator, and also very close to her studio North of Oslo. Close to the shore and far out in the Ocean, creatures, and weather conditions the artist has met over the last 20 years.
Jana uses Hydrophones for underwater recordings, SoundField microphones in the air, and Petterson’s Ultrasound Detector, recording on to a Sonosax R4+ recorder. She records from boats, ships, the shore, and her own backyard. She archives and finesses the sounds in her studio on a multichannel speaker array. The sounds will be further processed on location in the Auditorium, where visitors will experience the performance and installation.
Field trips are an essential part of Jana's work. For her project Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone for Sonic Acts, she travelled to the North Pole, the Barents Sea, Kirkenes and Nikel. As Artist-in-Residence with TBA21–Academy aboard a ship for her project Silencing of the Reefs, she recorded in the Dominican Republic, Belize, Panama, and Iceland. She undertook multiple journeys to Iceland, Greenland, and Norway for the release on Touch, Energy Field. In the project Through the Bones, she visited fishing communities in Thailand.
Other recent works include The Blue Beyond, released by Touch and supported by Audemars Piguet, and this year, Apple TV+ released the documentary series Earthsounds featuring Jana’s recordings of walruses, bearded seals and ice from both under and over water. She also recently opened a brand new sound installation, made in collaboration with Tony Myatt, called The River at the Natural History Museum in London featuring recordings from the depths of the River Thames.
