Mental substance
[2008-03-05]

animation: Lisa Roberts
Buenos Aires 2007

sound: Phil Dadson
Buenos Aires 2008

imagery: with Sophia and Victoria
Buenos Aires 2008

I could hear the sounds
of the street outside,
and of people inside, listening.
People in Argentina
hear sounds of Antarctic rock.
Is this a sound of past connections
through geological time?

"Mental substance" is how
Pamen Pereira describes
the consciousness we have
of ourselves in the world
that surrounds and connects us,
and that can be strongly felt in Antarctica.

I relate this Substance
to C. G. Jung's
Universal Subconsciousness
made conscious.

Phil Dadson is playing
with Antarctic stones
to the audience of the Sur Polar conference,
at the National University of Tres de Ferero.
You can here the sounds
of the street outside,
and of the people inside, listening.

Some of the drawings
were made by two children that I met.
They describe street pagents in Buenos Aires,
where many people come together.

I have also played
with a diatom,
floating in the rising waters
around us and within us.

'Mostly the valley seems silent,

with only a background hiss of pink noise

to accompany the intrusive sounds

of my body, my footsteps.

No bird or animal noises,

only occasional ice snaps

and explosive retorts

from the splintering glacial face

and the lakes of seepage

frozen from the melt.'

Phil Dadson Antarctica, January 2003