Seismic image showing sediment layers on the ocean floor beneath McMurdo Sound
Data: Jo Whittaker,
Geoscientist, University of Sydney
.
I am gathering Antarctic texts to animate.
Last week I recorded the voice of Jo Whittaker describing some of her most memorable moments in the ice.
Jo has been looking at changes on the ocean floor beneath McMurdo Sound, on the Ross Ice Shelf, producing and analysing images that contribute to our knowledge of climate change.
Her voice and her images are texts to which we can respond, through moving and drawing, to animate her point of view.
This image is one of several that show how sediment has been accumulating in layers.
Layers are composed of sludge containing millions of diatoms that have died and sunk to the bottom of the ocean over millions of years.
Under compression over time, this sludge becomes crude oil.
.
Words:
bathymetry: depth measuring
seismic: data acquired by reflecting sound from underground strata
reflection profiles: images reflecting sound waves moving through and bouncing back from different layers of sediment
SIMON WRITES:
Dear Lisa
Stroking, encouragement, and flattery…..an excellent addition to your collection.
I wonder if some of the things you are interested in (the unspoken, the role of play in data interpretation etc) emerge with reflection –
even age. I guess it was youthful to be so engaged with the present and with people rather than with landscape and higher purpose. I was
hoping you might compare notes on the PhD journeys as well. But maybe you did?
This might seem like a silly question but why are you transcribing the conversation? I think I’d prefer to hear the voices.
Will you move/dance to some of this? Have you thought how you will use it?
This is an excellent question Simon.
Transcribing is a part of how I am processing, selecting and archiving material for further developing into objects and animations.
When I transcribe, I understand what people say to me in conversation in a different way. I can play it back, listen and write it down. I can cut and paste sections of the sound for use as scores for moving, drawing and animating. Transcribing is s a slow process, but an important for these reasons.
After interviewing more expeditioners in Australia, and in Buenos Aires and the U.K, I will bring to an end this part of my research.
I’ll be selecting only some to use in the moving and drawing workshops planned for after May.
I will also continue working with the written journal of Jack Ward.
Selecting will be hard. What will be the criteria of selection? What factors will influence the choosing?
The idea that I have of building a kind of planisphere of minds, representing different Antarctic perspectives, doesn’t exactly lend itself to reducing material. Quite the opposite!
But we can only work with some in the workshops. At this stage I am interested to gather from expeditioners written and spoken words, objects and images, that suggest some change over time – within themselves and winthin the landscape.
The conversation with Jo Whittaker illuminates two massive changes in the landscape:
Sheering of techtonic plates between Australia and Antarctica
Layering of sediment on the ocean floor beneath great ice sheets.
These layers of sediment are composed of sludge rich in diatoms. When compressed, over billions of years, this sludge becomes crude oil.
I am particularly interested in finding ways to animate this layering, making improvised gestures and drawings to the words and seismic images of this scientist.
How will her telling of pleasurable moments take us closer to her data?
In the final animation, made from the moved and drawn responses, her voice reflecting these moments, can be the sound track.
Your question was excellent because it helped me think through the reason for transcribing, and to wrap words around what to me seemed an obvious thing to do.
So thanks!
Layering is also a great metaphor, suggesting an archeology of the mind’s eye (seeing through one’s past to present understandings), and the different lenses through which Antarctica is viewed.