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DJ Spooky performing 'Terra Nova' in New York.
Credit: Courtesy of BAM/Stephanie Berger
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What does climate change sound like? Paul D. Miller wanted to know. So Miller, aka That Subliminal Kid aka DJ Spooky, set out to experience Antarctica firsthand. His experience has been set to music in "Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica."
The DJ introduced Terra Nova, a 70-minute multimedia creation, to an audience in New York on Dec. 2, 4 and 5 at BAM's 2009 Next Wave Festival.
Terra Nova was formed from a portable studio constructed on the land mass to collect field recordings. The DJ captured the acoustic qualities of the ice forms there, and used them to create a sonic portrait of Antarctica.
"Today, such a portrait inevitably invokes environmental concerns," according to Miller, a conceptual artist, writer and musician from New York.
"And one of the Terra Nova's artistic aims is to give voice to a landscape undergoing irrevocable change, allowing audiences to experience the climate crisis with unprecedented intimacy."
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| Courtesy of BAM/Stephanie Berger |
So how does it sound? Depressing as hell, based on what scientists tell us about the effects of human-induced global warming on polar zones?
Godfrey Reggio, who produced the Qatsi trilogy of films with composer Philip Glass, has called it "powerful and beautiful."
"The piece, it's kind of a meditation about landscape," the DJ says in a Terra Nova video on his web site.
He hopes it helps "people think about the idea of music as information. It's not just about kind of beautiful pieces, but also getting people to think a little bit outside the box about what's going on with the environment. It's a very lyrical piece. It's not like funky ice."
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