Strained listening: sensing underwater noise pollution in Calder Harben’s ‘Bodies of Water’

Abstract

In 2017 the artist Calder Harben (b.1986) produced a sound installation titled Bodies of Water, which engages with the increasing violence of underwater noise pollution. In this immersive installation, participants encounter looped recordings of low-frequency noise pollution in a dimly lit gallery space. The work of art asks visitors to imagine the experience of marine species whose lives are dramatically disrupted by the noise produced by ships and vessels used for extractive activities, shipping commercial goods and recreational purposes. In her article, Chanelle Lalonde explores how Harben’s work ethically engages with the issue of water and noise pollution not merely by bringing attention to it, but in its development of a listening practice that requires reckoning with the limitations of the human sensorium. Bodies of Water, Lalonde argues, demands a process of continuous straining; a mode of listening that is not extractive, but one that embraces unfamiliarity.