The frigid depths of the polar oceans exist only in the imagination for most people. Images of stark white ice fields and vast expanses of water might lead us to believe that the Arctic and Antarctic oceans are silent, empty settings. However, if you listen below the surface, they come alive with the chirps and trills of Weddell seals and the clicks of toothed whales chattering to each other. To engage the public with these remote realms, artist-researcher Geraint Rhys Whittaker of the University of Oldenburg in Germany and his colleagues created the Polar Sounds project. The team provided more than 100 artists with sound recordings from the Ocean Acoustics Group at the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research. The artists treated these recordings as instruments to build upon or transform completely, creating lyrical songs, sonic narratives, and experimental works. “When you put a hydrophone [into the ocean], it opens a whole new world,” said Whittaker. “When I first heard these various sounds from the archive, I was just amazed at the diversity of different sounds.” The frigid waters of Antarctica are full of ice, but under the surface is a dynamic sonic environment. Image credit: bhart9070 from Pixabay The German team created Polar Sounds in collaboration with Cities and Memory to engage the public with ocean research as part of the United Nation’s Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). They described the project in a paper published recently in Marine Policy. Growing up in the…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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