WhiteOut by Lawrence English

A Note from Lawrence...

Even without visiting a place, we often think we know it. It’s a syndrome of the modern age. The world is right before us, on screen, summarised and sensorially curated into a particular vision that casts light across ‘just so much’ of an impression of a place and a time.

In some ways, I realised this phenomenon most strongly when I visited Antarctica in the summer of 2010. In my mind’s ear (and eye) certain features of that place were front and centre – imagined, as to be real. The stark colour schematic, the full spectrum dynamics of life (and death), the distance from wider humanity and the uniqueness of climate formed a collaged pre-conception of the ice continent.

In reality, the lived experience of that place is anything but what I may have expected. Our collective effects on Antarctica are enormous, but our capacity to hold onto some form of existence there is anything but certain.

What struck me most about Antarctica was the temporality of the incursions humanity makes there. Our inability to ‘hold on’, without a constant influx of supplies from the ‘outside’, was overwhelming apparent within minutes of arrival at the first of the bases I visited, Marambio. Similarly, the permanence of the changes humanity has made, and is still making, to that environment at a macro level are as stark as they are outright.

Parts the continent were disappearing before me. In one moment of this edition, you can hear a glacier disintegrating and collapsing with force into Esperanza Bay. This incident led to me having to rescue equipment from a rapidly rising body of water and in the process spending a few minutes in the ocean being circled by a Leopard Seal, who no doubt was entertained by watching a very pink, blubber-less mammal like me try and navigate the -2C degree waters.

The recordings here speak to the everyday of our incursions into Antarctica. They are not exceptional, or unique, in that they unfold across much of the continent’s camps and bases moment to moment, depending on the season and location of course. What they do highlight is the confluence of environments, materials, climate, and life that all clamber together in these shifting plains of ice, rock, and water.

While not exactly intentional, the way this work played out is largely in three chapters, the human, the land and the water. Each of these intersect and fall into one another of course, but they also exist with a sense of being discrete. Whilst the characters might be shared across these zones of entanglement, the stories they tell into are often unfolding in parallel, rather than in sequence.

To come back to these recordings now, having been away from those places and times for 15 years, the sounds speak with a new intensity, and a different intonation. It was surprising to hear them as both instantly familiar, but also surprisingly alien – I heard many new events within each recording.

To me these recordings capture the duality of a place like Antarctica. They are a seasonal glimpse into the lived experience of the wildlife and humans that persist in this environment. They also reflect upon the objects and things that comprise this place.

The recordings catch the uneasy murmurs of eroding ice plates, the trickling conversations of high summer streams, the clicking echolocations of Orcas, the barked disputes of territorial Antarctic Fur Seals, and the chirping of penguin chicks racing to shed their downy coats and find their way to the relative security of the ocean before the winter sets in. They also capture the feverish rush of researchers, military personal, and station workers as they prepare for the long, frigid months ahead during which time they are effectively disconnected from the remainder of the planet.

These moments exist in urgency, the summer’s sweet caress is fleeting and the winter knows no forgiveness.

Lawrence English. Philosopher of listening. Room40 Honcho. Generally questioning living, dying and everything else in-between.

lawrenceenglish.com
room40.org
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram