Flow Through Me
(Annandale-on-Hudson, 2023)
︎ Listen Here
Flow Through Me is a soundscape derived from a performance in the Mahicannituck river. I stood in the river for two hours in mid-November, with a hydrophone in one hand and a microphone in the other. My goal was to sing with the river, by listening to its song through the hydrophone and responding with my voice. During the performance I discovered how the river sounded completely different in various locations. In fast flowing, shallow areas the hydrophone would pick on a bubbling song that was very high, like a soprano voice. In others there was a deep song, produced by a higher density of water.
The hydrophone is a limited listening instrument. Sometimes I would take my headphones off and simply listen to the river as it flowed around my body. The hydrophone would pick up on minute movements I made in the water. The sound of my body, walking on the rocks of the riverbed, was almost unbearably loud. Listening, I began to recognise the clumsiness of my humanity in this delicate ecosystem. Sound traveled through the hydrophone from the train tracks, and much further upstream. The water connects many elements that we consider ‘separate’ through sound.