At Columbia’s Lenfest Center of the Arts, students experienced a composition of underwater recordings made by the artist over many years in various locations — the Barents Sea around the North Pole, Iceland, Greenland, Thailand, the Caribbean, and off the coast of Miami — alongside new recordings made in and around New York City bodies of water, just days before the opening of this installation.

 

This assignment is aimed at studying sound from a physics and mathematical point of view. In class, students started by studying the physics of sound waves, then the mathematical structure of music, and now students are exploring the constant connections between sound and the underwater world. 

Students had a thought-provoking discussion after the visit. As in New York City, oceans are also becoming substantially noisier due to non-biological sound sources. The acoustic characteristics of marine habitats are changing, which might affect the communication, orientation, and navigation of marine organisms, who live mostly in the dark.