Sounds of the Mississippi in the Anthropocene
This piece reimagines and contextualizes our (human) relationship with the Mississippi river through sound in the age of the Anthropocene. Considering the the limited exploration of sound biographies, this piece is an attempt to show the power and possibilities of presenting river histories through sound in which we may learn, analyse, and understand past and present waterscapes often absent in environmental and urban studies. In regards to this piece my interpretation of the Anthropocene finds itself at play where incitement of a ghoulish industrial reality and sounds of the natural environment are inseparable. The purpose of this presentation is to explore the age of the Anthropocene as something frightful, horrific, and indicative of dystopian landscapes. We are painfully unaware of our disconnect from the environment and, but often numb to our conditioned familiarity with disruptive and abrasive sonic indicators of an industrial playground.
In this track listeners will find this biography structured as though one is interacting with radio, clicking between stations and being introduced to sonic textures of the river, historical facts, as well as unsettling information regarding human interference with the river. The sound biography transitions into recordings taken from a field recorder located at the Ordway field station in Minnesota giving the listener a chance to hear present day sonic textures of the river. However, listeners might often be surprised at the lack of their expectations of what the river should sound like and what they actually hear. t
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