Listening Films

I am fascinated that what we hear affects what we see. How does this help us rethink the medium of film? In these two films I explore this question.

Drift began as a sound work composed with field recordings, to which I gradually added layers of film. Toch in Onderhoud has a visual narrative emerging from an event I witnessed, but in making the film, I used my sound recordings to de-centre the most obvious action.

All field recordings and outdoor film takes were made on Brienenoord Island, Rotterdam, which is a man-made tidal island embedded in the port infrastructure of the River Maas. The "listening films" project developed from my practice of listening and looking on the island. My attempts to hear the white willows (Salix alba) at the island’s edge repeatedly encountered the impossibility of separating ecological from industrial sound. I also found it difficult to separate land from water in the interstitial zone occupied by these powerful trees. The experiences led me to recognise the Island of Brienenoord as a complex entanglement of organic, tidal, institutional, and industrial agencies in which I, as researcher, am deeply embedded.