JANA WINDEREN
Born 1965 in Bodø, Norway, lives and works in Innlandet, Norway
Call from the Edge: Under Water
2024 / Concert on March 1, 2024
Jana Winderen works with digital technologies and sound to explore complex and largely inaccessible underwater sonic environments. After studying mathematics, chemistry, and fish ecology at the University of Oslo, she trained as an artist at Goldsmiths, University of London where she started to work with sound in 1992. In 2011 she was awarded the Golden Nica of the Prix Ars Electronica for Digital Musics & Sound Art. Based on her underwater sound recordings, she makes immersive site-specific spatial audio installations and concerts, which she has exhibited and performed in major institutions and public spaces around the world. In November 2023 she was the first artist-in-residence at CORDAP, Coral Research & Development Accelerator Platform, at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia.
In her new work Call from the Edge: Under Water (2024) Winderen draws on her recent multi-channel underwater recordings from the edges and interiors of coral reefs in the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia to create a forty-minute sound performance. The recordings were made during her residency at CORDAP. All across the planet coral reefs are at risk, exposed to warming water, ocean acidification, and dredging, while the creatures living around the coral are impacted by anthropogenic noise. Coral have been around since the time of the dinosaurs, and coral fossils can be found in the vicinity of Diriyah.
Trying to bring attention to these biodiverse and important forests of the sea, Winderen urges us to listen to the voices of their inhabitants. In her recordings several species are audible at the same time: Fish making grunting, scraping, crackling, and knocking sounds together, forming loud choirs, accompanied by other crustaceans. Such sound environments change depending on the given lunar phase, time of day, and season. This piece continues her investigation into assessing the health of a body of water through sound. It raises the alert on how anthropogenic sound is affecting the ability of underwater animals to communicate, hunt, and orientate themselves in the face of marine environments impacted by the sounds of ships, sonar devices, seismic testing, military activity, leisure boats, and industrial activity both at sea and on land. Winderen’s performance serves as an impassioned call-to-action to preserve the ecological environments that foster oceanic life and allow coral reefs to thrive.