Bloom (a gentle erosion)
6 broken hourglasses, 4 channel speaker system

2022

Bloom (a gentle erosion) is an audio-visual installation comprised of broken hourglasses containing crushed stones from both Mamelles Beach (Dakar) and Grotto Bay (Western Cape, South Africa), and a pre-programmed soundscape broadcast through a 4 channel speaker system. Referencing the early use of hourglasses as measures of time and speed aboard ships at sea, here they are precariously installed so they might fall and shatter engaging a visual dialogue between these two coastal regions.

Through this work, Thom explores the interplay of both objective and subjective measures related to ecological, musical and psychoaffective time scales, conceptualised in 2020 and built upon throughout the global pandemic.The human life span relative to the existence of the stones collected from two shorelines, provide a speculative key. Here, stones are imagined as witnesses or archives symbolic of the intertidal zone and beyond. Bloom’s score is itself a carefully mathematical reimagining of Radiohead's 2011 song of the same title, centred around the conceptual and musical explication of the palindrome. The soundscape of pre-recorded vocal fragments is orchestrated by a two year period of ocean data (dissolved oxygen, temperature and sea level) from a fixed buoy monitoring the Southern Senegalese mid-shelf. In this site-specific installation, sung motifs come and go according to an interaction of sea level, temperature and dissolved oxygen levels, coded by interdisciplinary musician, Lucy Strauss.

At the heart of the installation lies rupture, inversion and catharsis. The viewers and listeners are invited to embody the voices singing of a "universal sigh", in an attenuated out breath, held by the scattered dust of stone and bits of glass. Looping voices smooth sharp edges. Something else is offered up.

Credits and thanks:

Score: Adrian More, inspired by Radiohead’s 2011 release, Bloom Soundscape coder: Lucy Strauss

Vocals:
Francesca Biancoli Thandeka Dladla Kate Farquharson Denise Onen
Mia Thom

Recording Engineer: Dave Langemann

Ocean data (2015-2016) from the Melax meteo-oceano buoy, courtesy of Alban Lazar (LOCEAN- IPSL / Sorbonne Université) lead of the international project, funded by the European Union (project HABITABLE), the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, and supported by scientific institutional partners ( LOCEAN-IPSL, LOPS, ANACIM, CRODT).

Volcanic rock samples sourced in Dakar by Professor Aboubaker Chedikh Beye (Universite Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar)