Afscheid van het Holoceen
Ambassade van de Noordzee
(2020)
De Ambassade van de Noordzee is looking for ways of saying farewell to the Holocene era. We are saying goodbye to an era in which the North Sea and the Dutch coastline were formed, and entering into a world where man has become a disruptive and sculpting force of geological proportions. The current geological epoch - the Anthropocene – requires us to relate to developments far beyond our imagination. In this work, personal mourning of diminishing life forms and disappearing ways of life converge in an attempt to hear the entire earth at once.
The Parliament of Things, designed by Daan 't Sas, exhibits finite things from a world that is changing under the influence of man. Will global warming mean an end to the Dutch Eleven Cities Ice-Skating Tour, to various animal species, and to our carefree travels around the world?
The sound installation work Scale of the Earth by Harpo 't Hart presents the sound of the earth as a whole. From our perspective, we see and hear just a small part of the earth, which we can only see as a whole from space. However, certain sounds, such as lightning, reach so far that they can be registered from any point on earth, not always by ear, but with instruments. 't Hart composed using these sounds, sounds that span the whole earth. The piece starts with sounds from the electricity grid, after which we hear lightning strikes from all over the world, then a loud bang, which is the sound of the Haringvliet locks closing, then machines in the ports. Finally, we end up in the underwater world.