Silent Forest
SILENT FOREST
There are two sonic events that are the precursor to an ecosystem being totally devastated. Ignored alarms reverberating in the forest and on the water.
First: environmental factors, pollution, fire, radioactivity, disaster kills off or forces out the inhabitants, both micro and macro. Within a short time the forest falls silent; no sounds of birds, mammals, or insects. Standing surrounded by the natural world, but the biophony (natural sound) has changed, or even worse has completely disappeared.
Second: there is a threshold between spaces, natural and civilized, a space that is under sonic assault. Standing surrounded by the natural world and yet anthrophony (sound generated by mankind) reverberates ever closer.
silent forest is a non-narrative reflection that explores this phenomenon. Seeking out these endangered thresholds, the project explores the delicate wetland environment in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain and the industrial and commercial enterprises surrounding it. The project is an observation of the oscillating environment between the natural and designed, presence and absence, reality and fiction, life and death.
The raw material came together over several investigative expeditions into the region, filming in the wetlands, cypress swamps, lowlands and rivers. The project's sounds were captured in these landscapes and in active industrial spaces, transportation routes and development sites.
