Onder Water
Musician Tristan Visser grew up on the island of Terschelling and feels a bond with the sea. On his voyages he experiments with sound. For underwater life, sound is a primary sense. In his film ‘Onder Water’ Tristan investigates the landscape of sound under the sea and the effect that human activities have on it. Tristan: ‘The North Sea is home to the porpoise which uses echolocation. Whales can communicate across long distances with their song. Shipping, the construction of wind farms, military exercises and seismic exploration for gas and oil fields cause a lot of noise underwater.’
With a sailing boat and a film crew Tristan travelled to the Arctic Ocean near Greenland to seek contact with the sea life there. Tristan: “I’m a musician and I wondered, if a whale were to react to my music, does that mean sea life is affected by the sounds of our offshore industry? The opening of a northern shipping route between Europe and Asia would mean traversing the mating grounds of scarce ice whales between Spitsbergen and Greenland. More focus and discussion is needed about giving space to the animals at sea. I aim to do this by getting people to ask questions for themselves through beautiful music.”
This film will be screened along with the Onder Water live performance on 1 November, followed by our opening film The Alpinist.
On 5 November, the film will be screened in one block together with Le Sommet des Dieux.