Underwater Engine
Traditional vessel engines, especially diesel ones, generate significant noise, leading to higher fuel consumption and noticeable underwater noise pollution. Various initiatives, such as integrating electronic engines and implementing optimization systems to reduce excessive engine emissions, actively address this issue.
Brigitta explored underwater noise and its implications, utilizing a data-driven approach through audio-visual expression. With hydrophones, she sampled and analyzed engine noise from both traditional diesel and electronic engines. By integrating noise data with underwater imagery from boat rides, Brigitta showcased the visual representation of noise and conducted a comparative analysis and expression between the two engine noise types.
Thanks GlasOcean for the support and guidance. For further information on improving marine ecosystem health via electric boat propulsion, visit glasoceanelectric.com.
Existence is not an individual affair.
Individuals do not preexist their interactions; rather, individuals emerge
through and as part of their entangled intra-relating.
Karen Barad, Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning
Embodied Methodology: Interdisciplinary Studies in Art Making
During the summer of 2023, I had the chance to board GlasOcean's boat to record underwater noise with a hydrophone.
This boat is named sea cucumber and features the design of a pickled cucumber.
GlasOcean is a company dedicated to transforming traditional vessel engines into electric ones. Their team goes out on the water to collect engine data at various speeds, as well as in turning, acceleration, and still-motion situations. Based on these different scenarios, they optimize their electrical engine design for the most economical and environmentally friendly solution, reducing excessive engine emissions and underwater noise, which, it is now well-known, disturb the communications and lives of many in- and underwater species. On a summer day, the boat set off from Halifax Harbour, and I was fortunate to be part of this project to capture engine sounds.
Using hydrophones, I sampled and analyzed engine noise from both traditional diesel and electronic engines. These sequences of underwater noise were then mapped to the underwater imagery from boat rides, providing a visual representation of these various noises. I conducted and developed a visually meaningful comparative analysis and expression between the two engine noise types.
(Based on the artistic presentation of the hydrophone cable you can tell I was also new to physical devices.)
This ostensibly simple project took an incredibly long time to bring to a conclusion. I submitted my proposal to GlasOcean in May. However, at that moment, Halifax experienced devastating forest fires. (At that point researchers were still getting the boat ready but they were saying that they wished there could be rain. Three days after the fire, it rained almost non-stop for a month and a half, making data collection on the water almost impossible, as well as damaging all sorts of infrastructure in the region. After that, the boat broke down for another two weeks. This took us into July.
During my quest for a hydrophone, the Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship (COVE) in Dartmouth provided me with one free of charge. Situated on the Dartmouth shore opposite Halifax, COVE supports a variety of small experimental projects. Reilly, a kind soul at COVE, graciously offered to transport the borrowed hydrophone to the Halifax side, but he inadvertently left it on top of his car and drove away. COVE was then down one hydrophone.
In a stroke of luck, Kate, also from COVE, came to my rescue by delivering another hydrophone. However, it soon became apparent that this type of hydrophone wouldn't connect to a recording device — a realization that exposed my background as a painter and my unfamiliarity with certain technicalities. My studio supervisor during the summer, Will Robinson, introduced me to the Centre for Art Tapes (CFAT), where they accommodated my unpredictable schedule, considering the limitations imposed by weather conditions on the boat's outings. The team at CFAT not only assisted practically but also offered valuable advice. On top of that, they are amazingly generous souls. To make a few simple audio and visual recordings then, it took two months and several scientists, artists, and technicians.
Alex and Yilu accompanied me on lobster boats to test the hydrophone and recording equipment.
Through reflection, I've come to understand that my interactions with individuals are integral to my art-making process. The knowledge gained during my time on the boat, including insight into how the boat works; how patient or impatient we might be in waiting for the right weather; the numbers of physical preparations required to get the boat running prior to collecting data; as well as the views and understandings of field researchers who actually go to sea, which is different from those sitting in front of a laptop dealing with numbers about the ocean, surpassed anything I could have garnered from conventional databases. I found the expansiveness and complexity of this embedded fieldwork far more interesting than any of the narrow “scientific data” we actually obtained on these journeys. The ambient sounds and personal stories of those going out on the ocean together, as well as what brings people of different backgrounds together on the same boat, provided a unique education that illuminated a crucial realization for me: it is these sorts of sensory experiences, emotions, and memories, together with the professional and personal knowledges they produce and share, that really inform my art. Conversations with individuals from various disciplines became essential, and started to influence the direction of my work.
Prior to this fieldwork-induced revelation, my focus was primarily on exploring data: in particular, in treating datasets as my paints and brushes to narrate the story of climate-related scientific research and to demonstrate its significance for humanity. However, during the months that I worked with strictly science-generated data sets, and thanks to my complex experiences on and with the boat, I shifted towards working with more sensory materials, including transitioning from dealing with text and numbers to collecting sounds.
This shift from a scientific framework, where data acquisition and integration were paramount, towards a more artistic framework, opened up new avenues for exploring different experiences. I began to see the value of dialogue and shared questions and emotions with people from all disciplines as crucial in my artistic endeavors. Art, for me, I began to understand, encompasses emotions and experiences that cannot be captured within a purely scientific structure.
While this shift in my realization and practices does not mean I have or will abandon the use of scientific data as raw material for storytelling, the emotions stemming from interactions with people and their stories are the primary artistic materials I use. In the wake of my experiences with GlasOcean, I find the idea of certain processes more compelling than the final product.