Ocean with Spirit Patterns | Grant Cutler
Gruen 227 | Gruen Digital > [order]

This project began during the winter of 2021 when I spent three months making recordings on the islands of Bornholm (in the Baltic Sea) and Nantucket (in the North Atlantic). Wrapped in my parka, and braced against the whipping seawinds, I would lose myself in the softness of the infinite, muted seascape. I became tuned to the rhythms of the climbing winds and falling waves. Images of simple moving shapes appeared to me as an appropriate way to illustrate visually what I was experiencing sonically during my long sessions of listening, suggesting that I might design an idiosyncratic visual language to represent the effects of longform sonic fieldwork.

Musical elements would appear to me within the natural soundscape: tones, resonances, rhythms, and vibrations that also called for acknowledgement and representation. These sounds – these patterns – seemed, to me, to represent the voice, or spirit, of the places in which I was working; these I termed spirit-patterns. It seemed right to incorporate all of these elements: the oceanic recordings, the spirit-patterns, and the visual abstractions into one artwork.

The film Ocean with Spirit Patterns operates not only as an aesthetic expression but as a kind of guide, leading the viewer into a state of being, where the visual (usually at the forefront of our conscious experience) slides to the periphery, allowing the sonic to take center stage. My hope in procuring this effect is that when the challenge of sustained viewing breaks, a wash of calm and quiet relief reintroduces the voice of creativity and intuition, which is so commonly subdued as a result of our overtaxed and hyper-mediated senses. This breaking is an experience that I find happens while I am working in the field, and it is this experience that I aim to share with the viewer.

I was fortunate to find support for the project from the wonderful folks at WaveFarm and through a generous grant from NYSCA. The animation sequences were shot on analog 8mm film, which adds a salient layer of texture, depth, and life that only analog media can provide. The final film is two-channels, and was initially intended to be shown in a gallery setting, played on loop. This digital version is a single channel, presenting the two channels side by side, with a finite duration.

Sound Art Series by Gruenrekorder
Germany / 2024 / Gruen 227 / LC 09488