Field Recording - Námafjall Geothermal Area
The Námafjall geothermal area is located in Northeast Iceland, on the east side of Lake Mývatn.
At Námafjall, also known as Hverir, smoking fumaroles, geothermal pools and pits of boiling mud surround soil and sulphur crystals coloured green, orange, silver and red. The soil in the area has little vegetation due to the acidity caused by these geothermal processes. The air smells of sulphur.
In October 2021, I conducted field recording in the Námafjall area, to continue sound research from a previous residency in Iceland. The recordings are formed by a combination of subterranean sounds gathered via a contact microphone and those sounds that reach the surface and meet the air, recorded via a field recorder and microphones.
Permitting the listener access to sounds below the feet, the recorder becomes an extension of the body, whilst providing a vehicle to traverse the material boundary of the surface of the ground. Safely protected from the heat and tumult below, the equipment allows the listener to hear the pressure of the gasses as they built up below the fumarole, whilst simultaneously hearing them escape.
Fumarole Excerpt is a sample of one of the data files taken from this fieldwork. The recording has been digitally edited so the lower frequency levels are brought up whilst the hiss of the higher has been taken down. In Fumarole Response 1, the track was edited whilst reacting instinctively across a digital theremin, playing in response to the increase in geothermal activity through an embodied process. The digital theremin allows for gestural processes that are not limited by precision as on a piano or a guitar, allowing a response that straddles musical playing but also an embodied movement practice.
Following my first residency in Iceland, I worked with volcanological researchers at the University of Edinburgh, School of Geosciences, to combine the field recordings with volcanological data taken of volcanos in the build up to eruption. Using these materials, in combination with vocals, I was interested in metaphors of expulsion and eruption, particularly in reference to repressed memory and embodied traumatic effects.Volcano Song is one piece arising from this process (extract below).
