The Physicist and The Selkie
sound piece for Polar Sounds projectThe Physicist and the Selkie
“The Physicist and the Selkie” is a sound art piece by Tara Downs that reimagines hydrophone recordings of Weddell seals, exploring climate change and evolving polar soundscapes as part of the Cities and Memories Polar Sounds project.
The piece draws parallels between Weddell seals, space weather, and humans—all seeking optimal frequencies to transmit through their respective mediums.
Seals chirp up and down to find their frequency; space sounds funnel naturally to Antarctica; humans tune radios daily for long-range transmission.
Created primarily from seal recordings, the work explores MIDI-processed recordings across octaves, generating polar atmospheres, subsonic rumbles, and melancholic drones. Additional elements include magnetospheric sounds (spherics, whistlers, chorus) from Halley Research Station, ice sounds, underwater bubbles, physicist Ben Keitch’s insights, and the Sing Your Heart Out Stroud choir performing “The Seal-woman’s Sea-Joy.”
The piece interweaves mythology with marine science, creating a poignant meditation on Antarctica’s “last great wilderness.“
Inspiration – and about the piece
The work is inspired by the communication of the Weddell seals who use the ice and the sea to communicate and locate themselves and each other over long distance. At the same time the meditative chanting from the Song of the Selkie enhances the beauty and poignancy of “the last great wilderness”.
Physicist Ben Keitch explains how sound propagates which is how the mysterious space sounds also find their way to Antarctica… The haunting melodies invoke the emptiness of Antarctica, but remind us this is not a lonely place but how it has always been…
There is a link between Weddells, Space weather and humans, all trying to use the best frequency to transmit along a resonant path in the medium they are in. The Weddells find their frequency by “chirping” up and down.
The Space weather naturally gets funnelled to Antarctica, and humans have to tune their radios to the correct frequency each day to find a long-range transmission. It all results in strange pitch explorations.
Made for: Polar Sounds project by Cities & Memory
Polar Sounds is a unique project reimagining some of the little-heard sounds of the Arctic and Antarctic regions, reflecting on climate change and the evolving sounds of the polar seascapes.
It’s a collaboration between Cities and Memory, the @HIFMB_OL and the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI).
Hydrophone recordings were given to selected artists to reimagine into their own sound pieces.
Tara Downs of Miniature Museum / Radio Droogdok worked with Weddell Seal recording to create her sound piece ‘The Physicist and The Selkie’ You can listen to this piece, the original recordings and interpretations by the other sound artists on Cities and Memory Polar Sounds project page
Sound editing in process:
Wave form spectogram of original hydrophone recording
This plays part of the Original soundfile Tara was allocated to work with for the Polar Sounds project. This she wove throughout her composition and reformulated to create many other sounds used in the soundpiece.
Original sound recorded by: Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research
Gallery
Photographs of Antarctica are taken by Dr.Ben Feitch (‘the physicist’) when he was stationed in Antarctica as engineer for 18 months in 2016-2017
Publicity from Cities & Memory
& while at work on the sound by Tara
