Where All Is Blue, We’re Always Touching Underwater
Where All Is Blue, We’re Always Touching Underwater
Where all is blue explores the scientific phenomena of how colours seem to disappear the deeper you go underwater. Different wavelengths of light penetrate to different depths in the ocean, creating the illusion that coloured objects change in appearance as they descend underwater. The longest wavelengths reach the greatest depths, and these are represented by the colour blue. Sonic illusions reflective of these underwater visual illusions are created in this work by blending the vibraphone with crotales, resonant aluminium tubes and subtle electronics. The music slowly drifts, slides, and descends from a colourful timbral and higher frequency palette, evolving to a pure and constrained sound world of lower frequencies, where all is blue.
This work was developed in two formats - first the musical work as a live performance, then the film We’re Always Touching Underwater. The soundtrack features an adaptation of Where All is Blue, a sliding, sinking, watery sounding work for aluminium tubes, crotales and vibraphone. This was filmed in Walyalup waters over a series of dives as the seasons changed and the ocean turned cold. It captures small, very close up moments with slow intimacy – drifting over a tiny field of luminous green macroalgae or peering into a knot of foraging catfish. It also registers profound and ominous transformations; ecological change, the passing of human life and the drift of time.
Creative investigators:
Louise Devenish (performer, concept), Alice Humphries (composer), Erin Coates (film, visual artist, concept)
Funded by City of Fremantle, Australian Research Council
PERFORMANCES and EXHIBITIONS
29 November 2024: Performance of where all is blue at Hypnos Theatre, Malmö, Sweden
27 April 2024: Performance of where all is blue at the Day of Percussion
7 September 2023: Performance of Liquidities at Monash University Performing Arts Centre during Yamaha Australian Percussion Prize showcase concert
30 March 2023: Presented by WA Academy of Performing Arts (Artist in Residence)
8 March 2023: Performance of where all is blue (pre-premiere) at the David Li Sound Gallery
12-16 June 2024: Screening of We’re Always Touching Underwater at Film Maudit 2.0 Festival, Highways Performance Space & Gallery, Santa Monica
July 2024: Screening of We’re Always Touching Underwater at Revelation Film Festival, Luna Cinemas, Western Australia
August 2023: We’re Always Touching Underwater at premiered at 10 Nights in Port Festival, PSAS Packenham St Arts Space
Sept 2023: Exhibition of We’re Always Touching Underwater at Into the Light Exhibition, Whitewall Art Projects Gallery
December 2023: Exhibition of We’re Always Touching Underwater at 28th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28), Dubai
Image credit: Erin Coates