Really excited to share this sound piece, which is a result of my collaboration with the brilliant writer, Erin Coppin.
Erin created the original poem using found text from official statements, statistical sources, news items, social media and private messages from family in British Columbia. It reflects the horror and strangeness of repeated, radically contrasting extreme weather events in this region of Canada in 2021, including floods, mudslides and heat domes.
Erin sent me a recording of the poem and I added the looped vocals and soundscapes. These were designed to weave in and around the collage-like text, and expressed the slew of feelings that arose for me in response what was being described. In combination, the poetic text, sounds and vocals evoke the uncanniness of transformed landscapes, homes and lives in the wake of these damaging events, alongside the banal veneer of official responses to the terror, fear and destruction caused. Above all, through Erin’s text, we glimpse the deep, ongoing precariousness of life in the face of climate breakdown, which I tried to echo in the dissonant, eerie combinations of sound and voice in the accompanying soundscape.
Credits:
Text and voice recording: Erin Coppin
Soundscape and vocal loops: Jo Scott
This work is shared under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence.
Jo Scott: artist-researcher 