The water moves through

Poking around the water supply and sewage treatment systems for Göteborg got me wondering about the constant circulation of water in the world....about how long it takes to pass through our skies, oceans, lakes, and living bodies...Some answers below taken from a UNESCO report: (http://webworld.unesco.org/water/ihp/db/shiklomanov/summary/html/summary.html#2.%20Water%20storage)

Table 1. Periods of water resources renewal on the Earth

World Ocean - 2500 years

Ground water - 1400 years

Polar ice - 9700 years

Mountain glaciers - 1600 years

Ground ice of the permafrost zone - 10,000 years

Lakes - 17 years

Bogs - 5 years

Soil moisture - 1 years

Channel network - 16 days

Atmospheric moisture - 8 days

Biological water - several hours

Carolyn

A couple of videos of two of our rivers together:

Weeds in the Göta Älv, giant hogweed by the River Lea.

Water: River Lea, Göta Älv.

Pipes and reeds

A river is the main way that our on-land environment transports water from one place to another. During our visit to the sewage treatment plant in Göteborg, Gryaab, I noticed very forcefully the very obvious fact that the human transport of water – of fluids in general – is done through pipes, which linked itself in my mind to the circulatory systems of the human body which is a web of tubes and pipes.



This idea attached itself – rather like phosphate particles in sewage exposed to iron sulphate – to the idea that had been forming in my mind of making musical instruments from things I might find in the river (this idea in turn was triggered by seeing bone flutes in the museum in Lille Edet, a town a little way upstream on the Göta Älv from Göteborg).



I had collected reeds washed up in the harbour in Göteborg, with the intention of making small whistles. This turned out to be much harder than I had thought, but using a drinking straw as a noise making reed stuck in one end of the reed stem I managed to make a kind of duck noise, which while rather ugly was at least a start. I found a bit of used pipe on the roof of the Biogas building which had been used for sludge - the remains of the organic matter that had been removed from the sewage – and asked if I could take it with me: I got an odd look but permission nonetheless. Once I’ve managed to disinfect it I think I will try and make an instrument out of it, perhaps using a saxophone mouthpiece, or perhaps cutting a hole like a flute. I’m going to try and collect some more reeds, too: maybe even cut some fresh ones, and see if I can make some more successful whistles: I will see if I can find any in London too. Our performance might involve asking the audience to play something, or I might make something they can take home with them.

Keith

Göteborg

This week, we have begun the next stage of rivercities, which has brought us to the Göta Älv, and Göteborg, the city it runs through. We are here to research the relationship between the people of Göteborg and their river, how they use it, feel about it and engage with it; and to put together a small-scale performance at the end of July, rivercities/f r e e z e.

So far we have travelled to the source of the river, some 93 km from Göteborg by road; we have walked and cycled around the Göteborg parts of the river, and visited the museums here; today we went on a 9 hour boat trip and travelled upriver to Kungälv where it diverges, and took the northern spur to the sea, then along the coast back to the city. Tomorrow we'll be visiting the sewage treatment plant and later on in the week we're off to see the place where they purify the water from the river for the drinking water supply.

We will be adding our individual thoughts about our research in the coming few days.

into / through / beyond

This image, taken by NASA shows the huge delta, where the Yukon River ends its 3,185 km (1,982 mile) journey to the Bering Sea. Looking very much like a human heart, the photo inspired me to reflect on the global implications of our rivercities project – and on the fragile interconnectedness of Earth's circulation system. Rivers form but one aspect of the global water cycle (the hydrologic cycle) – the continuous circulation of Earth’s water – shifting from liquid to vapour to frozen; from glaciers, rivers, oceans, clouds, groundwater, the cells/circulation systems of living things. Rivers are literally flowing through us: ”Every drink we take has water molecules that evaporated from the canopies of every forest in the world, from all of the oceans and plains” (Dr David Suzuki in The Legacy: An Elder's Vision for Our Sustainable Future). And so we have realised that this movement – into, through, beyond – must characterise also the performance work that we create from our rivercities research.

We now envision creating a series of local events/actions/installations in several human settlements along each river. This idea doesn't make the project easy, but will underline the continuous flow and transpiration of earth's water. Rivers are never completely still (the water moves) despite human industrialisation. Working in several countries, we are able to gather sounds, impressions, actions, stories, images, and video from a wide range of rivercities...and then emphasise the global nature of the water cycle, and the global impacts of human societies, by taking discoveries from one place and transferring them to other places. The sound of a river in Sweden during a rainstorm might find its way into a performance/installation somewhere along a river in England. This circulation of impressions between different rivercities around the globe will be an essential aspect of the project.

home!...huge thanks to our Yukon people...

Thousands of kilometers later...and almost 6 weeks since we left Dawson City! The rivercities trio of Cara, Pia and Carolyn have returned to our various homes...dispersed across three countries and three different time zones (Vancouver, Canada; Göteborg, Sweden; and London, England). We will be posting more thoughts, photos and video from our research but wanted to first send a huge thank-you to all of our friends and colleagues in the Yukon and along the road back to Vancouver. You welcomed us, gave us your stories about the river, inspired and encouraged us. Thank-you so very very much. We'll be back!

(photo by Jay Armitage)

Interrupted flow

One of the emerging themes of the research in London has been 'interrupted flow', as in the Schubert-based piece I posted below. I made another, longer study of this idea. I made it harmonically static, the sensation of flow being produced by the sounds coming and going and in the initially smooth regularity of the choir sample that begins the piece. I have also included some of the pieces of music suggested by amateur musicians as part of my research, and some of the wind-derived sounds I posted earlier.

interrupted