Meat ants build large nests underground in sandy gravels on the floodplain, mounded to keep them dry. A single nest can contain as many as 64,000 ants – territorial, aggressive ants who carve paths and trails underground and across the floodplain. They don’t take kindly to a capsule microphone being threaded down the nest, attacking it with their powerful jaws.

Entered in the 2020 Sound of the Year Awards (Worst Sound category for a sound that should never have been made or that should have been designed better) - https://www.soundoftheyearawards.com

Recorded Macquarie Marshes, October 2020 as part of the Pulse of the Wetland/ Mosses + Marshes project - https://eco-pulse.art

Pulse of the Wetland: Meat Ant Attack

Behind the locked gates and high tensile exclusion fencing designed to control human and more-than-human access to the Macquarie Marshes, the sun rises and sets. Unheard by the human ear, a metallic reverberation thrums across the plains in the early morning wind, a dark, melodic undertone to the chorus of birdsong. An ancient coolabah on the ‘inside’ of the fence vibrates and gurgles in the cool of the morning, its swollen, gnarly trunks witness to centuries of change. As the sun’s rays cast a golden light across the floodplain, bees swarm the flowering lignum bushes dotted around the lagoons, scolding blue wrens protest amongst the industrious hummm. Wetland and woodland birds compete for airtime on the edges of the river red gum forest. It’s a new day.

Gated Sunrise (long version)

In the hours before first light, there’s a stillness but not a silence. A few early risers call restlessly from the edges of the lagoon. There is no wind. The reeds are not whispering —just the metallic ‘whrrrr’ of insects underpinning the morning chill. The first suggestion of a rising sun is the reeling trill of the fairy-wrens. Conscious of my human presence on the edges of this stage, I walk to the edge of the lagoon to listen. Others soon join the wrens in a warm-up to the dawn chorus that brings together the voices of the woodland and wetland.

Before First Light

Following three years of drought and a fire in October 2019, the Macquarie Marshes ecosystem was exhausted. Some said it’d never been so bad, others argued other droughts had been worse. Regardless of positions taken on the severity of one drought over another, there’s no doubt the return of good rain and water running in the river, through the channels, into waterholes and lagoons, and out across the floodplain, brings joy and relief to both human and more-than-human inhabitants. The re-establishment of life in the wetland takes time, but eventually settles into a round-the-clock hum, above and below ground — making the most of the water while it lasts.

The Water Returns

Fire is an element that has shaped the Australian landscape for thousands of years – a tool of management used by nature and humans. Phragmites reedbeds of the Macquarie Marshes become tinder during dry periods, susceptible to dry summer storms. It only takes one strike for fire to take hold, smouldering quietly until the flames gain energy. On a Saturday afternoon in late October 2019, a fire raged across the Northern Nature Reserve of the Marshes, burning 3,000 hectares before being brought under control the following morning. If there’s follow-up rain or sub-surface moisture, the reeds will come back. Some of the old river red gums flanking the reedbeds weren’t so lucky – it’d been one drought too many for them.

Fire in the Marshes

Silence is the dominant sound of drought, particularly in summer. Between 2017 and early 2020, the Macquarie Marshes were in the grip of yet another drought. A relentless burning sun and thick air evaporating all life-giving groundwater, quietening the birds. Little black flies cling to every breathing and dead being. You hear nothing but your own breath and heartbeat. After days of silence, you might sense a change — the wind picks up, brittle leaves rattle, raining upon a carpet of those already coating the ground. An old, corrugated iron shed creaks. Thunder rumbles, but the dark clouds soon disappear on an increasingly intense wind, whipping up mountains of red dust before it, blacking out all in its path. More thick silence returns before a change eventually brings a brief reprieve.

Droughted Silence

As the sun dips in the west, a breeze rustles and rattles through the reeds and the canopy of the giant river red gums, stirring the wetland inhabitants to life. As dark creeps across the lagoons and channels, barking frogs and froglets find their voice. The high-pitched chatter of reed warblers, and calls of water birds unseen amongst the reeds, create layers of sound over the metallic, whirring base track of insects. By the early hours, only the insects hold the stage.

Evening Symphony

Those who have come to know the Macquarie Marshes in all her guises have been captivated by her magic — an intoxicating combination of beauty and a diversity of life. Now, it’s understood that there’s an urgent need for more knowledge and understanding of this complex, fragile, and beautiful landscape, and the communities who call her home, in order to secure her future.

Track credit: Last Day by JercaMedia (licensed)

Last Day

Reimagined Futures

Andrew Howe and Kim V. Goldsmith have connected two internationally significant wetlands by bringing together sounds from the Macquarie Marshes (New South Wales) and Fenn’s, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses National Nature Reserve. They invite you to join them in sharing the experience of walking across their respective landscapes, from north to south.


Credits: Field recordings, music tracks and sound effects in this work have been designed, composed, and recorded by the artists, except in Andrew Howe’s Mosses walk with the use of a track by jaegrover on freesound.org licensed under CC1.0

I am Walking

**This work is part of the ecoPULSE Inhalare/breathe upon project**

"Callitris glaucophylla"

Shimmering, pollen-laden Callitris glaucophylla jostle on the stony slope; muddy macropod tracks slice through this peri-urban thicket.

A plane drones above a discordant song of woodland birds and dam frogs; crepitations of the multi-trunked mother tree pierced by whining, winter-born mosquitos.

Swollen ankles swaddled in leggy greens on a damp bed of bleached needles and broken limbs—a blanket below naked crowns outlined against Argentine blue.

Deeply furrowed bark encases fragrant heartwood; girths not covered in dry moss—fake turf-like to the touch—are callused with lichens.

An unheard world thrums and gurgles, dependent on this dark, cool copse. Opportunistic ticks, weaving spiders, woolly aphids cling to microscopic pine scales while fungi fairy rings cast their crepuscular glow in fading light.

Shy opera singer of the bush, the Rufous Whistler calls time. Hidden in a darkening maze of branches above, its soaring song and whip-cracking notes follow me home.

Callitris glaucophylla

** RECORDED ORANA ARTS STUDIO CO!LAB LOUNGE SERIES ROUNDTABLE ON ZOOM ON 15 DECEMBER 2021

Inhalare / breathe upon aims to transform familiar landscapes into unfamiliar territories, allowing those who encounter Inhalare works to be transported without the need to travel. In stages, 12 regionally-based artists of NSW will explore natural environments close to home to develop soundscapes, writings and visual works capturing deep connections and hidden layers, allowing our imaginations to explore those environments that sustain us during times of restricted movement.

This talk includes the following Inhalare artists: Stage 1 - Kim V. Goldsmith (talk host, artist and project coordinator), Anna Glynn, Jason Richardson, Dr Greg Pritchard, Danja Derkenne (pre-recorded), Andrew Hull (pre-recorded); Stage 2 - Vicki Luke, Amanda Donohue, Clementine Belle McIntosh, Dr Carol Archer, Libby Wakefield (not involved in conversation due to technical issues), and Edgar Alvarez (not in attendance). For more details about the project and artists go to https://eco-pulse.art/inhalare/

Inhalare Stage 1 was funded by Create NSW's COVID Development Grant, and supported by Orana Arts. Stage 2 is being funded privately with some funds being contributed through an ecoPULSE crowdfunding campaign with the Australian Cultural Fund.

Inhalare/breathe upon project Stage 1 Artist Roundtable

In celebration of World Rivers Day 2022, on 25 September, the Sonic Territories: Wambuul creative team of Kim V. Goldsmith, Milena Sallustio, Robert Salt and Suzanne Foran created this soundtrack based on field recordings of the river, from the wall of Burrendong Dam above Wellington, where it flows through Dubbo, past Terramungamine, through Narromine to the Timbrebongie Bridge—on the lands of the Wiradjuri Nation. In all, 10 field recording sites were sonically explored over several months. In August, the group held an Open-air Lab on the river at Terramungamine Reserve to talk about their practices and connections to the river, the use of different storytelling languages, and to discuss ideas for this World Rivers Day release. Each artist has written and recorded personal responses to the river, weaving them into the rhythms, pulses and harmonies of the water and riverine corridor, including the industrial, anthropophonic drones, thrums and rings that dominate its regulated flow through urban and periurban environments. Sonic Territories: Wambuul is a community project, where stories of the river’s past and present may be shared for all to better understand the importance of the river to the human and more-than-human life in our region.  https://eco-pulse.art/wambuul-bila/

Wambuul bila

During a 3-day residency in Wingham for the NSW Regional Futures project, I spent time exploring Wingham Brush Nature Reserve. Early one morning over the October long weekend (3 Oct '22), I recorded a walk on the boardwalk. Hear about the giant fig trees, listen to the birds and grey-headed flying foxes, my descriptions of the recent flood damage on the Manning River, and my thoughts about exploring regional futures as an artist. Recorded on a mobile phone. More information about Regional Futures and my Vaticinor project - https://kvgoldsmithart.com/current-work/vaticinor/

Sonic Byte - Wingham Brush Boardwalk

Part of the 'Vaticinor' series of work for the Regional Futures project, 'Humi'(in/on/to the ground) is a composition of field recordings, transitional tones and chords melding sounds of the Mid North Coast, Manning Valley and Central West of NSW into one story; a story of the discordant interdependence of human and more-than-human species against a backdrop of pressing time. Weaving their way through the composition are sounds of species not often heard by the naked human ear or those given little thought to in our daily busyness—earthworms, bats, fish, individual birds in choruses of birdsong reverberating through remnant forests on the edges or urban development and cleared farmland. Meanwhile, manmade structures click and thrum, boom and hum—solar arrays, wind turbines, dam walls, motorboats, and fossil-fuelled vehicles—designed for our convenience and enjoyment, creating around-the-clock noise within worlds we do not hear or see.

Humi

This is the story of soils in an area west of Dubbo on Wiradyuri Country in the Central West of the state of New South Wales, Australia, revealed over two months of reading, observations and recordings in the summer of 2023/24. More information can be found here - https://eco-pulse.art/projects/the-dirt-on-sos/

Excerpt from 'Good-for-nothing dirt', 2024

"Cracked open with a crowbar, soil runs like silk through fingers — from rose pinks and greys to darker clumps of clay. Warm, acid, floury—tenuous and rudimentary soils devoid of visible life. Silence holds the space of expectation. Pink galahs shriek from cypress pines at the thought this dirt holds anything of worth."

Subterranean serenade

Recorded on 1 April 2024 with an Aquarian H2a hydrophone (9m cable) and Zoom F3 from a pedestrian bridge over the Wambuul Macquarie River at Shibble Bridge near Dubbo. This is a regulated inland river. Water flow is controlled by an upstream dam and downstream weirs. On this day, the river was very low, with the water level about 7 metres below the bridge. There's some underwater activity evident, probably fish—most likely invasive European carp, but the dominant sound is the whine of a pump running about 600+ metres downstream. Hundreds of these licensed pumps can be heard on this river, pumping water for stock and domestic purposes and irrigation of crops.

Whining river - Wambuul Macquarie

Reverberating trickles, gurgles, ticks and crackles make up the acousmatic world of moss colonies of dry, inland Australia and the damp climes of the Isle of Skye, UK. Layered, watery subterranean sounds, rhythmic water drums and shimmering drones recreate a wondrous, pulsing mossy world.

This work was created in October 2023 using field recordings collected from the Isle of Skye, Scotland and Dubbo, New South Wales Australia. The mix includes other field-recorded sounds and drone samples.

The Watery World of Moss

From the headwaters on the Breadalbane Plain to the Great Cumbung Swamp near the Murrumbidgee River, the Galari/ Lachlan River has been a source of life for tens of thousands of years. Following ‘exploration’, her more recent history has been shaped by unintended consequences and promises, like tenuous threads.

Created by Kim V. Goldsmith in 2022

Tenuous threads (Galari)

The sensory installation work, Indicatus, contains multiple elements including video (no sound), light, smell and motion-sensor sound boxes containing 38-40 seconds of recorded birdsong, gathered by Kim V. Goldsmith over recent years. The work has been designed to show in the beautiful Convent Chapel in Kandos as part of the contemporary art festival, Cementa15 (9-12 April).

Over 18 months, Goldsmith explored a range of ideas around environmental impacts on native birds, a species considered indicators of environmental health.

More information about the installation can be found at http://kvgoldsmithart.com/current-work/indicatus/

Indicatus installation soundtrack, motion-sensored sounds, 2015

birdchop was installed in the cool room of an old butchery in the village of Millthorpe, as part of a group exhibition in 2009 with the artist collective, Fresh Arts Inc. Elements of the work included a plasma TV cardboard box 'coffin', a clay bird feathered in found native bird feathers, a handmade book containing photography and facts about the settlement of the Central West of NSW, tags on meathooks with the names of threatened bat species, a looped soundtrack and the smell of cold meat fat and eucalyptus leaves.

The video of the installation can be found at https://vimeo.com/87727404

birdchop soundtrack, 2009

Give me a minute to take you to the river. It's a glorious summer morning on the Macquarie River, running through the heart of Dubbo City in Central NSW. The birds, bees and water insects are doing their thing as the brown water swirls and eddies, gently washing over the pebbly beach on its way further west.

Sounds of Summer: Macquarie River

Give me a minute to take you into my garden. It's an early morning in summer in Dubbo NSW, where the temperature is expected to peak at 40 degrees Celcius - casting a heavy blanket of heat over every living thing. Using water from our dam, the early hours are spent topping up bird baths and watering plants in the hope they survive the heat. The dogs get a bit excited by the sprinklers too.

Sounds of Summer: Dubbo Garden

It's a golden pink, windy, predawn in summer and the world is slowly starting to stir. In the cool of the early morning, frogs, birds and crickets lay down the soundtrack to a typical summer day as the sun rapidly climbs above the trees.

Sounds of Summer: Sunrise on the dam

Fictional Territories #01 is the first outcome of a distance-collaboration between Australian artist, Kim V. Goldsmith, and German artist, Didi Hock, as part of the international Arts Territory Exchange program.

While exploring definitions of "territory", and the important role imagination plays when communicating your territory to another, we mixed sound sketches from our "home grounds" into a sonorous piece of fiction. The result is a territory that can‘t be defined, but as an area of creativity. There are no lines on a map, no coordinates, no visual cues. Territory isn‘t rendered static in pictures or words but rather kept open to the interpretation of the listeners. There are just vibrations, hints of what might be. Wavering between what we know, what we believe, and what we wish to see; different territories emerge in the active experience of listening. Those territories are as real as they are imagined, and there are as many of them as there are listeners to the soundscape.

'Signals' by Øystein Jørgensen is used in this soundscape along with SFX recorded and produced by Kim V. Goldsmith. 'Signals' is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License.

www.kvgoldsmithart.com
www.cargocollective.com/didihock
www.artsterritoryexchange.com

Fictional Territories #01

During a two-month artist residency through Nes, in Skagaströnd, Iceland, I met Sigrún Lárusdóttir who shared a folk story with me about the ravens who saved a young farm girl near the adjoining town of Blönduós. This story, in Icelandic, is part of Eye of the Corvus project and exhibition (www.eyeofthecorvus.art). In this 15 minute interview, she explains the story in English and we talk more about the "bæjar hrafnar" (house ravens) of Skagaströnd she knows so well.

Sigrún Lárusdóttir interview, October 2019

"Sonic Territories: Kandos" was designed as a site-specific sound tour of 5 locations within the township of Kandos in Central NSW. It was recorded on location over three days in the town using field recordings, found and manipulated sounds (including loops and archival material)to create 8-10 track mixes. Designed to be fictional but inspired by historical and contemporary events, the work is a series of sonic narratives of spaces and places of Kandos that have endured much change. The walking tour starts with the very reason Kandos exists, the now silent Cement Works (at the Museum site), and nearby Railway Station, down the main street and through to the local Scout Hall – taking in the multi-purpose sites of Kandos Stores and Angus Memorial Hall (now reinvigorated as the home of the Cementa Festival).

The tracks are industrial, colourful, soulful, set in a landscape of immense, ambient beauty vibrating and echoing from the escarpment to the rolling hills, shadowing each day's setting western sun.

*This sound work was part of the Andrew Frost curated "Here and Not Here", for Cementa 2019.

Thanks to the community of Kandos NSW, in particular, Andrew and Colleen Tito of the Kandos Fairways Motel for helping with my research and care during my field recording visits and the Festival, Kandos Museum, and information gleaned from the blog, Kandos History.

Sonic Territories: Kandos (the complete walk)

In the weeks leading up to Eye of the Corvus transforming from a project into an exhibition (December 2019), I met up with Wiradjuri elder Diane McNaboe, who shared a Wiradjuri story with me about how the 'crow' (Australian Raven) became black. This story and the conversation around it is is now part of Eye of the Corvus project and exhibition(www.eyeofthecorvus.art). In this 9.5 minute interview, Diane talks about what we can learn from the crows and other species who are so connected to the landscapes they inhabit.

Diane McNaboe interview, December 2019

9-track experimental mix based on field recordings, 5:00 (designed to loop) for the Arts Territory Exchange/Must Use Critical Knowledge (MUCK)sound library collaboration - https://www.artsterritoryexchange.com/blog/2020/4/19/ate-sound-library-in-collaboration-with-muck-must-use-critical-knowledge

"…For, once, this was A world that had no time for time, no space for haste."

Mark Tredinnick’s poem Time Passages* imagines two lives lived at once - one an ocean, one a shore - each essential to the other but where the passing of time is measured in different ways. In acknowledging our manipulation of the natural world, does the 'carving out' of time really mean anything? The 'dreaming land' never stops, we just don’t notice it in our accustomed haste.

* https://www.marktredinnick.com/poems/time-passages

No Time for Time

ecoPULSE.art is a platform for projects exploring the future of regional territories through enquiry, connections and creativity. Kim V. Goldsmith is a storyteller with a background in radio and print journalism, communications and content production spanning 30 years. She lives and works in the heart of regional NSW Australia, where she explores the issues that come with humans in the environment, and through her sound work, aims to give a voice to the more-than-human world around us.

ecoPULSE / Kim V. Goldsmith

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks