A compositional soundscape documenting the trees and water of Stoney Creek, recorded in March 2020, in the quiet liminal days before the disruption of TMX pipeline work through the site. Ambisonic, geophonic, and hydrophonic recordings provide insight to the interwoven sonic and ecological landscape of the area, while a contact microphone performance with resident Alder trees highlights the individual beings affected by the TMX. Thanks to the 1308 Trees movement ( https://1308trees.ca ) for highlighting this issue and the vulnerable spaces put at risk by the TMX pipeline construction.

This piece is a part of "Branching Songs", a multimedia project that bears witness, using art methods, to the ancient trees who are supporting the well-being of humans and nonhuman life in our immediate urban ecology.

https://www.wildempathy.org/branching-songs/

Ambisonic Recording, Direction - Julie Andreyev
Contact Mic Performance and Composition - Cara Jacobsen
Geophone, Hydrophone Recording, Composition, Mix - Sam Street
Cover Art, Documentation - Leanne Plisic
Documentation - Keira Madsen

Alders at Stoney Creek

Recorded at the Trans Mountain property line trail in Burnaby, BC, this soundscape positions the listener as a precarious Red Cedar at the frontline of ever-expanding resource extraction. Geophonic recordings from the base of their roots vibrate with the thrum of construction in the new TMX facility, as above-ground ambisonic recordings hear casual trail enjoyers, far-flung industrial noise, and wind stirring their branches. A contact microphone performance adds textural embodiment of the tree, as well as picking up the only nonhuman animal calls heard in the area— small songbirds and a raven, moving through the bark. Thanks to the 1308 Trees movement ( 1308trees.ca )for highlighting and fighting for these vulnerable spaces and trees put at risk from TMX pipeline construction.

This piece is a part of "Branching Songs", a multimedia project seeking to bear witness, using art methods, to the ancient trees who are supporting the well-being of humans and nonhuman life in our immediate urban ecology.

www.wildempathy.org/branching-songs/

Direction: Julie Andreyev
Geophonic and Ambisonic Recording, Composition: Sam Street
Contact Mic Performance and Composition: Cara Jacobsen

Red Cedar at Trans Mountain Trail

Recorded in June 2021, this soundscape documents the wooded area surrounding Lost Creek in Burnaby, the frontline of deforestation for the Trans-Mountain Pipeline expnsion project. Not named on any map, it is a space of intersecting legal jurisdictions, encroaching industry, and of course the many wild non-human agencies and ecologies populating its land. While set to be deforested for TMX, the work of the 1308 Trees movement ( 1308trees.ca ) put a halt to clearing through the tireless work of activists who searched for and found migratory Anna's hummingbird nests in the area. Nesting is protected by the Migratory Bird Convention Act, and clearing was at least temporarily halted for several months.
As an archive of this momentary, this transient space, and as a tribute to the hummingbirds that stopped the saws, we have recorded the area in sound. Using ambisonic, geophonic, hydrophonic, and contact microphone gestures with large trees in the area, aspects of the biophonic and anthrophonic are brought together to portray the space as a whole.

This piece is a part of "Branching Songs", a multimedia project that bears witness, using art methods, to the ancient trees who are supporting the well-being of humans and nonhuman life in our immediate urban ecology.

www.wildempathy.org/branching-songs/

Ambisonic Recording, Contact Mic Performance, Direction - Julie Andreyev
Geophone, Hydrophone Recording, Contact Mic Performance, Composition, Mix - Sam Street
Cover Art, Documentation - Leanne Plisic
Documentation - Keira Madsen

Hummingbird at Lost Creek

Skytrain Pass

Trout Lake Clips

60hz

This soundscape is Branching Songs' first true encounter with an old-growth tree; a massive, beautiful Douglas Fir living in "Lighthouse Park" on Musqueam nation lands. Alongside immersive ambisonic, geophonic, and electromagnetic recordings of the environment, this composition also features Wild Empathy's first use of MIDI Biodata— performance data created from the tree itself. This involved the use of a MIDI Biodata Sonification device which measures changes to the tree's internal state via noninvasive electrodes placed on the bark— in this case on a charismatic burl of the fir. This data is recorded alongside the soundscape, then processed into the composition via vocoding to create a ghostly sonic afterimage; the tree's performance resonating back into the soundscape.

This piece is a part of "Branching Songs", a multimedia project that bears witness, using art methods, to the ancient trees who are supporting the well-being of humans and nonhuman life in our immediate urban ecology.

www.wildempathy.org/branching-songs/

Ambisonic Recording, Direction - Julie Andreyev
Geophone, EMF, Biodata Recording, Composition, Mix - Sam Street
Cover Art, Documentation - Leanne Plisic
360 Photo Documentation - Cara Jacobsen

Douglas Fir at Lighthouse Park

Songs made testing the capabilities of the MIDI Biodata Sonification Device, in collaboration with plants around Sam's house. Songs are named after the primary plant performer, scale mode of the device, and any plants further modulating the signal)

Philo (mod Zz) + Drum

Rose Minor (mod Hosta)

Birch Major (mod Calla, Rhodo)

Rhodo Chromatic (mod Rose)

Calla Lily Indian

My thinking was really clear: we need the trees in the ground. 02:58
Alex Hass talks about the meaning trees have for her. 

"They’re primary to the health of our ecosystem in the same way that the ocean and plankton are primary. In fact yesterday, when I was driving into town, I was held up because of the logger’s strike. They’re striking because mills are closing and they’re losing their jobs, their livelihoods. But my thinking was really clear: we need the trees in the ground.”

Alex Hass

Wild Empathy develops immersive art to raise awareness about ancient trees and old growth forests in the province of British Columbia. This Soundcloud has our podcasts, sound recordings, and soundscapes.

Wild Empathy

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