Creating sound to include on my footage, was another fascinating curve of synchronicities. The April snowfall that was accidentally recorded was a never previously experienced weather anomaly that created an apocalyptic scene. Trees were already green, snow was falling heavily, road accidents were escalating, and the sirens of ambulances were echoing through the city non-stop. I wanted to use the original audio, the sound that was recorded on the spot. There is a transition halfway through the footage from this sound to a 432Hz Earth-meditation tune.
Looking at the video, now with sound, made me wonder ‘how beautiful and serene apocalypse could be’. There was a strange contradiction between the calm, peaceful performance that recalled childhood and safety and the collapsing outside world. I sensed I was searching for the integration of these two seemingly contradictory aspects.
This made me realise there was more to this scene than one can perceive with simply the senses. Another more transcendent layer that does not bother with the concepts of global warming, the struggles of everyday life or everyday death. A layer that is not concerned with choosing in what way experiences should manifest, what is good or bad, if the human race exists or not, a layer, where there is no duality of life and death; that is the pure existence that we all are. I could best represent this layer with the sound of breathing.
The sound of breathing stretches across the entire video aligning with the rhythm of the swing.
I recorded some sound-bites of breathing in the studio by night when it was silent as the birds in the nearby woods were asleep. I recorded a few versions of ocean-breathing and open-mouth-breathing. Though for different purpose it was the same action as doing breathing exercises after yoga. And unexpectedly, it also had the same effect. My yoga teacher had warned us about open-mouth-breathing, as it can be quite powerful, bringing up repressed emotions and past baggage. When it comes to breathing, I just realised, gosh, there is so much past baggage.
When I finished recording, I listened back to the sound-bites a few times. I found all the flows and little nuances that made every breath sound so different interesting, even though I had tried to be consistent. Listening them brought up a stream of associations. First, they sounded like someone breathing deeply but slowly whilst sleeping. Listening again, I thought it sounds like someone breathing through a machine, the digitalised qualities of it. After yoga, I find ocean breathing calming and pleasant. It sounds like the waves of the ocean hitting the shore. Listening to it from the speaker, it was different. I thought it sounds like a hospital scene, with someone dying.
As usual, when I work with VR, there is something synchronistic about this video clip, its timing, the ways it brings up all these intense emotions in so many different ways. Having snowfall in April, meeting and re-meeting my tutor from Virtual Awakening Creative Studios, receiving this bursary and then the pandemic. There is something about artworks, how they bring about or signpost significant shifts in the fabric of the universe. At least the universe I am experiencing.
Now that meditation, breathing and contemplation have allowed me to release some painful childhood traumas safely, I was ready to come back to the duality of those everyday struggles differently, with a clearer sound. Now, when I look at the footage as it is ready (find it here: Wings of Reality) it speaks to me about motherhood. It tells me about the struggles of implementing creative solutions to stop global warming, to turn human life on ‘Spaceship Earth’ sustainable, the difficulties and resistance involved in implementing such solutions, whilst knowing that all this struggle might be a waste long term. The message is that no solution can work with an infinite number of human beings living on a finite piece of land. Today’s tendency points toward overpopulation. There is an extinction rate of species never experienced before, because of loss of habitat. Pandemics are also the result of the same issue. As long as humanity is unable to expand motherhood from ‘owning a child’ to ‘mothering every living being’ modern civilisation will not be sustainable. Creativity without compassion is empty.
This especially applies to Europe. Owning a child is no longer a necessity for survival in Western societies. When do we, who consider ourselves educated and conscious, stop pointing fingers and blame those societies who are not in this privileged situation? When do we take responsibility for our own actions and stop multiplying? When do we stop taking the moral high-ground and make conscious decisions ourselves?
Population density by countries:
World population counter:
