Post-Natural Pastorale (2022)
Freshkills Park
w/ Sue Huang and Robert Black
Freshkills Park
w/ Sue Huang and Robert Black
Once the largest municipal dump in the world, the bucolic serenity of what is now New York City's Freshkills Park belies the multiple timescales unfolding above and below its surface. From the thousand-year decay of consumer plastics and the gradual flow of leachate to the present gathering of clouds overhead, Post-Natural Pastorale transforms time-series data from eight of these layers into musical scores. Performed by double-bassist Robert Black at sites throughout the landscape, the recordings capture the bass as well as the human and nonhuman sounds that surround it. These field recordings combine into a single composition—a journey through the deep time of this mammoth monument to the Anthropocene.
Double bass:
Robert Black.
Concept, art direction, and production:
Sue Huang.
Concept, composition, and audio:
Brian House.
Animation:
Alexander Dupuis.
Co-production:
David Feinberg.
Audio mastering:
Jon Cohrs.
Cinematography and color:
Paul Shin.
Curation:
Mariel Villeré.
Thanks:
New York City Department of Sanitation, Nancy Nowacek, Marcel Zaes, Robert Black Foundation.