3DOI 10.24412/2713-184X-2023-1-76-78
MUSIC OF THE ARCTIC GLACIATION: TRIPTYCH
Vadim Ryabikov
is a psychologist, anthropologist, musician, and participant in research expeditions to the Arctic, South America, and Southeast Asia. He is an expert of the Arctic Geoculture Laboratory of the State Institute of Culture and Arts of the Arctic (Sakha / Yakutia, Russian Federation), and founder of the Wolf Project: a French consulting and training company that develops a new look at the philosophy of management in a changing world, based on the knowledge of anthropology, ethology, ecology, and psychology.
I communicate with the earth, conducting eco-psychology trainings and creating psi-geograph-ic music based on my interaction with the land. The method of creating psi-geographic music was discovered during the marine Arctic complex expedition of the Institute of Cultural and Natural Heritage as an attempt to deepen and expand the perception of the environment to render its unique natural and symbolic properties.
It is impossible to impose a sound onto a space. In practice, interaction with the natural environment involves the selection of certain sounds that support an interactive resonance with the land. Through choosing tonality, intonation, sound, and musical colors, I reveal the unique qualities of the landscape in a particular moment of time.
I want to share my experience of creating such music, born during one of the expeditions, and still alive in my memory.
This experience embraces the four-month expedition in the Arctic Ocean aboard the Mikhail Somov research vessel. In a small cabin with a washbasin, table, lamp, 220V socket, round porthole, and storm-proof bed, I made my home, therapy room, research laboratory, and music studio. Many years have passed, but I remember everything as if it was yesterday: the ship rocking on the ocean waves, the hissing of sea foam outside the window, the slow shifts of ice atop an endless surface of ocean, which a few hours prior
were as fluid as mercury, and, finally, the cracks of breaking ice.
I am sitting in a cabin. Beside me is a musical workstation and my companions who have come with me to explore the environment and their own subjective response to it. It would seem that there is only the monotony of the Arctic Void and boredom beyond the side of our ship, and that the same landscape that consists of the sky and the sea stays with us for a long time. Sea surface can be gray, blue, jade, or emerald, but always boundless. This landscape reveals to us waves, swells, ripples, and sometimes a mirror-smooth surface of the water and then ice and deserted islands.
What could be more boring? But suddenly I discovered that this Void is the focus of invisible forces that seem to know something about me. They remind me of something which is important and somehow forgotten. And there is no more monotony.
I try to remember the important thing the forces are reminding me of, and when it happened, leafing through the history of my life, most of which has been forgotten, as if it were unnecessary. But suddenly everything becomes important, and the most ordinary memory makes sense. And then I discovered a tunnel in my mind that leads me to an area of memory which is no longer mine.
A conversation with artist David Moss and photographer Carolina Herbert
There was nothing in my life similar to what happened during the last months of sailing the Arctic Ocean. Something in the depths of my soul knows what the forces were reminding me of and remembers it.
My companions suddenly gain the ability to speak and describe the most subtle details of the experiences caused by being in this Arctic Void. It becomes obvious that the space through which our ship makes its way, seems to be homogeneous. In fact, it has one sound in one place and another sound in another place.
While I was listening to the words of my companions, I was looking for sounds in the hope of supporting them to give a voice to the Arctic Void in which we are immersed. Day after day, week after week, and month after month passed us by, and eventually a gallery of musical images appeared, in tune with my internal state of mind and the inner essence of my companions.
Later, I created a collection of such images along the routes of other expeditions. But the Arctic one was the most thoughtful and meaningful. Even the formation of ice was a source of creative inspiration. I bring to your attention here the three musical images that convey the state of travelers contemplating the formation of ice in different places of the Arctic Ocean.
10/13/2007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxtAENQY_ Sg&ab_channel=VadimRyabikov
It is the Laptev sea. The sky is overcast and very quiet. The surface of the sea to the horizon is like a mirror. Flocks of small birds occasionally fly very low over the sea, almost touching the water. Our ship cuts through heavy waters. It moves smoothly and confidently. Waves are so thick and viscous, like glycerin, and radiate from the nose of the ship. The air temperature is minus twenty degrees Celsius, and the water temperature in the sea is below zero. The freezing point of sea water is lower than that of fresh water. There is a glow on the horizon. Beyond the horizon, there is already ice, and it reflects the light. We are going there. Our ship is ice-class and can crush sheets less than 20 cm thick. If the ice exceeds the allowable thickness, we will freeze. The whole team knows it. But we don't have a choice and continue west. Gradually, a thin film of ice appears on the surface of the sea.
Behind the stern, the ship leaves a trail of ice already cut through. An hour later, it refreezes. Every hour the ice gets thicker and thicker.
10/16/2007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeIFBqy-Qirk&t=7s&ab_channel=VadimRyabikov
Novosibirsk Islands. Emptiness, sparkling snow, and ice crystals everywhere. Everything here is now like New Year's Eve. It's as if Santa Claus really comes from the north. Somewhere here he lives, and when the time comes, he spreads to the south without leaving the north, where he has always been.
A Christmas miracle. I remember how I foresaw it as a child before New Year's Eve. What exactly was this miracle? Presents under the tree. This is from mom and dad, but I knew that it wasn't a miracle. What is the miracle? I did not expect anything abnormal, but still expected a New Year's miracle, and it happened. What is it?
I observe, listen, and feel into what is happening here, for a minute, ten minutes, one hour, and then two hours. Either rapidly, or gradually, or by accident, or on purpose, the consciousness arises in the mind that there is one moment on New Year's Eve, when the past loses power over the future. And then something new comes along and the old is gone. This is the miracle. There is a chance to reset the past, weaken causality, and start all over again. It's like I'm free of what's already been.
11/20/2007
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuALg-pNc-pQ&t=4s&ab_channel=VadimRyabikov
Cape Sterligov. Ice formation. According to the Pomors people "pancakes" are round ice formations, which sometimes form on the surface of the sea in huge quantities at water temperatures below zero. This doesn't always happen. It probably depends on the salinity of the water. It seems to me and my companions that such ice looks more like lotus leaves than pancakes. We call them arctic lotuses. When they will freeze, they form a strong ice shell that will forge the sea until next summer. Now we are free to go, as
© Ecopoiesis, 2023
Ecopoiesis: Eco-Human Theory and Practice. 2023, Volume 4, № 1.
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David Moss, Carolina Herbert
if pushing the sides of the ship thickets of arctic lotuses. The sunset is scarlet, like in the tropics, and the lotuses are flooded with scarlet light. The
sun is hiding behind the horizon. Stars appear in the sky. The cosmos peers into the sea. And lotuses become cosmic.
Reference for citations
Ryabikov, V. (2023). Music of the Arctic glaciation: Triptych. Ecopoiesis: Eco-Human Theory and Practice, 4(1). [open access internet journal]. - URL: http://en.ecopoiesis.ru (d/m/y)
