Blending of art and science is transformative
There is much to learn when creative and scientific forces unite, write Elle Leane and Mary-Anne Lea
Nearly five years ago, we were part of a group of University of Tasmania researchers who turned up at the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies for an event that none of us really knew what to make of. Our disciplines spanned everything from plankton biology to literary studies. In the ordinary run of things, it was rare that we were even in a room together. But now we were devoting two days to sharing our knowledge with a creative duo, composer Mary Finsterer and librettist Tom Wright. All we knew was that Mary and Tom were writing an opera set in Antarctica, and wanted input from people who had devoted their careers to its study. We were well outside our comfort zones.
During those two days, Mary and Tom learned about many things including the state of the Antarctic’s sea ice; the impact of climate change on marine life, such as krill and salps; the remarkable deep ocean explorations and migratory journeys of seabirds and whales; and the deep time of tectonic processes. We, too, learned – about each other’s work, and about Mary and Tom’s vision for the opera. At the end, we dispersed and went on with our lives and our research. Six months later, we were deep in a pandemic and the workshop felt like it had happened in another world.
We could never have imagined how the ideas we discussed during those two days would emerge on stage. The opera – which sees its Tasmanian premiere this week, on Thursday, April 18, performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Chamber Opera – is no retelling of an explorer’s heroic or tragic story. Nor is it a contemporary tale of base life. Simply titled Antarctica, it centres on a quest for knowledge, meaning, and belief as its characters venture south, encountering a non-human world that also speaks, or rather sings. Krill sing, salps sing, the ship sings, the ice sings. If you listen closely, you can hear the Latin scientific term for a marine diatom or an account of folding fault lines. Although the music, language and characters evoke a world several centuries earlier than today, the spectre of climate change haunts the southern journey. Scientific ideas discussed at that 2019 symposium are transformed into a rich musical experience.
Finsterer and Wright are not alone as artists working with sound and music who have been inspired by scientific knowledge and data. Creative Antarctica – a threeyear research project led by the University of Tasmania – has identified more than a hundred Australian creative practitioners who have travelled to the ice continent. While most are visual artists or writers, a significant number work with sound, and many are influenced by the science and scientists they encounter there.
Not all Antarctic art-science collaborations involve journeys to the continent. Some, like the opera, evolve from low-latitude conversations, and the gateway city of Hobart is an ideal place for these exchanges. For example, over the past decade or more, acclaimed sculptor and sonic artist Nigel Helyer and one of us (Mary-Anne, a Southern Ocean seabird and seal ecologist at IMAS) have explored the collisions and synergies in their art and science. They turned 1000m elephant seal dives into a work that was brilliantly performed by the UTAS Conservatorium of Music.
Art-science collaborations of this kind truly cross disciplines, creating
All we knew was that Mary and Tom were writing an opera set in Antarctica, and wanted input from people who had devoted their careers to its study. We were well outside our comfort zones
something new in the spaces between them. They make it possible to view data and science in novel ways. During the best collaborations, the participants stretch and grow. There’s a level of discomfort and joint curiosity, meeting somewhere in the middle at an unknown destination. One of the great joys is the interaction with an audience, experiencing the work through their eyes.
Creating sound is only one way of responding creatively to scientific research. A quite different example is Philip Samartzis and Eugene Ughetti’s work, Polar Force. This immersive performance takes place in an inflatable structure reminiscent of a lab, and the performers use air, ice and laboratory equipment to create the work. Samartzis, a member of the Creative Antarctica research team, will be in Hobart this week for a series of free events wrapped around the opera.
Audiences will be treated to conversations on research as an inspiration for creativity, place and composition, Hobart as an Antarctic gateway, and the ethics of tourism in the south. Even if it puts you outside your comfort zone, you might consider coming along to one or more of these exchanges – you never know what might come of it.