Over the last 200 years, humans have reshaped the seabed of the North Sea. With the advent of steamships in the 19th century, we fished away most of the North Sea oyster reefs. In the 20th century we constructed offshore oil and gas rigs, and kilometers of pipeline. The coming decades we’ll reshape the sea floor for the third time.
We often think of the sea as a liquid wilderness, a space without people. But the sea is increasingly a human space, not only on the water, with shipping and fishing, but also under water, and on-or-under the seabed. Underwater cables, deep sea mining, oil-and gas rigs, fish farms, and offshore windmills… Almost every cm3 of the North Sea knows a kind of human presence. It is as much a cultured landscape as the rest of Western Europe.
Now we’re at a new turn in our culturing of the sea bed. We’ll change the North Sea dramatically over the next few decades. In an effort to move away from fossil fuels, and increasingly for geopolitical purposes, Europe wants to grow the offshore electricity generation tenfold by 2050. This means constructing a lot of new windmills and accompanying infrastructure. Independently, we’re also looking into artificial oyster reefs, as a nature-based solution to defend against coastal erosion, and to creates sites to preserve and increase the biodiversity of the North Sea. Some hope to combine these two and rewild the hard substrate on which the windmills are built with artificial oyster reefs.
We’ve woven ourselves into the sea, and the sea into ourselves, shaping the spaces we occupy in structures, sounds and songs.
– Stijn Demeulenaere
Sounding Lines reflects on these past, present and future changes of the North Sea. The installation brings the sounds from offshore windfarms together with recordings from some of the last remaining wild oyster beds in the North Sea. Processed sea shanties are woven in between. The shanties are sung by an amateur ladies choir from Ostend, embodying a generational bond to the sea. These three sounds come together in an immersive spatialized sound installation. Sounding Lines exists in multiple forms: as a concert, as a binaural experience wading through water, and as an 8-channel surround sound installation. The work offers a space where the audience can reflect on how we deal with a space so different from ours, feel how intertwined our society is with the sea in a complicated balance, and wonder where they see themselves in this relationship.
Conceived, created and composed by: Stijn Demeulenaere (male, Belgium)
Production: Kunstenwerkplaats Brussels
Co-production: Gluon
Recordings by: Stijn Demeulenaere, Flanders Marine Institute / VLIZ
Recordings assistants: Ioana Mandrescu, Tristan Visser, Thibault Sente
Musical Dramaturgy: Ioana Mandrescu, Cécile Pilorger
With support from: Flanders Marine Institute / VLIZ, Overtoon, De Brakke Grond
Choir: Dameskoor Aimée Thonon, conducted by Steve Dugardin
Contralto: Cécile Pilorger
Scientific support by: dr. Elisabeth Debusschere, Maryann Watson, dr. Jan Seys, dr. Sarah Schmidlin
Guide: Simon Gerritse
Sounding Lines was made possible with the help of the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ), Kunstenwerkplaats, Gluon, De Brakke Grond, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (Nioz), and Overtoon. Many thanks to dr. Elisabeth Debusschere, dr. Maryann Watson, dr. Jan Seys, Mathieu Wille, Sarah Schmidlin, dr. Thomas Vandorpe, Karlien Vanhoonacker, Lieve Demin, Eva Welkenhuysen, Lore Sommereyns, Ioana Mandrescu, Cécile Pilorger, Steve Dugardin, Joost Fonteyne, Otis Dehaes, Simon Gerritsen, Tristan Visser, Christophe De Jaeger, Ramona Van Gansbeke, Dirk Halet, Johan Vandermaelen, Leander Schönweger, Lara van Lookeren, Laure Martroye, Koen De Wilde, Ronny Dewaele, Jacky Puystjens, ; the crews of Kunstenwerkplaats, Gluon, Overtoon, Research Vessel Simon Stevin, VLIZ, De Brakke Grond, and many more.
Residency support network:
About Stijn Demeulenaere
Stijn Demeulenaere is a Belgian sound artist with a background in sociology, journalism and radio. Since 2009 he creates installations, soundscapes and performances. He mixes disciplines and sectors and collaborates with choreographers, theatre- and film makers, and scientists. Stijn researches the relationship between identity, sound and listening. Through a field recording practice Stijn explores the bonds between sound, space and listening. From remote, pristine, nature areas, over sleepy villages, the sonic onslaught of a metropolis, to the umwelt of more-than-human spaces: Stijn tries to understand places by listening to them.
This researched is mirrored by Stijn’s curiosity on how people give meaning to sound, how they use it in the construction of their worldview and identity. Hearing is a sense of touch; sound is direct, but also malleable, and mysterious. Stijn tries to unravel social structures, personal history and the unconscious imagination of people through listening. Figuring out how we give meaning to sound, and how sound gives meaning to places.
Host / Region
GLUON / Brussels, Belgium – Port Of Ostend
Abstract
This residency invited the artist to develop an in-situ performance exploring coastal and water sustainability through a more-than-human perspective, creating engaging and imaginative scenarios that connect Ostend’s cultural scene with local communities to promote ocean and water preservation.
Keywords
circularity, interactive art, biodiversity, local participation, in situ,
Description of the regional challenge
The port of Ostend, is located in the city of Ostend, within the West Flanders province of the Flemish Region in Belgium. The port of Ostend is unique in Belgium as it is the only port nestled in the touristically buzzing coastal area amidst sandy beaches and wide boulevards, with a rich tradition of fishery that is still alive but undergoing significant changes, just as is the life below water. Additionally, Ostend’s port area is a key science hub fostering blue economy innovation, distinguished by its focus on marine research and sustainable practices around circularity, sustainable water-management and bioengineering and has a lively cultural scene, with Theater aan Zee being one of Belgium’s most unique and most loved on-site performance art festivals.
How is the mission S+T+ARTS driven?
A residency for an artist motivated to develop an in-situ performance (theatre/dance/music/opera/public intervention/hybrid space/sound work), around themes of coastal and water sustainability research and biodiversity from a more than human-focused perspective, creating playful, inspiring and aesthetically intriguing future scenarios imagining alternatives combining circular living and a rediscovery of the nourishing interdependence between people, biotopes, elements and organisms. Translating water research into an engaging performance a/o interactions in situ, together with Ostend’s cultural scene and local (fishery) communities. We seek to encourage everyone through experiments in performative futurology to actively preserve the ocean and waters for generations to come.
The result of the residency will be shown during the TAZ (Theatre Aan Zee) Festival 2025.
About The Project – Saltveins
We often imagine the sea as a space without people, liquid wilderness. But humans shape its waters as much as we do the land: we’re everywhere. In sound, in chemicals, in countless ships, oil rigs, underwater cables, wind farms, fish farms, military endeavors, …. The waves are subject to national and international laws, treaties, plans, projections and political aspirations. A whole economy sprouts from these aspirations. Over the next decades we will change the North Sea dramatically. A tenfold increase in wind farms, the opening of the Northeast passage, climate change and rewilding efforts are just a few examples.
‘Saltveins’, looks at these interconnections between man and sea. Stijn will explore this changing symbiocene by focusing on the seabed. Listening to shellfish reefs, exploring how we map and develop the sea. How this development connects to new energy policies, away from fossil fuels, and new geopolitical realities. Listening to scientists, entrepreneurs, historians, and connecting with people who have been living and working on the North Sea for generations.
‘Saltveins’ will become a performative installation, combining marine tech in sound and video with stories about and hopes for the North Sea. What does the seabed tell us about ourselves?
