The Calder in your Bones

The Calder in your Bones
David Velez
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2023
Cultures of Sound
Sovereign Design House. Huddersfield
November 2023

‘The Calder in your bones’ is a sound installation made with industrial duct, fur and electroacoustic bone transducers. The piece aims to draw attention towards the health of the River Calder, which is the principal fluvial source for farms in the Calderdale and Kirklees boroughs, nourishing the growth of rhubarb, pears, blueberries, potatoes, tomatoes and many other species that feed the community of this region. The Calder was affected by industrial waste for decades, and today is subjected to substantial sewage leaks, making it England’s second most polluted river. This problem can be solved if the contaminating water firms take action to sustain the river’s well-being, which they are currently failing to do, as researchers and activists emphatically point out. As such this installation also takes an explicitly activist stance.

The form of the installation creates a bodily bonding experience with the river through the vibration of its sounds. Through this immersive sensory experience we can acknowledge water as a nourishing presence inside our bodies, and thus our connectedness with the well-being of our local waterways. Extensive underwater and subterranean recordings were made of the River Calder using a hydrophone and a geophone to emphasise the vibrating biodiversity of the site, including earthworms, snails, slugs, frogs, toads, newts, fishes, and an enormous variety of plants, among other ‘sounding species’. The field methodology centred on environments whose acoustics are unfamiliar to our airborne-fixed listening, recognising the river as an ‘Otherness’ to which we should extend empathy, engaging with care and recognising our interdependency. The use of bone transducers creates a corporeal multi-sensorial experience which is capable of connecting the listener with the river sounds on a deep, foundational level. Fur advances a pleasant experience to touch while establishing tension with the material of the water, as textile factories were pollutants of the Calder during the second half of the 20th century.

In addition to this piece presented as part of Cultures of Sound, the original recordings are published without treatment at archive.org for free public access, aiming to present bioacoustic researchers and activists with relevant material for their investigations, and for the appreciation of anybody interested in these sounds.