Benthos People was a research project where I collaborated with Marine Biologist Vardhan Patankar through conversations and scientific data. The work that came out of it was shown at 'Blue Carbon' at the Serendipity Art Festival, Goa. The project was initiated by Jahnavi Phalkey and Ravi Aggarwal. It supported by Science Gallery X Serendipity.

Immersive multichannel sound;
Printed image (16ft*3ft), Printed text (16ft *3ft);
Research Material and Ocean Research Gear: Vardhan Patankar

Note for Banthos People:

We can assume that the beings in the benthos have ‘experience’. They sense the world around them, move, communicate, feel pain, have dreams or hallucinations, perhaps posess desires, or encounter different mental states and have experience. As a way to get close to this experience, I find people who study such ecologies - scientists - as mediums in themselves. Science as a method, needs to distance the scientist from her subjectivity. I am interested in these subjective encounters between the scientist and her subject of study.

‘Benthos’ refers to the community of organisms or aquatic beings that live on or in the bottom sediments of the sea or river. In putting ‘benthos’ together with ‘people’, I invite the human listener to contemplate the experience of life in the Benthos variously relating to this environment.
Our sensory abilities allow us to observe only a slice of the world, such as a narrow band of light, or a narrow band of sonic energy. An individual brain evolved through generations and through our lives, can produce our very individual experiences. How do we know more than that can be thought or felt? Meanings accumulate with time. As one sits on the edge of trying to ‘be’ another, one needs to empty oneself of the desire of ‘knowing’ or creating ‘meaning,’ because our knowledges and meaning makings are deeply contaminated with being human.
Vardhan has researched corals and marine life in the Andaman and Nicobar region over the course of 15 years. His closeness with the corals is subjective, while his research is an objective investigation of phenomenon. In this tension lies the key to seeing differently and seeing more. Here I have used recordings made using a hydrophone to reproduce the unknowable landscape of the benthos. Using these recordings, the narration of one of his dives, and the pioneering early twentieth century hand painted collaborative maps of Marie Tharp (geologist and oceanographic cartographer) and Berann (geologist), I have tried to allude to this more-than-human experience.

Going through Vardhan's data gift to me, I saw the pictures of the underwater landscape in any real way for the first time. I had been so obsessed thinking about the underground for so long, the underwater surprised me. This is when the question of the general underwter landscape brought me to The ocean map by Marie Tharp.

The map in the image above is a section from madagascar to the andamans. It is part of a scientific hand drawn map (full map below) by geologist and oceanographic cartographer Marie Tharp. She used oceanographer Bruce Charles Heezen’s depth measurements and plotted the points in physiographic diagrams. The was published in 1977 by the office of Naval Research, USA and is still in wide use today. My interest in this map was two-fold. First is that this is the 'landscapes' or topography for the beings in the Benthos - the mountains, the valleys and continental shelves. The other reason is the exquisite detail and rendering of the light and shadow representing each hill, the mapping of each data point to a color and shade. The precision of drawing across each second of each minute or every latitiude and longitude is exquisite.



I used a portion of the map for the display - a small strip between from Madagaskar to the Andamans.

The various images of Marie Tharp's workspace evoke questions about the tools(physical, analytical, mathematical) and methods (measurements, mapping), and the tools and methods of recording at the ship. And I wonder what the data looked like and what else were the conversations like. Because it is an extraordinary acomplishment to be able to single-handedly map the entire underwater topology.

Marie Tharp's work and all the maps that led to the creation of this one was the beginning of my journey into the Benthos.

The idea of the underwater soundscape produces a first and formost question for me - which is ' the underwater ear', and if the hyddrophone is an honest recording of the underwater, its perception is another matter all together. The speed of sound being so much faster, and the medium being entirely differnt and viscous in comparison to air. These are big differences. Nevertheless, I began listening to the files serieally.

The hydrophone records for 10 min followed by a 20 min break. In 10 hours, it creates 20 files on 10 mins each - making it 200 min ( =3:20 hrs).
On mapping the loudness of each file and plotting on a 24 hour chard (Image below), we see that the ocean is louder. With sunrise, it gets quieter. The 3.25 hour tracks that represented ten hours of darkness inside the ocean(7.25pm - 5.25 am) became the subject.

Benthos People is a result of my research into Vardhan's work, more specifically his hydrophone recordings in corals of the Andaman region.

Talking with Vardhan about each dive, their names, their landscapes and the stories behind the research, i started to see a new world. It takes a lifetime to be onesself, how long would it take to know what it is like to be another being? To present the work, I told the story of the grouper and its mating ritual. The image above is taken by Vardhan during the dive.