Opening Reception Postponed: HOW YOU SHIMMER: SOUND PORTAL FOR WHALE BUBBLES

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Opening Reception Postponed: HOW YOU SHIMMER: SOUND PORTAL FOR WHALE BUBBLES

Yolande Harris

PST ART: Art & Science Collide

Due to the Los Angeles fires and the UCLA campus closure, we had to cancel the in-person opening reception and panel discussion that was planned for today. We will be sending an updated schedule as soon as circumstances permit.

In 2020, we initiated the research phase of our PST project. Due to the pandemic, Yolande Harris’s planned art residency at the UCLA ArtSci Center had to shift to a virtual format. Despite these challenges, she successfully organized an inspiring and memorable sound walk.

Now, five years later, her exhibition and visit to UCLA has been postponed once again -- this time due to the fires. This highlights the profound relevance of the project’s subtitle: Sonic Art in Times of Climate Disruption. The theme resonates even more deeply today, reflecting the pressing realities we continue to confront.

Link to Yolande Harris's Sound Walk (2020): https://vimeo.com/485589928

Although we are hopeful that the fires subside and we are able to bring Yolande to UCLA soon, we recorded a walkthrough of her exhibition at the Art Sci gallery at CNSI and had an online session with her discussing her work with Victoria Vesna's students. They were joined by Dr. Aaron Blaisdell, UCLA Psychology Professor and Chair of the Behavioral Neuroscience area. We will share the recording of this wonderful discussion soon!

Link to the Walkthrough: https://vimeo.com/1047728787

How You Shimmer: Sound Portal for Whale Bubbles

Yolande Harris transforms digital traces of whales’ underwater movements into heavy bronze spirals, carves the outlines of their bodies on remnants of human bone using a scrimshaw method, and casts them in bronze. Blown glass sculptures evoke the bubble nets formed by the breath of whales working in concert.

The installation is an imaginative dive into an otherwise inaccessible world, and a sound portal to join with another species. Accompanying this installation is a single-channel presentation of From a Whale’s Back, an audiovisual work that uses data from scientific tags from Ari Friedlaender’s lab at UC Santa Cruz to study the behaviors of whales to ask us to consider the whales’ relationships to each other as well as our relationship to them.

PDF about work - from publication: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B9bVBPHyV5A_R7W2CtPztKoqWy7xqNzu/view
Atmosphere of Sound website: https://soundofatmosphere.com/yolande-harris/

Yolande Harris is a composer, sound, and video artist focusing on the transformative potential of sound and listening in times of environmental change.
She creates audio-visual installations, walks and performances, approached through a sonic sensibility. Harris’s projects relating to underwater sound aim to bring humans closer to this often inaccessible environment, encouraging connection, understanding, and empathy with the ocean.