north of a solid ground
Double-sided vinyl or digital file. A SIDE 17:37, B SIDE 15:53; Clear filament 3D reproduction of the reference concrete construction block
North of a Solid Ground transforms the physicality of a concrete block into a sound expression as a method of engaging with the material’s structural logic and connections to systems of persistence and change. Through databending, a process of feeding the raw data of a 3D expression of a reference block generated using photogrammetry to an audio program, the work offers new ways of perceiving concrete’s presence in the built environment.
The work originated in 2020, a year marked by severe bushfires in Southeastern Australia, followed by the global upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic. Discovered at the edge of a Canberra parking lot, the concrete block initially seemed incidental, peripheral to its chaotic surroundings. As drought conditions eased with regular rainfall and the pandemic took hold globally, the block began came to symbolise persistence as it sat unaffected by the environmental and societal upheavals around it.
The methodology draws inspiration from the Sounds of the Sun project by NASA and the European Space Agency, where solar data was translated into sound. In North of a Solid Ground, photogrammetry is used to construct a 3D model of the reference block, and databending techniques render this geometric information into audio. The resulting sound expression is a direct expression of the block’s material properties, maintaining a raw connection to its structural essence while abstracting its presence into an auditory form.
The work engages with the concept of the ‘hyper-object’, a term coined by Timothy Morton to describe entities that exist on scales beyond immediate human perception, such as climate systems or geological formations. Rendering the concrete block as a hyper-object exposes its embeddedness within vast, interconnected systems of geology, urbanisation, and time. The work’s auditory abstraction transcends the block’s immediate physicality, presenting it not only as a functional object but as a manifestation of the global material systems that sustain modernity.
North of a Solid Ground raises questions about the scale and impact of concrete in the world: what would it mean for all the concrete on Earth to resonate at once? This speculative gesture underscores the enormity of concrete’s presence, highlighting its role as both a symbol of human ingenuity and a contributor to environmental precarity. Through its transformation into sound, the block becomes a site for interrogating the intersections of endurance, utility, and the ecological consequences of human systems.
