The Memory of Water
What if, at the end of your life, your soul dropped into a pool of water—a single drop returning to an ocean, surrounded by other droplets on their separate journeys? As you move forward, you must release the attachments you've developed in this lifetime, shedding the layers that defined your identity and individuality. Your memories, roles, scars, and all details that once defined you must be let go.
The Memory of Water is an ongoing collaborative project that explores the relationship between the natural erosion of human memory and broader ecological concerns through the journey of a life that begins in water and returns to water. This project integrates live composition, improvisation, custom instrument design, poetry, and electronics. Within Volume I, I delve into questions of what is remembered and forgotten, and the impact of change when dealing with loss and grief, through a collection of texts written by Martine Kinsella Thomas, a violist and poet. The Memory of Water explores life cycles that start from the ocean and return to the ocean, weaving environmental concerns and personal narratives.
Volume I
Throughout the arc of Vol. I, The sky moves beneath our feet, we delve into questions of what is remembered and forgotten, relationships with memory and time, and the impact of change when dealing with loss an grief in an extended live composition and improvisation format. This piece centers around my engagement with a collection of texts written by Martine and the soundscapes we create through her poetry, our improvisation, live composition, and electronic processing. It contains life cycles that start from the ocean and return to the ocean, including ecological concerns and personal narratives. There is a collection of acoustic material sourced from Martine's viola and our respective voices, as well as recordings of my custom instruments. Added to this texture are field recordings of our explorations around Wannsee and Schlactensee in Berlin that are intermixed with spoken word and other written texts.
Volume II
Where darkness swallows the sky is the first piece within The Memory of Water, Vol. II, during which I am working alongside Martine Thomas (viola) and Thea Mesirow (cello, voice) in a new environment within this world surrounded by murmurs of souls, exploring the vulnerability required to surrendering one's memory to the distortions that occur with time. The text within this piece has been sourced from Martine Thomas' original works [WHISPER. LEAVE NO IMPRINT. THE REFLECTING] and [UNTITLED].
(Premiered by Martine Kinsella Thomas, viola, Thea Mesirow, cello, and Camila Agosto, electronics on March 16, 2024 at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music)
between Here and Elsewhere, from The Memory of Water Vol. II (pictured below)
The Memory of Water (Open Studio, 2018)
From a series of in-depth, exploratory sessions during our time together at the Banff Centre in 2018, Martine and I were able to discover a collection of sounds related to the narrative within her text which formed the basis of our sonic environment. These explorations were partially premiered during the Ensemble Evolution ARCade at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, July 2019 (pictured below). This open workshop allowed us to begin creating this world, through a collection of sound artifacts from our initial exploratory sessions.
