This project is a visual and audible exploration of the sewage system beneath a town in Norway. The project takes the audience on a journey starting at the source of a large sewage pipe, and follows the sewage through the underground in pipes, tunnels and pumping stations before arriving at a large plant where it is filtered, cleaned and treated before being released into a fjord as pure and clean water.
The soruce material of the project is video and audio recorded with simple and partly home-made equipment, including a primitive open source hydrophone which is used to record the (surpirsingly jolly) sound of the sewage itself. The video material is then processed with a modular analogue video synthesizer in Eurorack format. The synthesiser is a mix of commercial video modules (LZX), open source modules (Synkie) and modern implementations of classic designs (Sandin Image Processor).
The manipulation of the video is done in a hands-on performance way, and is intended to be presented as such, although it could also work in a gallery context.
The project aims primarily to show the unique and surprising aesthetic qualities of the sewage infrastructure, and to draw some attention to a much needed, but often somewhat forgotten part of our citites. The project makes no claim of being particularly scientific.
Direct video link: http://gardgitlestad.com/misc/P16/P16_vrangside_kladd1.mp4
Gard Gitlestad
http://www.gardgitlestad.com
Freelance
I work with photography, video and light in a variety of different contexts – my education is in architectural lighting design, but I also have a background in documentary, industrial and architectural photography, and I am currently experimenting with ways to combine these media. Whenever I am not doing so in the field or in the studio, I work as a lighting designer and technician, with stage lighting for music and dance, light art in public areas and architecture. In these contexts, I work with custom electronics design and embedded systems, leveraging open source technologies to create projects with maximum impact even in very budget constrained situations.
