Listening to the Mississippi
Listening to the Mississippi is an iterative project that has unfolded since 2013 and currently manifests as a sound composition and traveling listening station. Using underwater recordings gathered in 2015 by artists Monica Haller and Sebastian Müllauer that span the river from the headwaters to the Gulf, listeners are invited to orient themselves to the river through their sense of sound, rather than by sight alone. The project seeks to understand the Mississippi as a dynamic condition that includes the past and the present and stretches across a great distance. Through the use of mobile listening packs that include headphones, a felted mat, and listening notes, the project cultivates distinct moments of engagement through compilations of sound and the activation of other senses: sight, smell, and even touch.
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Listening to the Mississippi, 2019
There is no one correct way to listen to the river; there are multiple listenings, and multiple rivers.
Sound, Experiment, Field Work, Sensing, Aesthetics, Water
- contributionMonica Moses Haller
Notes for Listening
Whatever moment the river might invite us to, it is a thick moment, a moment in motion. Audio piece and notes to the listener.
Field Study, Experiment, Water, Aesthetics, Sound
Collaborators and Contributors
Composition:
Judd Greenstein
Michi Wiancko
Mississippi Sound Recordings:
Monica Haller
Sebastian Müllauer
Sound Processing:
Harriet Matzdorf
Monica Moses Haller
Prerna
Listening Mat:
Harriet Matzdorf
Prerna
Erika Terwilliger
Mobile Box for Listening Actions:
Prerna
Erika Terwilliger
Notes for Listening Design:
Monica Moses Haller
Matthew Rezac
Notes for Listening Text:
Tia-Simone Gardner, excerpted from “There’s something in the Water,” in Open Rivers: Rethinking Water, Place & Community, 2019.
Monica Haller, intro text
Matt Rahaim, intro text
Monique Verdin, excerpted from “Ebb and Flow: Migrations of the Houma, Erosions of the Coast,” in Unfathomable City, by Rebecca Snedecker and Rebecca Solnit (University of California Press, 2013)
Video Footage:
Monica Haller
Sadie Luetmer
ORB
Sebastian Müllauer
Willie Schumann
Video Editing:
Xiaolu Wang
