fantastic sea

The Fantastic Sea (1989) originally made for a museum exhibition

Covering 73% of the earth’s surface, the sea has ever influenced man

It has produced mystery, terror, legend, means of transport, exploitation - and great tranquility

The work explores all these aspects

Natural sounds are used to recreate huge storms and shipwrecks

Experience being ‘below decks’ in a sailing rocking, creaking and thudding into big seas; the mysterious ‘deep’ - where grotesque looking fish have been shaped by enormous pressures

There is a terrifying sea serpent - an impression of a monster that grabbed sailors off their ships

Ulysses hears the Sirens, Atlantis blows upwhilst the ancient Egyptians never sailed too far from their shores - being ever fearful of falling off the edge of the world

The placid calm of children playing on a warm beach

tracks:

Note .. several of these sound pictures - those depicting ‘below decks, storm/wreck, kraken, atlantis, serpents’ - are pretty loud !

There are downloads of all the tracks available upon request

Go to bandcamp to stream and purchase all releases

Enjoy !

Cover artwork: Veronica Holland

The singer on 'Sirens' is Sharin Anderson

Fantastic Sea .. The Images

Myths and Legends: Stories of gods, heroes and demons; of unknown dangers and boundaries

Egypt: The ancient sailors rowing to the beat of a big drum, apprehensive

Ulysses: tied himself to the mast of his ship and had his crew block their earswhilst rowing him past the Sirens - whose irresistible song lured sailors onto their rocking island

Below Decks: yellow, musty, rocking sailing ship, big seas thudding, timbers creaking and groaning, ship’s bell

Storm: Lightning, huge breakers, ship wrecked, stell rending on rocks

Deep Sea Creatures: impressionistic, weird shapes exist in black, floating jaws

The Kraken: A gigantic squid that could squash whole ships with its huge tentacles

Sea Serpent: gigantic reptiles attacking ships in search of victims. Very scary

Atlantis: an organised and militaristic society prior to disappearing - due to volcano eruption ?

Future: peaceful sea, passive, re-creational, children (play) in water

This compilation comprises a selection of the audio tracks originally made for the exhibition

There were a series of sea shanties, ‘tall stories’ - and numerous silent/quiet ambient sounds - also on the early cds .. there were 8 cds playing together to allocate different tracks to different exhibit locations at the same time

The exhibition was conceived, produced and installed by Acumen Design (Melbourne)

produced and installed by Dex Audio (Melbourne) and me (PM)

The exhibition was placed in Mooloolaba, Qld

For further info, contact me here ..