Songs from Underground (2026)

Proposal for Art in Odd Places: Utopias

Songs from Underground is a speculative, seismographic survey of what lies below our feet. Édi Longwave, an Earth Scientist from the Institute of Uncertainty, will capture geological sounds and seismic traces using a range of improbable and useless survey instruments, including a home-made ear trumpet. Édi will transform these traces, which are inaudible to the human ear, into songs of time and hope. Her ear trumpet also functions as an (ineffective) megaphone.  Songs from Underground reminds city dwellers of their relationship with the Earth and offers a poetic perspective on the limits of human agency in the face of natural processes.

This project explores how we live with uncertainty. While seismic activity has affected the land on which New York City is built for millions of years, and will do so way beyond human timescales, we tend only to think about earthquakes and their risks during minor earth tremors, when they jeopardise property and livelihoods. Although infrequent, Manhattan experiences them disproportionately for its location.  We delegate to seismologists the roles of monitoring and forecasting, assuming that science offers precision and certainty. Songs From Underground proposes that cultivating imaginative and poetic responses to danger may help us become more comfortable with everyday uncertainties.