Generative Composition: Interactive website. Comissioned by Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennial 2024. Curated by Rahul Gudipudi / Ute Meta Bauer

https://garden.dcab24.art/en/commission/robin-meier-wiratunga-waves-beneath-an-ocean-of-wet-air

Waves beneath an ocean of wet air is a musical composition in the form of seven radio stations that drift in and out of reception. It invites listeners to explore an assembly of sounds collected over the years in deserts, oceans, cities and labs by tuning into its overlapping frequencies. In a sea of radio static this multitude of sounds coalesces around the strange hum of singing sands recorded in the Rub’ al Khali desert.

Dunes take shape through repeated patterns of flow. Like musical rhythms these flows organise particles into undulating waves of barchans, stars, parabolas, domes and other forms. This occurs with wind in the desert, with water at the bottom of the sea, or ice on the shores of arctic beaches. In fact, physicists believe that the best way to study dune formation is underwater: a motorised tray immersed into a large basin moves a mound of sand rapidly through the water, displacing its grains like gusts of wind. Repeatedly moving the tray reveals a landscape of flowing dunes resembling an underwater desert.

Singing sands are a natural phenomenon where sand emits a sound akin to singing or humming when disturbed. This occurs due to a combination of factors: the shape, chemical composition and size of the sand grains, the humidity level, and the temperature of the sand. When disturbed by factors like wind or footsteps, the grains start sliding and rubbing against each other. This friction generates vibrations that propagate through the sand, causing neighboring grains to vibrate in harmony. As more grains synchronize their movements, they collectively produce the distinctive sound known as singing sands. The precise mechanism behind this synchronization, however, is still a subject of scientific investigation.

The chemical composition and shape of each sandgrain also speak of its migration through seabeds, mountains, cities, clouds and deserts. Some of the grains become construction materials for cities or get pumped into seabeds to create new land. This project aspires to weave a composition with sounds from oceans of varying wetness and with deserts in varying states of flow.

Waves beneath an ocean of wet air explores relationships between the desert and the gradients of wetness that surround, envelop and flow within it and its inhabitants. It seeks to reveal how earth and sand are fluids and how this resonates with Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha’s deconstruction of sea vs. land as a dominant, colonial fiction