Solastalgia
for violin, tape, and video by Eric Lanz (2020/23)
Karin Hellqvist, Violine, WDR April 21st, 2023 during Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Germany. Mix by Experimentalstudio SWR, Michael Acker and Daniel Miska. Video edit by Eric Lanz.
The term ‘solastalgia’ refers to the sense of loss and emotional distress we feel as environmental changes unfold before our eyes. It was coined in 2005 by Glenn Albrecht, professor of sustainability at Murdoch University in Western Australia. During our collaborative process of creating Solastalgia in the pandemic, we have faced our eco-anxiety through the attempt to lend our voices to the struggling Arctic ice. By sending recordings of ice and violin back and forth and examining them, we have created a multi-layered mapping of the sounds of the polar regions. In Solastalgia, these recordings are distributed in an eight-channel landscape. The original sound of the ice has disappeared, and what we hear is the sound of the violin alone. At the same time, Eric Lanz has studied and shaped the formation of salt crystals as an analogy to melting ice.
Solastalgia was composed as a part of Karin Hellqvist’s PhD in artistic research at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, with support from the Swedish Arts Grants Committee.
Solastalgia is partly created at Studio für Elektroakustische Musik at Akademie der Künste, Berlin with Malte Giesen and Andrei Cucu, and at Experimentalstudio des SWR, Freiburg with Michael Acker and Daniel Miska.
Video created as a part of Arts and Culture Norway's research program 'Skapende praksiser i musikk': Hellqvist, K. (2024). Solastalgia - Toward new collaborative models in an interdisciplinary context. In Hagen, A. N., Solberg, R. T., Nærland, T. U. & Duch, M. F. (Red.) (2024/in press). Når musikken tek form. Om skapande praksisar i musikk. Fagbokforlaget.