HydroFiles by Lia Mazzari

hydroFiles is a network of 8 live audio streams continuously broadcasting from various sites above and below sea level of the waterways of Amsterdam. In ‘live audio streaming’, microphones are embedded in places semi-permanently; they transmit sound continuously from one location to many possible listeners over the internet. Through these ‘streamers’, it is possible to tune-in to remote and hard to reach locations, it transforms the act of ‘listening to’ into ‘listening with’ environments, furthering an ethical reorientation to more-than-human life on a shared planet, and expanding geographic borders. hydroFiles is supported by by Waterschap Amstel, Gooi en Vecht and by Waternet hydroFiles has been produced as part of the artist research project Polyphonic Landscapes project led by The ArtEZ Professorship Theory in Arts, in collaboration with Zone2Source, Amsterdam.

field Diary 2023

amsterdam_hydrophile_1

location: Hortusbrug; inside the bridge

installed with Tom De Jong, Waternet

listening since May 2023: http://locus.creacast.com:9001/amsterdam_hydrophile_1.mp3

The box is hidden inside a bascule bridge in the old centre of Amsterdam. The tram runs over it intermittently and so do the cyclists and pedestrians. There are pidgeons living inside the bridge, they 'gourrrd' everytime the tram runs over the bridge. There is a continous hum of a generator that runs the bridge at all times; I tried to install the box in different places around the huge underlive of the bridge but there is no running away from this generator; the generator is part of the organism. Mornings are a good time to listen as people go to work and so do the guys from the waternet when maintining these structures. We can hear that we are in a tunnel-like structure, we can hear distance, and we can hear the world above us.

amsterdam_hydrophile_2

location: Berlagebrug,

hydrophone listening since May 2023: http://locus.creacast.com:9001/amsterdam_hydrophile_2.mp3

Location 1: from May to July hydrophile_2 lived in the middle of the amstel canal, dangling from the centre of the bridge.

Location 2: since July, it lives on the left hand side of the amstel canal (city inwards) on a temporary cycling bridge. Installed with structural engineer Tristan XY who is overlooking the entire renovation of Berlagebrug.

Since July we hear the workings of heavy bridge contruction from below, between 7am and 3pm. During the rest of the day we hear a multiplicity of diesel motors from small to medium boats swimming in the canal. Before the construction it was very different. We heard the rowing clubs at 6am getting there boats out of the garages and paddle through silent waters. During rush hour thousands of cyclists, cars using Berlagebrug, partyboats during the sunny weather and even a choir congregating and singing on the Ufer of the canal.

amsterdam_hydrophile_3 :

location: Gemaal Stadtwijck, behind the pumping station

installed with Aiko van der Laan, Waternet

listening in stereo since July 2023: http://locus.creacast.com:9001/amsterdam_hydrophile_3.mp3

This Hydrophile lives closest to the Amstel park and next to a cemetery in the south of the city. motorway behind, noise pollution, lawn mowers, pump start pumping when it rains too much, ....

amsterdam_hydrophile_4 :

location: Hortusbrug, inside the water

installed with Tom de Jong, Waternet

listening since July 2023:

http://locus.creacast.com:9001/amsterdam_hydrophile_4.mp3

Hydrophile_1's sister, sits in the water dangling of Hortus brug since July. They both live next to each other inside the bridge, but Hydrophile_4's arms reach all teh way through the glass panelled doors of Hortusbrug and drop into the water. It's one of my closest hydrophiliac friends, always busy with small diesel motors that intermittently stop and start so they fit through the bridge. The heavy vibrations of the tram proliferate in the water even stronger. When it rains I can hear the drops hit the water surface.

amsterdam_hydrophile_5 :

location: Waste Water Treatment Plant, on top of the stairs leading to a sewage tank

installed with Claudia, Waternet

listening since July 2023:

http://locus.creacast.com:9001/amsterdam_hydrophile_5.mp3

Probably the noisiest of all the Hydrophiles, in the industrial outskirts North East of Amsterdam.

amsterdam_hydrophile_7 :

location: Marineterrein Beheer, inside the lido waters

installed by Bram and Davy

listening under water since September 2023

http://locus.creacast.com:9001/amsterdam_hydrophile_7.mp3

The youngest of the Hydrophiles, Hydrophile_7 is listening to outdoors swimmers in the city center of A'dam. It's body lives inside an electrical box on land, their single arm reaches into the pool. At night we can hear people congregating, listeing to music, hanging out. Their arm keeps hitting the heavy walls as it gets moved by the large waves coming on from the giant and busy Noordzeekanaal.

amsterdam_waterleidingduinen_hydrophile 8 :

location: Waterleiding Duinen, outside of Amsterdam in the sanddunes where drinking water comes from

installed with Dennis van der Horst, Gerard Scholten, waternet

with the support of Ed Cousin, Ivo the crane driver, Bas

listening since May 2023:

Currently out of Order - To be updated on the week of 3rd October

We are not sure what happened to the oldest member of the Hydrophiles, we saw them last in July when we moved them to a more secure location. Unfortunately they disspeared from the network in the beginning of August and we were not able to find out why they are not listeing anymore.

This member of the Hydrophile family is solar powered and live amongst animals, not many humans meet them. However, they still suffer massively from the acoustic waste produced by Schipoll Airport as almost every plane landing there flies overhead of this Hydrophile 8

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Lia Mazzari - HydroFiles - 2023