When I was younger, I recall being under the impression that rot was caused by rain and humidity. Rain makes clean surfaces gleam, and it makes the dirty seem even more so. A wet stain looks viscous and living. The soft and soggy wet undergrowth of the forest merges into a pulp. It seems to decompose. Last year I saw a black stain on a log, and I was told it was the imprint of a dead rot. It looked like a bruise. The idea of rot as a living network that could spread and die, affecting the growth of forests, inspired in me a curiosity that would lead me to the dead trees. Rot Dirge was to be the conclusion of a project that had yielded more introspection than material results. A dirge is a piece of music made in lamentation of the dead (Merriam-Webster). With the violin strings I wanted to pay tribute to the dead trees. Instead I heard the only dirge fitting of a forest, the dirge of the roaring rain. I had to leave.
On my way back I got lost. I walked around in the rain, absorbed with my confusion regarding what I had just done. Was it a learning experience or a complete failure? I could not blame the rain alone. On mounting the strings to the tree, I had realized that they would barely produce any noise. The trunk of the tree was too massive to resonate the subtle vibrations of strings. The sound of the strings was no louder than if they had been played while suspended in the air. A contact microphone would have picked up the sound well enough. But the result would surely have been like the singing. Variations of muffled noise.
It was already beginning to rain when I left my house in the morning. A soft drizzle. I brought with me three violin strings, tuning pegs, nails, a hammer, a hand drill, a violin bow, a microphone stand, an audio recorder, a contact microphone, a tripod and a video camera. The dead trees glistened with rain. I had never seen them like that before. Only on dry days had I visited them. They appeared dark and slimy, not as graceful as I remembered them. As I was setting up my equipment the rain seemed to have passed. Should it return, the leaves would provide ample shelter. The nails slipped into the wood. The holes I drilled for the tuning pegs were surprisingly sticky and held the strings taut.
Now the images of violin strings on wet wood tell me about an effort to attribute meaning to something that was already immensely meaningful to me. The thin strings were dwarfed by the mass of the tree. I had attempted to make an imprint on something far larger than myself, and perhaps this was all it would ever lead to. Maybe it did not need to be anything more. The dead trees inspired in me a feeling of such awe that I was compelled to portray them in a way that showed my impression. To my mind there was something in those trees that I had to unravel. I thought that by studying them, listening to them and interacting with them I would learn something that I they did not already tell me. As if by doing the right action I would solve their mystery. But the sublime is not hidden in those trees. Like Constable’s Elm they stand silent and unmoving. They will still stand there long after I have forgotten about them.
Iver Uhre Dahl
2020
A man in a raincoat walked by with a dog. He glanced nervously in my direction as I was drilling a hole in the trunk. As I was working the rain returned, louder than before. I had trouble with balancing the bridge I had brought for the strings on the trunk. Every time I tightened the strings the bridge would snap out of position. Among the leaves on the ground I found a small branch with a curve that fitted nicely on the trunk. Using that as a substitute bridge, the instrument was complete. All the while the rain grew louder. I plucked one of the strings, it made a thin peep and the bridge wiggled. For a while I tried bowing and plucking
the strings to find out if I could make noises other than squeaking. Silent tones came from the tree. The rain had turned to a downpour. It became a roaring static overpowering all other sounds. Hurriedly I packed down my equipment, intending to wait the rain out under a tree. But it only grew wetter and louder.
