NIKA SON

Drawing from her compositions for Helena Wittmann's film DRIFT (2017), Nika Son creates a sonic journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Following a weekend at the North Sea, one of Wittmann’s two protagonists embarks on a journey across the Atlantic from the Caribbean to the Azores, during which unpredictable waves and deep sleep foster a transformative experience.

Capturing the essence of this cinematic encounter through sound, Nika Son’s compositions allow the water itself to become a storyteller, immersing listeners in the resonating body of the boat and plunging them into the profound depth of the ever-shifting ocean.

Whether illuminated by daylight or veiled by night, the nature of this material world emerges through an exploration of the ocean as a distinct and tangible space, inviting contemplation of its transformative power. The line between reality and imagination blurs, and the waves echo the emotions of the voyage.

—

I was only at sea for fifteen days, but that was enough for me to be transformed.

Now I’m back here and have disguised myself as a native. On my way to you, through the city, I put up the hood of my winter coat, a little bashful, a little wild. Now and then I throw a glance at my cell phone, but my eyes keep going up to the sky, where the clouds float aimlessly.

I am drifting. I am aground. I am on fire.
I am sinking.
The train comes, I get in.

We lie in bed, talking. On this night, you remember hunting for octopus on a foreign coast as a child. A story told by one sentence. A picture. I stay.

The sun is shining, your brothers are in the water, too. High-rises tower within sight of the beach and the harbor. You live in one of them, way up near the top. The 1970s are drawing to a close. I watch you. You are concentrated and nervous in the shallow water. The octopus hasn’t appeared yet and, despite everything, it will be a chance encounter.

“The ‘we’ is a species, it’s like when you
roll the dice or
when you cast your line,
when a fisherman casts his line;
perhaps there is a ‘we’ on the other side?
It’s a promise, it’s a request, it’s a hope. It can also be fear.”
— D’ailleurs Derrida (Fathy, 2000)

So, the hope-filled relationship of the fisherman to the fish. You with your trident, on the hunt. Fear of catching nothing, fear of catch- ing something, because you sense that a successful hunt means that a desire would also end. And you know, of course, that there are desires that only have meaning if they remain desires.

And there it is, an octopus!
An animal with
eight tentacles and
an enormous head that swims as if
it were breathing deeply,
in and out.

When a child is born, it gets an octopus twin somewhere in the ocean.

MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY
This is CHRONOS PCUV (Papa Charlie Uniform Viktor) MAYDAY
CHRONOS PCUV
The Echo Sounder lost bottom.
STORMY – RAINY – CHANGE – FAIR – VERY DRY

Once I sailed past your foreign coast and fell asleep to a weird sound, a hidden track that I hadn’t heard before. An endless gurgle and gentle chiming, as if hundreds of goats were grazing in the distance. It gently mixed in with the din on the ship and the waves, I couldn’t tell anything apart anymore. But calming they were, the undulating swells on this night.

Am I still writing to you?
I am just a promise, I am a request, I am a hope.
What happened?
The horizon is in the waves.
Where?
Still 250 NM away from the harbor.
Who’s so far away?
A bird. It has gotten lost and is already losing strength.
How long yet?
She’ll have to fly for two more days and will stay near the boat.
Which boat?
Our boat, it’s been sailing for two weeks now.
Where are you coming from?
From the Caribbean islands.
Why did you leave?
All of us want something different.

— Theresa George 

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