Re:Peat – Burn Radio

Listen to the audio piece at this link: https://festival.pixelache.ac/contributors/radio/anne-yoncha

Collaborative sound piece with composer Daniel Townsend for Helsinki’s Pixelache Radio Festival on the theme of Burn, at Oodi National Library in Finland, June 2021. The piece was reprised in Pixelache Echoes, a program of Rasos (Roots) Radio, a project of SODAS 2123 cultural organization of Lithuania; and then at Open Radio, based in Delhi India.

Re:Peat is a recent EDUFI Fulbright Finland Fellowship research project focusing on peatland extraction and restoration in Finland. This audio project combines field recordings from Latvasuo & Pikkusaarisuo extraction sites with hyperspectral imaging of soil core samples. Hyperspectral images are read as graphic music notation. Our hyperspectral images were made with a Specim FX-17 camera using wavelengths of 900 – 1700 nanometers. These images allow us to see details in soil structure invisible to the naked eye. We hear two sonified core samples, the unrestored sample panned left and restored panned right, moving low to high. Ash, an industrial byproduct from burning peat for power and heat at Toppila station in Oulu, has been used to treat the soil, de-acidifying it and perhaps leading to a viable novel ecosystem for reindeer forage. Pictured above is a stereo microscope image I made in 2019 of Sphagnum moss from our extraction site. Sphagnum is the species which forms peatlands.