Cavendish Arts Science

Louise Beer + John Hooper

Biographies

The directors of Pale Blue Dot Collective are Louise Beer + John Hooper.

Louise Beer
Biography
CV

John Hooper
Biography
CV

Portfolio

+Gathering Light

Commissioned by Derby Cathedral x FORMAT Festival 2023
The audio/ visual installation runs for 36 minutes.

A video of this work is coming soon.

Gathering Light is an installation that reflects my experience of grief. I created this work after losing my wonderful father in 2021. One thing that has helped me traverse the path of grief has been watching the ever changing skies from my home in Margate and the Moon above at night time. Walking along the cliff top and seeing the different birds and insects moving from one flower to another and the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening, helped me to process the enormity of our family’s loss. The constant to and fro of the tides has given an earthly framework to my thinking. 

How does the Earth keep spinning

Seeing the sky out of my window has helped me to connect my reality to that of Earth, and our cosmic history. It helped me to think of other days, other nights. Other skies we have all looked up at, other possibilities. Other moments and other shared memories.

Gathering Light was created by taking photographs of the sky, usually just after sunrise, over 40 consecutive days to reflect the 40 days of contemplation of Lent. During this time I kept a diary of thoughts on how I was processing my own feelings.

Gathering Light has been produced as a new co-commission between Derby Cathedral and FORMAT International Photography Festival. The partnership sought artist project proposals with a focus on photography and lens-based media, taking inspiration from the Christian observance and celebrations that commemorate Lent. Artists were asked to consider themes such as spirituality, sacrifice, release, isolation and rising/ rebirth. This site-specific commission also invited artists to explore how their work sits within the cathedral’s architecture and daily activity. As a Grade 1 listed building and one of Derby’s oldest buildings, it’s a place of historic significance, a lively place of worship, and a place of musical and cultural excellence. 

+Earth as a Planetary Landscape

This work was created during the Amant Siena Residency 2021.

I am interested in how we can think about the environments we know as planetary landscapes, that have risen and fallen over billions of years. Thinking about all the sunsets and sunrises that amounts to, where the geology beneath the stratosphere is changing and life alongside it. Without all of these developments, we would not have the same landscapes and forms of life that we recognise today. If we think about the formation of this landscape against the backdrop of the galaxy and universe, how does it challenge our thinking about the cosmic importance of the lifeforms and environments that we live amongst? How does it reframe our thinking about the insects that move over and in the sediment, and their origins? Does it challenge our human-centric view of the world?

The images below are created using collages of sunsets, sunrises, moonlit landscapes and night sky photographs taken in and around the calanco badlands of Chiusure, Italy during my Amant Siena Residency.

+Floating in Space

This series of images was developed during a residency at The Margate School titled Art, Society, Nature: Photography Residency 2021.

Pale Blue Dot Collective created a series of images depicting how solitary beings are all connected, using images of under the water surface shot in Walpole Bay, and the night sky shot in Margate and Minster. 

Our photographic folio examines the parallels between floating in the ocean and Earth moving through our solar system. The work is contemplative in nature, as we investigate the giant landscape of the sea-life and plant-life that lives in Walpole Bay, removing our human-centric scale, to the glittering dark skies of Margate. We invite the viewer to imagine how we fit into our ecosystem, and how our ecosystem fits into the cosmos. This work explores the fragile nature of our coastal area. For some, the virus has been an incredibly isolating experience. This work shows the connection between all of us, as we stand and gaze over the horizon, or towards our galaxy. 

Alongside this photographic work, we created a soundscape using a hydrophone to record the movement of the waves and sound recorders for life above the waterline. We aim to create work that can engage those of us with visual impairments too.

+ Under the Fading Light

It’s hard to imagine not knowing that Earth isn’t the centre of the universe, or that there aren’t other galaxies. It has taken thousands of years of knowledge building to begin to understand the size of our universe, or the amount of stars, galaxies and planets that we share it with.

Louise Beer
I grew up under an immensely starry night sky. Every time I saw the Milky Way, I was electrified inside with the ideas of the vastness of the universe, and the infinite possibilities that might exist. Under that starlight, I really felt like we were collectively looking outwards, trying to unpick the mysteries of the universe and basking in its magnificence. It was clear that I was standing on an oasis of life, looking into the uninhabitable darkness. I was part of something bigger than my immediate environment.

I moved to cities in the UK as a teenager, and have felt the change in my view as a significant loss. The images in the film contain two images, taken six months apart. The first image is from the Mackenzie Country in New Zealand, and the second image was taken in Elephant and Castle, in London.

When most people talk about seeing the Milky Way - they are referring to the ‘core’ of the Milky Way. it is not only down to air and light pollution that the view from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres are different. The central band of the Milky Way is directly overhead in the Southern Hemisphere, but in the Northern hemisphere it stays lower down towards the horizon, which makes the stars less visible. It will take roughly 125,000 years for our solar system to rotate around the centre of the Milky Way to begin to see a similar sky in the Northern Hemisphere.

I am interested in how we lose our cosmic perspective of the incomprehensible value of nature, when we lose our cosmic view. Based on observations from the Suomi NPP satellite, a third of humankind cannot see the Milky Way. We are creating ever more light pollution that disguises our view each year.

It has been suggested that the biological world is organised largely by light. The way that the Earth rotates creates a regular cycle of day and night, and it’s orbital motion and tilt of its axis causes seasonal changes. Along with local weather systems and the lunar cycle, these light conditions have been consistent for immense periods of geological time. Flora and fauna have relied on these environmental cues for ecological processes and our artificial lighting is having a devastating impact.

It is impacting migration patterns, wake-sleep habits, and habitat formation. The same light attracts and kills huge swathes of insects and disorientates birds. It is not only land based life forms that are being affected; coastal and ship lights are altering marine eco systems.

I wanted to draw a meaningful connection between each person on Earth, and the destruction of our Environment. Living in light polluted cities, it is very easy to forget to look up. It is even easier to forget that we are on a planet, that is a single, fragile, eco system.

+Underwater Stream

This piece is a response to the lack of understanding about the oceans, how unregulated much of the world’s water is, and how it has been taken for granted by humanity. John used a variety of microphones, homemade and professional, to weave an imaginary world. Taking influence from foley recordings and creating sounds that, although not always from the ocean, hint towards the familiar sounds we absorb in our popular consciousness. Marc Weidenbaum from Disquiet said this about the piece:

The Living Stream – Disquiet

“There is so much going on in this track, a British field recording presumably recorded recently. Something about the suggestion of that time sync makes it feel physically proximate, too, even if it’s far away from wherever the listener might be. And even if nothing in it is, technically, “alive,” in the sense that an animal might be alive, it is nonetheless very much alive. This is “Underwater Stream” by Landsounds, the name under which London-based John Hooper captures audio of the everyday and, as happens here, reveals the complexity inherent in it. In these mere two and a half minutes, there is gurgling, certainly, and droning, yes, and a hum that makes the droning seem like it’s trebly by comparison, and other sounds (rope against wood?) that creak like dolphins speak. None is isolated from the others. They are in sync in their own manner. And then there’s that slow heartbeat of a pulse at the start and just before the end. It’s enough to make you think it’s been a bit of ambient techno all along.”

+ A Memory of Darkness

The Delfina Foundation x Gaia Art Foundation
UK Associateship

Louise Beer

I spent my residency at the Delfina Foundation x Gaia Art Foundation expanding my research into the environmental and philosophical impacts of light pollution, and our disappearing access to natural darkness. I spoke to many scientists, artists and writers about these subjects during this period.

As part of the science_technology_society programme, I created an online listening event called A Memory of Darkness. Audience members were invited to sign up to the event using their address, and were posted a print of my image with instructions on how to access the secret link, and an eye mask to wear during the event. Over 100 people joined from all over the world during the event, and many submitted a response to my submission form about their experience of the night sky after the event.

Event Description
’As the sun sets over the enormous volcanic landscape of the remote Hinewai Reserve in Aotearoa New Zealand, the sky begins to reveal an infinite display of stars and planets, appearing like heavy lights against a pitch-black sky.

As a result of light pollution, many of us across the globe have lost our night-time view of the Milky Way, which can have a philosophical impact on the way we see our ecosystems. When we can no longer look outwards and see our galaxy, we lose a sense of the scale of the emptiness, the expanse of the darkness, and by contrast, the sheer magnificence and fragility of our natural world.

The short live broadcast, A Memory of Darkness, comprises a sonic piece created using field recordings of bird song from Louise’s recent experience at Hinewai Reserve, in her native Aotearoa New Zealand. Alone, looking outwards over the Pacific Ocean, as the warm breeze rustled the native trees nearby and the Rurus (Morepork owls) sang out into the night, the artist experienced overwhelming feelings of both wonderment and environmental grief in equal measure.

The artist invites participants from across the world – who will receive instructions by post – to join her to collectively listen to this new sound piece and recall our own memory of the darkness, considering its significance. The field recordings in this piece were made during Louise’s recent residency at The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora.’

+Lord Martin Rees Interview

Lord Rees was generous enough to answer one of our own questions, about the impact that finding other life in the universe would have on us as individuals and as society as a whole. Lord Rees' moving response has sparked a new part of our research project.