Bamfield-Fanning (Goodbye, Old Man) (2016)
This composition explores Bamfield as the Canadian terminus of the Commonwealth Trans-Pacific Telegraph Cable System and its 4,000 mile-long route to Fanning Island. Using this as an entry point into an interpretive, underwater, technological environment of noise, I encoded the last footnoted telegraph message from Bamfield to Fanning Island: “Goodbye, old man.”
The sounds in this project include the textural quality of the existing cable at Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre; hydrophone recordings from Bamfield Inlet, Folger Island, Wizard Islet, a “Sperm Whale Echolocating” in Barkley Canyon (www.oceannetworks.ca); the coastal environment; and a perforator typewriter used at the Bamfield Cable Station (Bamfield Historical Society: www.bamfieldhistory.com).