My friend and colleague Paul D. Miller a.k.a DJ Spooky is going to Antarctica for the holidays. Well, he’ll be there for the holidays, but the trip is not exactly holiday-related. He’s going there to make a film. “I’m going offline for a while ’cause I’m shooting a film in Antarctica for the next couple of weeks,” he wrote via email. “If you have a moment, check out the trailer (below). Every sound in the film will be made from the sound of ice (e.g., environmental, geological, magnetic, atmospheric, etc.). I’m bringing a mini-studio with me to edit, shoot, and score the film.” Paul’s film, Terra Nova: The Antarctica Suite, will headline Sundance’s Digital Film section in January.
The Antarctic Suite will be an acoustic portrait of a rapidly transforming continent made of ice and condensation. In many ways, because there is little rain, the interior of the continent is technically one of the largest deserts in the world. What The Antarctic Suite proposes to do is explore the realm of fiction and ideas that underlie almost all perceptions of Antarctica – from the interior desert plains, to the Transantarctic Mountains that divide the continent, the Suite will take samples of the different conditions, and transform them into multi-media portraits with music composed from the different geographies that make up the land mass.
Sounds like a hell of a way to spend the holidays, huh? Power to Paul and the project.