Song for the Sabal Pipeline @ FIU FROST ART MUSEUM

Song for the Sabal Pipeline, is an interactive sound sculpture that is played like a string instrument. This piece was presented in the exhibition Aesthetics and Values at FIU Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum.

Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC (“Sabal Trail”), a joint venture of Spectra Energy Partners, NextEra Energy, Inc. and Duke Energy, is an approximately 515-mile interstate natural gas pipeline to provide transportation services for power generation needs to Florida Power and Light ("FPL") and Duke Energy of Florida ("DEF") by the end of June 2017.

Bobby C. Billie, one of the Clan Leaders and Spiritual Leader, Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples, asked professional geologist and hydrologist Peter Schreuder, P.G. to conduct investigations at the proposed Sabal Trail crossing under the Suwannee River from Hamilton County and under U.S. 90 in close proximity to the Falmouth Cave System in Suwannee County.

This Schreuder report concludes about the Floridan Aquifer System (FAS):

“The research presented herein indicates that there is the potential for a major impact to occur to the karst system during the execution of the proposed HDD Proposed Project under the Suwannee River at the Suwannee River State Park site. A sudden release of the mud flow at 1,500 psi may cause a collapse in the FAS. If that happens there will be a potentially massive occurrence of numerous sinkholes resulting in a catastrophic collapse of overburden materials into the underlying caves and springs along the river. Unless the applicant is required to conduct a thorough and detailed geophysical investigation along the proposed borehole alignment, and all other environmental and cultural concerns associated with the entire length of the proposed pipeline are adequately addressed, this Proposed Project should not be allowed to proceed as designed.”

When I composed the performance I thought about what it might sound like under the ground while they were digging. I wanted the discord I was feeling politically, to be expressed in the sound. I do fear losing precious resources and land to this outdated form of energy. I think about sound as a kind of energy and wanted the sound the sculpture could achieve resonate with that metaphor. It is scorching, screeching, drilling sounds layered with musical flats and sharps that can be felt and made solid in the mind...