Listening to the Permeable Waterscapes of Sydney’s Urban Swamps: Hydro-Acoustic Relations, Hybrid Volumes

Keywords: Undergrounds; Swamps; Sydney; Soundscapes
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 4

Abstract

Sydney is often associated with golden beaches and the sparkling harbour. However, Sydney is fundamentally a swampy city – a wide network of swamps and wetlands, connected by creeks and rivers, sandy hills and rocky ridges. These swamps have been integral parts of the environment for Indigenous people who have lived in the region for thousands of years. These waterscapes were dramatically altered with the illegal arrival of the British in 1788. The kamay (Botany) Swamps in the south-east are the surface presence of a subterranean aquifer - the Botany Sands - which lies under most of Sydney. In this paper, I begin by discussing the significance of swamps expansive characteristics – they aren’t entirely of the surface, nor sub-surface; they act as a hybrid, fluid volume. As dramatically transformed environments, these permeable spaces are remnant fauna habitats, facilitate numerous plants, and enable water and earth to coalesce in a transitional space connected to volumetric networks. This paper argues that the historical transformations affected visual, tactile, and importantly acoustic aspects of these systems. Sound here exist in a permeable, fluid state; subsurface sounds travel volumetrically – flowing as waves in expansive, yet often materially contained three-dimensional space. The intersections of sound and swamps as volume are the point of enquiry, with sound acting as a connection between water and society through time. Using self-guided soundwalks and critical reflections on recordings from contemporary waterscapes around Sydney, the paper discusses how the relationship between soundscapes and waterscapes should be thought together.