Janet Sit

Research

The following discussion is a distillation from the many experiences of the SGSAH EARTH Scholarship program; this work will be integrated into my thesis research-creative practice and written dissertation to be completed for Spring 2026.

Background
Responding to the SGSAH Earth Scholarship “Cluster 2: 3Ms: Making, Method and Multispecies” research-creation framework, Ties and Tides of Kinship is a ongoing project that further develops and expands on the key ideas within my dissertation research. I am interested in comparing my underwater perceptions-experiences from warm water ecosystems to Scotland’s cold water ecosystems. Each diving site has their own unique ecosystems and connections to the waters/lands closest to them – the histories, memories, and/or materials derived from or associated with these sites contribute to nurturing ties between the waters and the peoples who lived or are living on these lands – categorized by archives specialists as “coastal cultures/heritages” or “maritime heritages”. As a music composer, I approach listening, recording, and music-making through acoustemology, a term coined and defined by anthropologist and ethnomusicologist Steven Feld in early 1990s.[1a] Acoustemology refers to a way to coming into knowing through sound, sounding, and listening.[1b] Ties and Tides of Kinship investigates an underwater and near-water acoustemology of Scotland’s cold water ecosystems through embodied experiences. I contextualize this approach within an intersectional framework of a) “milieu-specific situated knowledges and partial perspectives”, from English and ocean humanities scholar Melody Jue vis-à-vis Donna Haraway [2], and b) aspects of decolonial studies that looks the relationships between these waters and the peoples who lived and used these waters, engaging with writings of Indigenous scholars such as Karin A. Ingersoll [3] and Eve Tuck and K. W. Yang [4].  

Near-water observations

Throughout my stay in Scotland, I engaged in mindful listening-walking practices on a regular basis, and especially if near water – along the Govan Wharf pathway along the River Clyde, on a bridge over River Ness in Inverness, or on the shores next to the A85 in Oban. The waters are always moving due to gravity, human constructs, or more-than-human sources (birds, fishes). On rainy days, the droplets strike young leaves and old stones – and the winds move the rain in tide-like gusts – to create distinct, ephemeral sound worlds. Traveling from a semi-arid climate like San Diego, the frequency and kind of water from precipitation and in streams/lakes/rivers was remarkable. Listening to the waves traveling along the seashore provided so much information about the tides, the winds, the outlines and composition of the shore. There was one night in Kirkwall, Orkney, that felt quiet – but even then, one can hear the winds moving over or through surfaces, which allowed me to listen to the vastness of the land.  

Underwater observations

Scottish waters require drysuit diving and I am encased in layers of polyester, rubber, neoprene, nylon with thick neoprene-rubber seals at my neck and hands. The scuba diving gear (including the air tank and weighted belt) was approximately 60-65 lbs. and I waddled slowly from the shore staging area into the water.[5] The weight of the gear lessens as I entered the water. I felt the coldness of the water through the dry suit materials – it was invigorating and embracing.

The underwater environment sounded muffled because my neoprene hood protected my head and ears from the cold. I noticed small boats further away before I went underwater and was surprised their engines’ hum was audibly faintly. The underwater worlds sounded “less” to my ears and I re-oriented to an underwater listening practice to focus also on my skin, muscles, major organs to sense pressure and vibration changes. (Fishes have a lateral line organ running along the length of their bodies for sensing changes in vibrations and movement.)[6]

 

Video 1.  short clip of hand touching a piece of sea lettuce, Gallanach Reef, near Oban. Note the amount of organic matter suspended in the water.

Cold water is more dense than warm water and more nutrient dense.[7] This leads to generally lower visibility range with more organisms in the water. Depending to access from open ocean currents and other conditions, the visibility can vary. For my dive sites, the Orkney site had better visibility than Oban. For both sites, there was incredible multispecies richness – textures, colors, movements of different scales! I noticed that even a slight drop in depth increased sensation of pressure. The Orkney waters pressed my dry suit onto my body and inscribed the exhaust valve mechanism shape into my left arm for a few days. It felt like a gift from the ocean, a souvenir of our encounter. 

There were numerous organisms – ranging from near microscopic fishes, blooms of small transparent jellyfishes the size of a thumbnail, to enormous sea lettuces that dwarfed my body length. There were clams and mussels, starfishes, crabs and fishes – scattered, clustered, spread out over the dive sites. The ocean fauna spread out and organisms can be found everywhere, hiding under the kelp fronds and rocks. Various kelp and seagrasses were growing or bending over in ways that would not be possible on land. Everything was moving slowly, except for an occasional fish. Flora and fauna were physically and metaphorically piled together, side by side, entangled and interconnected.  

The coldness and the weight of my gear required more energy to move my body, and all small movements were amplified. At 1 meter/3+ feet away from the sandy bottom, movements from my fins disturb the sand and create a rising cloud of silt from below. At Gallanach Reef, I made “dust clouds” when my fins would accidentally hit the sandy bottom. The cold water density acting on the particles decreases rate of descent and resettling. The deeper I descended, the “thicker” I perceived the water. The muffling of sounds, the slowing of movements in the environments, the slowing of my own movements – I experienced a different kind of time-space passing – a dream-like time, a temporary suspending of time akin to the suspension of bits of flora and fauna that floated across my mask. These bits were moving very slowly with the current and the dive groups’ movements – like snowflakes suspended in water. In listening to my field recordings, my continuous breathing sounds different in these waters. Perhaps, it took more effort to exhale, and the air bubbles dissipated differently. Perhaps my recording device itself functioned differently in these temperatures. 

Video 3. starfishes and a variety of sea grasses on the sandy bottom, Gallanach Reef, near Oban.

The Orkney dive was south of Glimps Holm and Northtown, in the general area of Scapa Flow, which is a popular diving area for exploring shipwrecks. The Churchill Barriers were constructed by mostly Italian prisoners of war to prevent enemy boats and submarines coming from the North Sea.[8] It is also a situation where the wreck site is accessible close to the surface. My dive guide said we would go to a depth of 10 meters/32 feet. This was my first dive around a sunken ship and a different encounter of ocean time. The ship’s many surfaces was covered in layers of organisms, one building atop or interconnected with another. I passed the large beams and compartments. I peered down into the wreck and see fishes gliding over starfishes below. The wreck was a physical representation of time, duration, memories, and multispecies connections for both the human and more-than-human bodies that touched its surfaces. It contains and continues to create histories as organisms arrive, multiply, are birthed, die, decay, re-used. There is a sense of acknowledgment and confrontation of the human impacts in these waters when the ship was sinking and disrupting the then-environment and organisms. Through time and saltwater, the environment responded to the human-ness of this wreck through a dynamic “claiming/reclaiming” process. I could not see any of the original surfaces of the wreck but the outline of the ship’s parts. Diving around the wreck allowed me to perceive the histories and memories of the waters with my body – it evoked a deep curiosity about the ship, this ecosystem, how Scapa Flow played an essential role in wartime naval strategies, and who were the peoples/communities that lived near the waters.   

Video 4. exploring surfaces of a scuttled ship near Churchill Barriers, Scapa Flow, Orkney. Note the many layers of organic materials and organisms on the ships’ surfaces.

Reading and watching materials about others’ experiences could not have prepared me for the in-body/embodied coming into knowing of these waters. If I were to dive at these locations over the seasons, would I be able to discern any variations? Would I be able to access more memories of these waters through an embodied coming into knowing? How do I convey the diverse scales of times and durations at work here through my creative work? How can I convey or communicate these experiences to my terrestrial listeners? 

Reflecting on my overall experiences, I developed a new awareness on the many layers of human and more-than-human stories, histories, memories submerged in Scotland’s waters that extend deep into the past. I visited the Neolithic site of Skara Brae and wondered what the shorelines and waters were like some 4000 years ago.[9] Could the inhabitants hear sounds underwater as they went to harvest whale carcasses for various uses? What kinds of memories and knowledges might these waters reveal to someone who is attuned to their histories? Who and what relationships to these waters are remembered, erased, or yet to be found? How has colonial narratives shaped or influenced our understandings of these waters? How can I nurture listeners’ curiosities to explore beyond dominant ways of thinking and approaches on listening and attuning practices, underwater environments, multispecies systems, and human impacts amidst ongoing climate change? 

Creative Applications 
Towards the end of my EARTH Scholarship stay in Scotland, I presented a demo version of a sound installation at the SHARE Symposium at University of St. Andrews. I aimed to create a work that encourages embodied engagement and shared experiences. 

All these near and underwater experiences – changes in acoustic properties, bodily pressure, slower movements, multispecies encounters and entanglements, and a sense of time-space suspensions – directly informed my sound installation practice. Continuous attuning to underwater environment means there is no “sweet spot” from which to experience a reef or a shipwreck. I de-center from these terrestrial hierarchies through eliminating a preset “sweet spot” and striving for spatialized audio that multi-layers, multi-channels, and multi-positional. Layered within the field recordings are set frequencies that interact in the space to create moving acoustic “hot spots”. The sounds can be perceived through ears and bodies (in non-harmful ways) – which further de-centers the site of the aural listening towards a multi-sensory attunement. Each speaker plays a track of layered field recordings modified partly by musical software. These interact with each other, organic and inorganic bodies, and the performance space to create a continuously transforming acoustic experience. Each listener is co-creator and participant in this work, as they encounter various sonic textures, pressures, durations, and the presences of each other.   

A stereo version of the work will be available on my website, along with individual tracks for listeners with multi-channel setups. This approach to creating sonic environments can be without use of potentially expensive recording gear or computational resources. There are free online audio resources if listeners want to learn more about exploring their own acoustic environments. This de-centering and de-privileging of sound and listening practices addresses my ongoing research-creative questions: How can sound art be made more inclusive for audiences with diverse hearing capacities? How can access be extended to communities who may not be able to travel to traditional performance spaces? 

Endnotes 
[1a], [1b] Steven Feld, “Acoustemology”, in Keywords in Sound, David Novak and Matt Sakakeeny eds., (Durham: University Press, 2015), p.12. link  
[2] Melody Jue, Wild Blue Media, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020), pp. 9-12.  
[3] Karin Amimoto Ingersoll,, Waves of Knowing: A Seascape Epistemology (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016). 
[4] Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, “Decolonization is not a metaphor,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1, no. 1, pp. 1-14. link 
[5] My drysuit diving session were completed by Puffin Dive Center in Oban and Kraken Diving in Orkney. The drysuit, boots, hood, gloves, fins, buoyancy control device, air tank, and weighted belt was probably around 60+ lbs., but it felt like much more when I exited the water after diving. 
[6] George R. Zug, “lateral line system,” Encyclopedia Brittanica, May 3, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/science/lateral-line-system. 
[7] Steve Gaines and Satie Airame, “Upwelling”, Ocean Explorer online, December 18, 2017, https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/02quest/background/upwelling/upwelling.html.  
[8] “Churchill Barriers”, Orkney.com online, https://www.orkney.com/listings/churchill-barriers.  
[9] “Skara Brae Overview”, Historic Environment Scotland online, https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/skara-brae/overview/