Speak Whale was created for artist Joyce Majiski’s installation work ‘Whale Song.’

For more information visit: joycemajiski.ca

When Joyce Majiski first approached me about working on this project, she spoke of a desire to ‘explore a sonic dialogue between the ocean and humanity.’ She explained that the work was inspired by the story of one particular whale that became caught in fishing gear and perished. As Joyce pointed out, ‘for the most part, in whale-human encounters it rarely goes well for the whales.’ I felt that her work, the scale of it, the overall gesture, demanded a profound response.

In addition to physical encounters in the oceans, fishing gear, ship strikes, etc…, there are numerous examples of sonic encounters in which human-made sounds disturb and interfere with whale communications. These things go on underwater, out of sight, and so we are ignorant of them, or complacent.

We are lulled by romantic notions of pretty whale sounds. We romanticize them as if they are made for us. This contributes to our complacency. The fact that many human-made sounds are perceived as ugly is predictable, and one might utilize the emotion of that. But in fact, many human-made sounds are also beautiful, and that presents us with a less predictable quandary. So how does one come to terms with human complacency as it affects the very existence of whales on this planet?

For this project, I imagine these ‘encounters’ with a certain creative license. They are course, dramatizations. The experience of the listener being lulled by both man-made and whale sounds illustrates the depth of the quandary. The listener will hear everything in the context of what they see. Much of the time they will hear beautiful whale sounds with some kind of impact/consequences with human sounds. At other times, the listener may be confused as to what sounds are whales, and what are electronic or human-made.

The objective is for the listener to experience, and ponder in the moment, the destructive force of human complacency.

There has been anecdotal evidence to suggest that whales do try to communicate with us. We might well imagine that the survival of whales in our oceans depends on them learning to speak ‘human,’ to inspire empathy, to make us care. The last piece in the soundscape imagines an alternate universe in which this power dynamic is reversed and our survival depends on speaking ‘whale' - humpback to be precise. This creates a mirrored perspective with humans on the other side of the power dynamic.

If we had to communicate with another species in order to survive, what would we say?

Daniel Janke, Whitehorse, October 2020