RƎTRO/GRADƎ performance (2023), 15 mins. Filmed at Super Dakota (Brussels) on November 9th 2023. This performance is the natural extension of the RƎTRO/GRADƎ 360° sound installation within which it is danced. Composition/sound design: The Radicant. Choreography: Georgia Tegou. Dancer: Synne Maria Lundesgaard. Video Credits: Direction, edit, grade: Sarah Derat. DOP: Marthe Peters.

Sarah Derat is a French artist (so, say ‘De-rah’) based in London (for long enough that her English accent is hard to place). ‘RƎTRO/GRADƎ’, her recent show at Super Dakota in Brussels, made an immediate impact despite being a complex construction using geological phenomena as analogies for human bodily experience. The titular work was essentially a sound piece realised through a 360° installation of six speakers, but reached its full immersive identity when activated by dance in the gallery space, in front of other works. You can sample an extract from the 15 minute performance above: choreography, costume, natural sounds, music, writing, film and sculpture come together. At the core of this multimedia experience was the core of the Earth itself: Derat seizes on the metaphorical potential of how the inner core rotates separately from the outer surface and changes direction periodically. One place to start, then, is the relevant science.

*RƎTRO/GRADƎ 360°* sound installation, six speakers in front of *IDLE NERVE* (2023), set up for *RƎTRO/GRADƎ performance* (2023) at Super Dakota (Brussels) , November 9th 2023.

Geologist Rebecca Fischer, Assistant Professor at Harvard, is studying the Earth’s planetary accretion, core formation and interior structure / composition. She explains that ‘the Earth has a solid inner core and liquid outer core, which together comprise roughly 1/3 of our planet’s mass. The core is inaccessible, nearly 3,000 km beneath our feet, and there is much we still do not know about it – for example, it is mostly a metallic iron-nickel alloy, but it also contains about 10% of other elements that remain unidentified. The inner core is particularly enigmatic. Earthquake waves traveling between the north and south poles pass through the inner core at a different speed than those traveling along the plane of the equator, with these speeds varying with depth and hemisphere in the inner core (Deuss, 2014). Despite being so remote and poorly understood, the core is essential for life on Earth: the flow of this conductive liquid in the outer core is what gives rise to our planet’s magnetic field, which shields us from harmful radiation from space and makes the Earth’s surface habitable.

The Earth rotates around its axis every day and completes an orbit around the Sun in one year. But several decades ago, scientists predicted that the solid inner core might be rotating at a slightly different rate than the overlying layers of the Earth, the solid rocky mantle and crust, due to the liquid outer core in between them (Gubbins, 1981; Glatzmaier & Roberts, 1996). Since then, seismologists have been searching for evidence of this phenomenon and trying to understand exactly how fast the inner core is rotating, using what we know about the structure of the inner core and looking at how fast earthquakes travel through the inner core in different directions. Our current understanding is that the inner core may be rotating up to 0.3° per year faster than the rest of the Earth, though some studies have found no detectable difference in the inner core’s rotation rate (Deguen, 2012). The inner core’s rotation is influenced by gravity, the magnetic field, flow in the outer core, and the core’s temperature structure (Aurnou & Olson, 2000). This complexity makes it difficult to run accurate computer simulations of this process, while the small difference in rotation and the great depth of the inner core make it difficult to detect seismologically, so significant uncertainties remain. Scientists have debated whether or not a faster-rotating inner core can be compatible with the inner core’s hemispherical structure (Waszek et al., 2011), and some studies have found that the rate of inner core rotation may vary quite a lot over time and may also change direction periodically (Aubert & Dumberry, 2011; Yang & Song, 2023). As we learn more about the speed of inner core rotation, it may reveal great insights into the core’s properties, processes, and formation.’

As Derat explains, she was seeking a contemplative and poetic exploration of the blurred boundaries between the celestial and the geological, and both physical and technological bodies. ‘The earth’s core’, she says, ‘became the centre of that research because I got really interested in how it has the capacity to rotate and gets periodically out of sync with the earth itself: there is something very mysterious about this going against the grain of the outer layer of the earth’. She also loved the core itself as an unknowable source we cannot access directly, and felt that those two aspects amounted to ‘a beautiful metaphor for talking about defiance and resistance – something deep inside standing against something much bigger than itself. It was also a way to talk about technological accelerationism, AI and automation, and even global instability. And about the body versus the mind, the guts versus the skin – the constant back and forth of scale – personal versus global’. Moreover, there is periodicity in the core’s rotational cycle, which has been assessed at 70 years, so representing the paradigmatic human lifespan as well.

*HEARTFELT* (2023). Silicone rubber, mylar. Worn by dancer Synne Maria Lundesgaard performing choreography by Georgia Tegou for *RƎTRO/GRADƎ performance* (2023) 15 min, by Sarah Derat. Filmed at Super Dakota (Brussels) , November 9th 2023.

Standing on the Earth, we know that it is traveling – at 67,000 miles per hour – through space, but are paradoxically unable to sense that, just as we are unable to sense what is going on in its core. Yet the movements of Derat’s dancer – Synne Maria Lundesgaard – do seem to engage with the paradox. As Derat explains, she approached her discussions with choreographer Georgia Tegou ‘with the idea of giving an embodiment to rotations, counter-rotations, synchronised and asynchronised motions, and trying to break the core of the body into two parts to see how they could work with and against each other – being on and off balance, on and off axis, playing with forward and back motions’. The dance also repeats and fragments – as does the soundscape in which Lundesgaard performs. We hear Derat’s text, which underlines those themes, and sense the acceleration:

Our heads are spinning, yet I am motionless, motion-free, immobile.

I am so still that I can feel the pull of the Earth;

a 23.4 degree axial tilt, pushing our spine sideways.

With a head full of vertigo, with a head full of celestial noise, I can sense it all.

There is precision in the body, there is memory in stillness and movement, beyond what words can account for.

I can feel the Earth’s rotation, like solid waves crashing at a precise rhythm.

Derat captures the paradoxical nature of engaging with planetary forces, even when their scale is explained, through a striking contrast:

Deep inside our bodies, under 4kgs of skin, under 4000 miles of condensed ground and molten iron, another force is spinning backwards.

From macro to micro and back, touching the core of the Earth, touching the foundations of our constructed selves.

We are slowly getting out of synch.

Similarly, she finds a poetic way to balance human concerns against the incomprehensible weight of the earth’s core:

Our nerves have outgrown us, floating around with the nonchalance of an unrequited love.

Ourselves delightfully extended, automated, expanded and dispersed with the force of three million skies falling at once.

What might physically connect the earth’s surface to its core? The volcano emerges as a metaphor for the human body. In Derat’s words: ‘as we can’t feel or witness the earth’s core, I wanted to find something that could invoke it – and there have been researches into how some of the core might have leaked in volcanic explosions – so it made sense that could be a projection of what is inside, what is hidden.’ Rebecca Fischer confirms that ‘some volcanoes appear to originate very deep inside the Earth, possibly near the core (French & Romanowicz, 2015). Though debated, many studies have found that the magma erupting from these volcanoes may be carrying a signature of chemical interactions with the core, such as higher amounts of rare metallic elements or different amounts of certain isotopes – like we expect the core to have (Mundl-Petermeier et al., 2020).’

After all, we can’t know just what’s going on inside our own body or in other people’s minds – the contrast between the visible outer and the mysterious inner is built into both the human condition and the Earth’s geology. Moreover, adds Derat, ‘there’s something so majestic and beautiful about volcanoes – I checked in on the live cam of Kilauea in Hawaii every day, and saw how it was breathing, like a fantastic being.’ That comparison is presented most simply in the dual projection film Turn Heart, Turn My Heart: the first screen shows movements from the RƎTRO/GRADƎ performance, cropped and edited to emphasise the bodily aspect. The second screen displays a segment of the United States Geological Survey 24/7 livestream from the summit of Kilauea volcano. They were shot simultaneously: Derat started recording the volcano at the moment when Lundesgaard began to dance. The volcano becomes a character, and the two bodies breathe at the same time and summon each other. The duality is emphasised by the dancer wearing a top designed and made by Derat, which shows volcanic activity from the film and has volcanic soil on it. As the text – optimistically – concludes:

We are volcanoes.

Broken pieces of fire cascading down, catching up to the speed of sound.

Listen,

what is broken can be fused again.

What is broken can be fused again.

There are three components to what we hear: words, natural sounds, and music. They were brought together by Derat and her long-term collaborator, the musician and composer The Radicant (aka Vincent Cavanagh). She approached him with the idea of achieving a dynamic sound that could rotate and move backwards and forwards through rhythmical elements solely based on field recordings of volcanic activity – including what you might easily take to be breathing or thunder or creaking machinery. He then overlaid electronic compositions.

Nor is the sound of Derat’s reading entirely straightforward: 50% of the text is read by her, 50% by an AI-generated version of her voice, the model of which, she says, ‘is wonderful and extremely deceiving, so that it is hard to recognise which is which’. The voice does sound intriguingly unusual, but it’s hard to pin down why. It’s a novel way of hinting at the increasingly prominent debates around whether artificial intelligence could attain consciousness, or how an AI-enhanced human should be categorised. Moreover, the interface between the human and the technological has been a recurring theme in Derat’s work. She has, for example, explored the possible evolutionary connection between language and toolmaking – how they evolved side by side to bring about our distinctively human characteristics – as a context for thinking about the impact of AI. What might it mean for our humanity if the trend towards AI takeover were to go so far that making and crafting become matters purely for automated systems? ‘AI’, says Derat, ‘allows me to circle back to the prevalent concept of mirrors in the exhibition. It is, after all, a tool and system that we constructed. It is a reflection of us – whether flattering or not’. If the retrograde motion stands for resilience and defiance, then that might be against the problems generated by the advance of technology.

To end at the beginning, consistent with a retrograde movement, Derat’s text starts with lines that are reinforced by their presence on a wall piece (Idle Nerve) situated behind the performing dancer:

Hold your breath,

For the mirrored ground we walk on

Will shiver at the sound of your voice.

*IDLE NERVE* (2023). Mylar, silicone rubber, zips, snaps, aluminium. 267x200cm. The red LED light shining on the reflective surface of *IDLE NERVE* was switched on for the live performance of *RƎTRO/GRADƎ* and remains on for the duration of the exhibition as trace of this transformative action.

And she quotes Lorca’s related words ‘Only a single bird is singing. / The air is cloning it. / We hear through mirrors.’ Those lines constitute ‘Replica’, from the ‘Mirror Suite’ in which Lorca uses gazing into a mirror as an analogy for how, when we look at others, we can access our interior life, but not theirs. If we ‘hear through mirrors’, attempting to comprehend the visual through the aural, then the difficulties are multiplied. Our perceptions of the earth’s core amount to ‘hearing through mirrors’. Indeed, in ‘Earth’, another short lyric from the ‘Mirror Suite’, Lorca says that ‘We walk on an unsilvered mirror, / a crystal surface without clouds’. Modern technology impacts on us comparably: its operation escapes our comprehension even as its influence threatens to escape our understanding. Super Dakota’s text concludes appositely: ‘as we immerse ourselves in the deeply organic rhythm of RƎTRO/GRADƎ, we are prompted to contemplate our intricate bond with technology and its profound impact on our constantly evolving sense of self and our surroundings.’

Sarah Derat: RƎTRO/GRADƎ was at Super Dakota, Brussels, 9 November – 16 December, 2023. She has a solo show forthcoming at Castor Gallery, London, opening on July 13 with a live performance of RƎTRO/GRADƎ, and continuing to August 17, 2024. She also features in ‘A wounded matrix. Cracks in artificial creativity’ at Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain to 30 July. You can read more on her website.

References:

Aubert J., Dumberry M. (2011) Steady and fluctuating inner core rotation in numerical geodynamo models. Geophysical Journal International 184, 162–170.

Aurnou J., Olson P. (2000) Control of inner core rotation by electromagnetic, gravitational and mechanical torques. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 117, 111–121.

Deguen R. (2012) Structure and dynamics of Earth’s inner core. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 333-334, 211-225.

Deuss A. (2014) Heterogeneity and anisotropy of Earth’s inner core. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science 42, 103–126.

French S.W., Romanowicz B. (2015) Broad plumes rooted at the base of the Earth’s mantle beneath major hotspots. Nature 525, 95–99.

Glatzmaier G.A., Roberts P.H. (1996) Rotation and magnetism of Earth’s inner core. Science 274, 1887–1891.

Gubbins D. (1981) Rotation of the inner core. Journal of Geophysical Research 86, 11695–11699.

Mundl-Petermeier A., Walker R.J., Fischer R.A., Lekic V., Jackson M.G., Kurz M.D. (2020) Anomalous 182 W in high 3 He/ 4 He ocean island basalts: Fingerprints of Earth’s core? Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 271, 194–211.

Waszek L., Irving J., Deuss A. (2011) Reconciling the hemispherical structure of Earth’s inner core with its super-rotation. Nature Geoscience 4, 264–267.

Yang Y., Song X. (2023) Multidecadal variation of the Earth’s inner-core rotation. Nature Geoscience 16, 182–187.

Federico García Lorca: From the ‘Mirror Suite’, 1920-23, as translated by Jerome Rothenberg

SARAH DERAT’S ‘RƎTRO/GRADƎ’: THE CORE OF EVERYTHING

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