PIA VAN GELDER

/ WORK / CREATIVE WORK:

TURBID PSITHURISMUS, 2026. Commissioned and exhibited at Goulburn Regional Gallery for solo exhibition.
5 Channel Video, sound, electronics

Pia van Gelder, Detail of Turbid Psithurismus, 2026
Psithurism, meaning soft whisper, phonetically imitating the sound of wind. Yet the wind does not always whisper, in fact the wind produces a spectrum of sounds through its varied behaviour, in essence the movement of air and gases from atmosphere pressures changing. These variabilities are produced from localised events like thunderstorms, to global winds caused by solar energy absorption in the Earth’s climate zones.

The windy hilltops surround the Southern Tablelands, sought after locations for wind turbines that capture and convert the wind into electricity. Their motion evidences our changing weather and winds. Whether we enjoy their addition to the landscape or not, these revolving towers represent new infrastructure that offers an alternative energy resource to our diminishing supplies of fossil fuels.

This multichannel audio video installation work documents a collaboration with this infrastructure and its environment, turbid with the energy that resources it, the wind. Through a series of experiments with custom built electronic instruments designed to interface with wind and the turbines it moves, wind is channelled as a sound maker, transducing (converting) one energy into another, from kinetic, electromagnetic, into sound. The piece works to bring wind’s animating force to the foreground, highlighting the multiplicity of energetic events that animate these summits.

Pia van Gelder, Detail of Turbid Psithurismus, 2026