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The project builds on soundscape studies that investigate alternative ways that knowledge is received and produced through a “listening body.” Leveraging data derived from harbor port movement and local underwater sound, the project queries the dynamic relationships between human activity and the well-being of oysters. Underwater microphones, called hydrophones, collect the audio, which will be used in a multimedia installation to trigger sound-responsive robotic oysters that simulate how oysters listen and question what constitutes safe harbors for both humans and other species.Īs a vital member of our ecosystem, Rothenberg says the oyster can identify suitable settlement habitats by differentiating sound signatures in underwater soundscapes. In 2010, for the first time in a century, whales returned to the harbor, and in 2014, the Billion Oyster Project was created with a goal of restoring 1 billion oysters to the harbor by 2035.Īs part of their collaboration with the Billion Oyster Project, Rothenberg and Thorpe are collecting underwater sounds in the harbor at locations where oysters are being grown. However, through legislative acts like the Clean Water Act of 1972, water quality began to improve enough that in 2000, oysters and other life were found to be surviving in New York Harbor. But in the early 1900s, between overharvesting and 600 million gallons of untreated sewage being dumped into New York City water every day, the oyster population declined so much that by 1927, the last of the city’s oyster fisheries were shut down.
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Since oyster reefs provide habitat for hundreds of species, prevent erosion along the shorelines, and can filter about 30 to 50 gallons of water every day, oyster restoration in New York Harbor is a priority.Īccording to an article by Thrillist, New York Harbor and its surrounding waters used to be home to about 350 square miles of oyster reefs. The project Rothenberg and Thorpe are working on, “Tending Ostreidae: Serenades for Settling,” is an interdisciplinary project exploring how anthropogenic noise in New York City’s busy waterways impacts marine organisms, specifically oysters. “We are partnering with the Billion Oyster Project, a New York City-based nonprofit working to ecologically restore the city’s waterways through oyster reseeding/repopulating initiatives,” says Rothenberg, professor and chair of the Department of Art, College of Arts and Sciences. Rothenberg and her collaborator, sound artist and researcher Suzanne Thorpe, have received a 2022 Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center residency to create an immersive media artwork.