As part of the KPO for Culture grant, from September to February I carried out underwater sound and video recordings. I learned how to record with a hydrophone and how to work with audio material recorded underwater. As part of the grant, I am making public the underwater audio recordings I used for learning, together with video images that could accompany them.

“Sound design for video and sound recordings – created in an aquatic environment”

I would like to thank Kajetan Deja from the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Sopot and Oskar Głowacki from the Institute of Geophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw for their consultations, as well as the artist Cecylia Malik and the artist Jarek Lustych for the time they devoted to me.

Produced as part of the KPO for Culture grant in 2025.
#KPOdlakultury #KPO #NextGenerationEU #EUFunds

1. Mussels in the Vistula surprised me with their size; the shells on the riverbank are enormous. Their presence is generally considered a sign of clean water. These impressive shells belong either to the native swollen river mussel or to the invasive Chinese pond mussel, which adapts easily. The smaller ones include, for example, the duck mussel.

Eight mussels work at Gruba Kaśka, monitoring the quality of Warsaw’s drinking water. They are also used in dozens of other waterworks across Poland. If they close their shells, the drinking water supply should be cut off. What they cannot indicate, however, is the type of contamination that is affecting them.

In the Vistula in Warsaw, you can hear the city. A shallowly submerged hydrophone records mainly processed vehicle sounds, accompanied by ambient noise and the more melodic sound of the water. This track also includes a recording of counting aloud underwater – distorted, but still recognisable.

 

2. At the end of that summer, the water in Zalesiańskie Stawy was so dense that nothing could be seen in it. There was also very little of it. The stream feeding the section by the aquapark had dried up completely, and you could reach the island without getting your feet wet. Algae multiply when it is warm, when there is plenty of light, when there is an excess of phosphates and nitrates from fields and fertilised lawns, and when the water is not being renewed. This body of water is used for recreation: a multi-storey ship-castle for pirates, yellow as the sun, had become stranded there, along with a wake park and ice cream stands. If you have a taste for the ordinary, it can even feel idyllic. Nearby, you can enjoy capsule glamping with a view of a sliding, completely opaque gate and the forest looking down from above. In autumn, the water returned.

In the water, you can hear the hydrophone catching on obstacles on the shallow bottom, which seemed to me to suit this constructivist landscape and the sounds of glacier calving – that is, an iceberg breaking off into the sea. As part of the grant, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr hab. Oskar Głowacki from the Institute of Geophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (many, many thanks for his time and recordings), who studies the sounds of water in the Arctic. The analysis of such recordings makes it possible to track climate change. They are also worth listening to – they sound like a storm.

 

3. Pool ecosystems are designed to eliminate invisible life. Whenever it appears, it is meant to be quickly removed by chlorine, ozone, and sometimes salt. Life does emerge, however, on a regular basis, and then the pools are allowed to rest. Chlorine quickly bleaches our bodies. In swimming pools, we hear ourselves: it may be music from the radio, the soundtrack to water aerobics, bodies striking the water, and conversations. The systems filtering the water can also be heard. Here, a heavily slowed-down sound of several dozen human bodies hitting the water as they jump.
The pool on Namysłowska Street is awaiting demolition. I spent a great deal of time in this highly chlorinated environment, learning many different ways of swimming. In a few years, there will be a new pool here.

 

4. Rain is heard very clearly underwater, as if the surface were a vast membrane. From Dr hab. Oskar Głowacki of the Institute of Geophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, I learned that what is heard in water is mainly air. It is the injected air bubbles that produce the sound of rain, waves, and ice falling into the water. The sounds of melting ice are also the sounds of air bubbles being released from it, compressed by the glacier. Puck Bay allowed me to listen to rain underwater; that day it was as calm as a lake, and above all it was the rain that could be heard. Water is loud because it is much denser than air. A storm is louder underwater. Underwater, Puck Bay is the quietest place on our coast, although this changes in summer because of, in my view, entirely unnecessary motor water sports. I think it would be very sensible to ban them in this area; it is enough that there are already too many of us humans there in summer.

 

5. The freezing waters of Puck Bay look like the skin of a great animal. The water here is brackish, so it freezes more quickly. Both saltwater and freshwater species live in it. There used to be many fish here, including flounder, cod and herring, but also pike, roach and perch, as well as migratory species such as salmon and eel. Now there are, of course, fewer of them, although in many ways the ecosystem of the Little Sea is recovering – seagrass meadows are returning, creating a habitat for animals and other local plants. One of my personal dreams is to take part voluntarily in the planting of seagrass in Puck Bay, carried out by scientists from the University of Gdańsk together with the MARE Foundation.
https://www.gospodarkamorska.pl/naukowcy-rozpoczeli-sadzenie-trawy-morskiej-na-dnie-zatoki-puckiej-wideo-87350

Underwater, slush ice grinds as the moving ice rubs against itself in a constant swell. I left the hydrophone in this undulating skin of the Little Sea. Seals sometimes come ashore on this beach, as they do on all beaches along the Hel Peninsula. There is no need to touch them; I know someone who was bitten by a seal. In these sounds, you can also hear an Arctic seal recorded by a hydrophone whose purpose was to capture the sounds of a glacier – many thanks to Dr hab. Oskar Głowacki for allowing me to use this sound.