Earthworks by Nathan Davis and Sylvia Milo

As we disconnect further from nature, we must find the life in our artificial surroundings or risk driving ourselves insane. Earthworks by Nathan Davis and Sylvia Milo renders this hidden life as an electroacoustic collage, a lively composition of inorganic sounds featuring the guiding hand of human narration. With the soothing, smooth, soft vocals, Earthworks guides us in meditation, drawing our attention to the various rooms, vehicles, streets, and spaces we inhabit but rarely closely examine. We gradually open up to this new interpretation of the mundane, finding familiarity in the sounds we hear and relating them to natural bodily processes, reconceptuizing our plumbing as veins, our wires as nerves, our lights as eyes, our floor as skin. Naturally, this transformation easily slips into the uncanny valley, lending a double consciousness to this entire exercise as we recognize full well the strange, contrived nature of our new thoughts. However, if we remain hell bent as a species on the wholesale destruction of the entire global ecosystem, we must accept the meager offerings of our dwellings as consolation.