Aphotic Archaeology — alliyahenyo

_{Aphotic Archaeology

*unearthed before the sound*}

_{_{Hidden Door Festival June 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th & 5th 2023

Edinburgh Scottish Widows Building (Basement Floor 18:15-22:15)}}

_{_{***

Travel back to the beginning, we must learn the language of lost songs, songs of infinite cadence. The first songs, the first sound, we have forgotten.

Lightning rarely strikes the ocean but this is the beginning.

Lightning struck the naked iron core and when it did the world shuddered into being. Plasma split the ocean floor, as songs poured, the rhythm of songs became the rhythm of waves.

As magma poured from the core dust settled into matter, rock became sand, iridescent flakes becoming metal, serpentine spiralling shapes creating gravitation from the seabeds centre. More matter spread through the ocean, enveloping space and finding corners to curl, forming caves, eventually hosting what the rest of the dust became, life, waking matter sung into being.
***}}

_{_{*These dreams you have been having tell a story you cannot quite yet understand*}}

_{_{***

I excavate a child bore of iron, barley the size of my own belly and rest it upon slippery hands.

As I feel the weight of a life never lived, I try to sing the first songs, to return to the beginning.

I materialised for a purpose.

*finding your purpose when there is none*

***}}

_{_{***

What are these strange relics revealing themselves, cloaked inside seaweed nests, fossilised coral scattered cloak them, metal upon ocean clay buried deep.

I am a vessel, I too can hold sound and make it echo within while spreading through cold thick waters. I must listen to the songs of whales, sirens of selkies.

*to learn the first songs, to learn to swim*

***}}

_{_{***

I am magnetised plasma, seaweed, dust, temporarily shocked into being, an entity of residue. My slumber was so deep until now but I must listen to these strange dreams, believe in them. I must learn to see with these murky eyes, I find a feeling in what I see, what I touch- I foresee.

*Translucency is the future of foresight, we must all learn to see in it, if we are to live*

***}}

_{_{Collaborative Installation and Peformance commissioned by Hidden Door Festival 2023
Alliyah Enyo (she/they) Lead Artist (Interdisciplinary)
naafi (they/them) Music Producer and Live Electronic Musician
Emma Hislop (she/her) Sculptor and Installation Artist
Kiera Saunders (she/her) Costume Designer
Claricia Parinassa (they/them) Dancer and Choreographer}}