Silent Whale Letters: A Long-Distance Correspondence, on All Frequencies

by Ella Finer, Vibeke Mascini, Kate Briggs (Editor)

A long-distance correspondence reflecting on the infravoice of a blue whale and other so-called “silent” subjects.

An experiment in listening to frequencies beyond human sensorial range, Silent Whale Letters is a long-distance correspondence intimately attuned to the infravoice of a blue whale, a document held silent in the sound archive, and other so-called "silent" subjects.

As part of an ongoing collaboration between Ella Finer and Vibeke Mascini the letters consider how the silent document shifts the logic of the archive, figuring listening as a practice of preservation.

As the letters attune to the ocean loud with communications across time and space, the authors write about the movement of matter, of energies, wavelengths, currents and how the ocean preserves as it disperses what it carries. How does working with what we cannot see, or even hear within range, shift the parameters of attention? How does the energetic archival space of the ocean agitate and disrupt claims to knowledge, history, and power?

Moving through three years of call and response the book unfolds through “a joint meditation on the transformative potential of a note, a voice, carried from saltwater into the archive” (Rebecca Giggs).

They chart a process that is equally conceptual and intimate, theoretical and deeply personal, moving through discussions of (amniotic) undercurrents, call-and-response mechanisms, energetic wavelengths, oceanic and archival memory, mysterious scales, and the watery acoustic commons.

Contributors
Kate Briggs, Emma McCormick Goodhart

Copublished with TBA21

Genres: Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

Published November 21, 2023

Reviews

[Adam Yaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know when you’re sitting around with your two best friends talking about yourselves and each other and friendship and love and the lives we’ve lived and the art we’ve loved and you go to yourself damn I really need to start reading again so you pick up the book one of them sold you on a month or two ago because she brought it up again and after they go to bed (and you waste too much time dopamine looping on instagram) you put on an ambient album that surprises you and pick up the book and don’t want to put it down because it makes you see the value in handing chunks of yourself to another person to do as they please with so that you are a network spread throughout the people you love and not just some singular inert being and it too makes you feel that being loved is being told “you will love this piece of art” and coming back with “you could not have been more correct” but your eyelids grow heavy and then when you wake up the next morning you pick the book back up while she works on her laptop and finish it and then go for a walk together and talk about how wonderful it all was, how wonderful it all is?

Good book

[George Millership · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finer and Mascini extrapolate from the only 'silent' recording in the British museum (a sub-human-hearing whalesong) intertwinings of musicality, communication, environmentalism, aquaticness. What do we do with an archive object that doesn't announce itself to humans?

Thought-provoking, if a little pretentious (in the classic sense) here and there.

[Vahni · Rating 5 out of 5]

To borrow a phrase from Vibeke and Ella, I am language stunned after reading this bundle of letters. I want every book to be like this one.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I put this down and picked it back up as part of a Christmas gift (now belated) that I’m writing to my cousin who lives across the country, and i would suggest no better way to read this! Using it as a letter made me meditate and think on the page right alongside the writers, who write beautifully and soulfully. My one note is that this is not a plot book and is sometimes very wandering and if you’re not down to wander with it you will get lost. (That and the second addendum at the end of the book, not Kate Briggs’, was completely unnecessary and wayy too heady for me) But overall, I loved the space this book gave me and look forward to bringing in my cousin!

[Mana Misaghi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Second epistolary book of the year and the first non-fiction one.
Having worked on a collective letter writing project for the past eight months, I found the parts of the book that were the writers' musings on letters and correspondence very interesting. Not knowing a lot about sound, some of the bits concerned with frequencies and soundscapes went over my head.

Letters - as a concept - continue to remain fascinating and so full of potential.

[Margaryta · Rating 4 out of 5]

It felt like such a nice respite to pick up a book that isn't strictly scholarly but has all of the ideas and discussion of scholarly texts. The letters have a wave quality to them, easy to get immersed and then lost in.

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic text and great design.

[mio · Rating 5 out of 5]

incredible

[Sierra King · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is art.
the concept of silent whale letters and silent whale thoughts is art.
this is probably one of my favorite books i’ve read in a long time.