The Morteratsch glacier in Switzerland is retreating. The artist Ludwig Berger has been registering his sounds for years: from the noises of fractures in ice to the strange melodies of the air bubbles. A way to preserve a “sound landscape” that risks disappearing for the climatic crisis.
The Morteratsch glacier, on the Swiss Alps, is backward by more than 3 km from the end of the 19th century. He arrives at his feet along a path that starts from the small railway station, not far from Pontresina: once the glacier came rather close to the station, today he retired and continues to lose mass. You really understand how much by continuing to walk along the path and meeting the signs that report the past position of the glacier forehead. The case of the Mortetetsch is emblematic of the situation of the Alpine glaciers, who squisele like iceboxs during the increasingly hot summers and are one of the most evident symbols of the consequences of the climatic crisis. Those at the lowest altitudes is expected to be destined to disappear.
Ludwig Berger, an artist who works on the sounds of the environment, has been recording the “voice” of the Morteratsch glacier for years: his project was the protagonist of the documentary Crying Glacier, “the glacier that cries”, filmed in 2023 with the director Lutz Stautner and with Philipp Becker. Crying Glacier is also the title of the disc with original recordings (for the Forms of Minutiae label). An article on Evidence Network n ° 395 is dedicated to the Ludwig Berger project. How did the idea come about? And what “voice” has a glacier? The words of Berger tell it, in the interview below.
When did the Morteratsch recording project started?
It all started in 2016 during a course for students from the Landscape Architecture Institute, held by Christophe Girot at the Federal Polytechnic of Zurich. At the time, my colleagues and I took the students to the glacier. While they focused on photography, I started to record the sounds together with the students, using self -built underwater microphones. We returned regularly, in summer and winter for two years. After that initial phase, I continued on my own and gradually expanded the recordings. It has become a long -term project for me, which embraces almost a decade of listening to a continuously evolving landscape.
What kind of sounds do they listen to, on the glacier?
A wide range of acoustic phenomena can be heard: deep thuds and grumbling caused by ice movements, breaks due to sudden stress fractures, drips of water from inside crevasses and, above all, the sound of the air bubbles that come out. These bubbles, trapped in ice for centuries, are released with the merger. Their acoustic qualities are surprisingly rich: some are irregular, others clean rhythmic precision.
When they are released in rapid succession, they can even give acute sounds that recall the calls of birds or the melodies of a synthesizer. The recordings also present a strange spatial depth: some sounds seem close, others seem to emerge from vast and dark cavities under the ice.
How are the sounds recorded?
I mainly use underwater microphones, placed in cracks full of water. Through water, it is possible to hear very distant sounds that travel through ice. Register also with standard microphones, but many of the most interesting sounds are not audible in the air, but only in water or through contact with ice. That’s why underwater recording techniques are essential in this type of work.
Why the Mortetetsch?
To tell the truth, at the beginning it was for practical reasons. The Morteratsch glacier is easily accessible by train and from the station there is a path that leads directly to the foot of the glacier, or, better, where it was once. But over time, through numerous repeated visits, I developed a personal relationship with this glacier. I came to consider it a “person”: not a human being, of course, but a being with his own presence and condition. I like to go back regularly, to listen to it and check how it is going. Unfortunately, the changes are drastic. Each time he retired further, sometimes of tens of meters. We really perceive the urgency and fragility of the place.
What do you want to document the registration?
I want to demonstrate that climate change is real and is happening now. And that there is still a temporal window in which we can act. At the same time, I hope to help people develop an emotional and personal relationship with the glacier, not only seeing it as a passive or resource matter. Listening is a powerful way to connect with the beauty of the glacier and with its suffering. Finally, I also want to preserve the sounds of the glacier, which will probably disappear within the next 100 years. Recording them is a way to preserve the memory of a world that is disappearing. In an extensive part of the project, we will take a further step forward: using a data storage method developed by researchers of the Federal Polytechnic of Zurich, the recordings will be sealed in a container inserted in a rock near the glacier, a long -term time capsule designed to last centuries. The idea is to make the sounds of the glacier again in the future, even if the glacier will no longer be there.
From the project were born records, shows, a documentary …
At the Federal Polytechnic of Zurich we published a vinyl record accompanied by a photographic book, Melting Landscapes. We also organized exhibitions. I also collaborate, in live performance, with musicians who react to the sounds of the glacier. And finally I released my album, Crying Glacier, published by the Forms of Minutiae label. It is the soundtrack of the film Crying Glacier, with longer montages of the original field recordings: the director Lutz Stautner contacted me and shot the film together with Philipp Becker.
