Metal Rave

The Hyeongsan River runs through Pohang, an industrial city on South Korea's eastern coast. Once a thriving ecological corridor, the river now carries the residue of decades of steel production and urban runoff. It flows past factories, residential districts, and agricultural land before reaching the East Sea, reflecting the complex entanglement of industry and environment that defines the region.

Metal Rave sonifies heavy metal contamination data from the Hyeongsan River basin. Built from environmental research documenting concentrations of cadmium, lead, and mercury across the watershed, the installation translates pollution levels into a 4.1 surround sound environment where contamination becomes audible.

An interactive map interface equipped with joysticks allows audiences to navigate the river basin spatially, aurally encountering contamination hotspots as they move through the geography. Each location generates its own acoustic signature derived from the specific metals present and their measured concentrations. The sound design treats contamination as material presence rather than abstraction. Cadmium, lead, and mercury each possess distinct tonal qualities that layer, distort, and interfere as concentrations rise.

A stationary conveyor belt positioned before an LED display gestures toward industrial processes and their discharge into the watershed. The stillness of the belt contrasts with the continuous sonic movement, evoking a halted mechanism whose impact persists beyond production.

The work confronts the permanence of industrial damage. Heavy metals don't disappear; they accumulate, persist, and redistribute across ecological systems. While production can cease, its material consequences remain embedded in soil, water, and living systems. Metal Rave makes this persistence audible, positioning the audience not as distant observers but as navigators moving through contamination that already exists and will continue to exist long after the factories stop.