Sonus Mors
When American filmmaker Betzy Bromberg sent me a link to her film a Darkness Swallowed, it was accompanied by viewing instructions. I followed her guidelines to experience the film as intended, darkening the room and wearing headphones. It quickly became apparent why Bromberg prefers her films to be projected in their original gauge in a theatrical setting with a large screen and high-quality sound rather than on a TV or computer monitor. Saturated with color, texture, and sound, a Darkness Swallowed features optically pristine extreme close-ups, while its originally scored soundtrack interacts with and against the otherworldly visuals. With its slow pace and intimate close-ups that often have no recognizable scale, the film, shot on 16mm, defies the viewing habits fostered by the Internet. It calls for a viewer willing to leave the external world behind and enter an “internal landscape” (MacDonald 2019: 389).
a Darkness Swallowed is a meditation on mortality and the passage of time. It begins with two photographs of a car accident, accompanied by a verbal prologue – the only instance where the film resorts to spoken language. Soon, the nature of the visuals changes dramatically, giving way to less concrete imagery that comprises the entire 78-minute film. The film’s meticulous examination of textured surfaces, along with the absence of spatial coordinates, makes recognizing objects particularly challenging. The structure of the film moves from the land of the “living” to the land of the “unliving,” where it remains for a significant portion of time before transitioning back to “life” in the final third. About a quarter of the way in, there is a precise moment that marks the transition from the realm of the living to that of the deceased. Bromberg refers to this moment as a metaphorical “dying.” The analysis offered here will concentrate solely on this short sequence.
According to Bromberg, Pam Aronoff, her former student, contributed a highly specific sound composition for this sequence, which was derived from a diagnostic ultrasound (sonography) of the artist’s blood flow through the vessels. An ultrasound scan is an imaging technique that utilizes high-frequency sound waves to create images of the inside of the body. The procedure relies on physical nearness, specifically between the transducer[23] and the patient’s skin. Technically speaking, Aronoff recorded the sounds from the ultrasound machine to VHS and then transferred them to the computer. VHS was the only way to record ultrasound from the machine they were using at the time the artist captured the material, which was around 1994, when she began collecting these sounds. By turning the sound waves of the ultrasound into a means of sound production, Aronoff reorients these sounds away from their clinical purpose. Similar to the images or marks on the optical soundtrack, not meant to be seen, these sounds are typically heard as purely operative or instrumental, offering nothing worth listening to.
Despite the audio piece’s brevity, it is a “pivotal part” of the film.[24] Aronoff’s composition, approximately four minutes long, sets in during a prolonged lateral camera movement following an umbilical cord and taking us into the interior of a uterus. This section includes a series of still images and gentle panning shots that associatively evoke this intimate landscape, recalling the gestation space’s slimy membranes and mucous linings. The extreme close-ups, captured with macro lenses, make it difficult, if not at times impossible, to identify the objects being depicted. As Bromberg explains, most of the imagery in this sequence comprises decaying flora, with the exception of a single bud and a flower. The images, though concrete, are fleeting, due to their dependence on the sun’s position and various cinematic choices.[25] The film was shot over three years in the artist’s backyard in the Los Angeles area, with the rich colors and haptic textures resulting from shooting during sunsets at different times of the year. Over these magical images – better interpreted as visual metaphors – we literally hear the blockage of blood flow from Aronoff’s composition. The artist had been collecting recordings of her diagnostic ultrasounds for years, and from the very first time she listened to them, she was captivated by their sonic depth. As she states, the layering or collaging of sounds in her work is an instinctual process: “I take a single source that I will stretch and pull, and dig into it to find its essence; to find where the sound sings.”[26]
The material of Aronoff’s composition – sounds of a diagnostic ultrasound – raises the question of how resonance between sounds and images occurs and what exactly is being resonated. In perceptual terms, Aronoff’s sounds enhance the tactile and experiential qualities of listening as a fundamentally sonorous resonance. The concept of resonance, central in media theorist Susanna Paasonen’s study on affect and online pornography, is especially relevant to address the sounds and images in a Darkness Swallowed. As Paasonen explains, she is less inclined to conceptualize experiences of being moved in terms of identification, because this downplays the sensory and the materiality of the body (Paasonen 2011: 17). For Paasonen, “resonance refers to moments and experiences of being moved, touched, and affected by that which is tuned to ‘the right frequency’” (Paasonen 2011: 18). Aronoff’s composition accompanying the dying sequence consists of a soft hissing soundscape that intricately corresponds with the images of the womb, resonating at a similar frequency and evoking the internal sensations of the body. Resonance cannot emanate from just one body; at least two bodies are required. The concept of resonance aptly captures the vibrant interconnectedness of audio-visual textures, technologies of mediation, and the affective sensorium of the viewer.