Expeditie

Expeditie
Aurora Polaris – an expedition beyond the light

In the letters of explorer Walton, which serve as a frame narrative in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, darkness is an ever-present force. Walton writes from the far Arctic. Here, the eternal night offers both expansive, untainted beauty and terrifying obscurity. On the one hand the thrill of the unknown and the freedom to explore without the pressure of the ordinary world. But on the other hand, as the expedition progresses, darkness becomes a symbol of isolation and despair.
Inspired by Walton’s letters, Kluster5 and Aart Strootman take you on this expedition in the dark where the faintest light can be a beacon of hope – with music that, like the darkness in which it is played, soothes but never fully embraces.

Amid the global flow of information, we sometimes long for a pause button. An opportunity to stop everything for a while. To reflect, ponder, question, imagine. But with the speed of today’s media, that seems wishful thinking.

If you detach yourself from current events, it ís possible. The first sound recording, the first observation of a volcanic eruption: such historical moments invite wonder. What did people feel back then? How much did they understand? What did they think they were hearing or seeing?

This is also how composer Aart Strootman reread Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Not from the familiar story of the doctor and his creation, but from the perspective of Captain Walton, writing letters to his sister from a polar expedition. In the icy void, in the middle of nowhere, they see a giant figure disappearing across the ice in the distance.

Pause.

Before the story of Frankenstein is revealed, the crew must have been full of questions. What did they see? What awaits them there, at the end of the world? How did it feel to experience the northern light for the first time?

For many of those questions, the answers were mythical in nature at the time. In Inuit tradition, the child thief creature Qallupilluit exists under the ice. In Nordic mythology, the northern lights are the glitter of the armour of the Walkuren, or a celestial pathway between gods and men.

Expedition is the result of that historical reverie. An anachronistic accumulation of fiction that takes the listener from obscurity. Slowly, a narrative unfolds, driven by avid grooves and Walton’s letter fragments.

What you hear remains incomplete; the unknown forces you to add to the story yourself.