Andrew Pekler

In 2016, Berlin-based artist Andrew Pekler travelled to Thailand and visited Khao Sok National Park where he gathered field recordings and recorded video footage of the park's flora and fauna. Some of excerpts of this material was used in the compositions and live presentation of Pekler's album “Tristes Tropiques”, released on the Faitiche label in 2016. Two years later, Pekler further processed, edited and mixed the materials to create the one-hour long audio-visual piece “Khao Sok Extension”.
A monochrome landscape of branches, leaves, flowers, grass, vines and bamboo shifts slowly through multiple exposures and inversions of color tones. The speed and tone are as if wandering through a forest under the influence of psychedelic substances. The natural sounds of insects, bird calls, wind and water are processed and layered in ways that evoke electronic textures, sequences and effects. However, no instruments were employed in the production, Pekler's field recordings from Khao Sok are the only sounds used. The visuals and audio blur perceptual boundaries between the "natural" and "artificial" while evoking an ambience that is both immersive and deeply uncanny.