To capture unique perspectives and access otherwise unreachable areas of the glaciers, we will be using two drones alongside ground cameras. The first step was selecting the best drones for the task. Since much of our glacier exploration will take place from a boat, one risk quickly became apparent—the possibility of a drone crashing into the water.

We were advised that if a drone went down, we would need to retrieve it from the freezing depths of the sea. This concern played a major role in our decision-making, leading us to choose the SwellPro Splash Drone 4—a waterproof drone capable of landing on water without issue. To complement it, we also acquired the DJI Mavic Pro 3 for its superior image quality. To mitigate the risk of losing it, we equipped it with a foam float system to prevent it from sinking in case of an accident.

With most of the preparations for our field trip and technical explorations slowing getting behind, it's time to refocus on the essentials—the experience we aim to create.

Given the current pace of rising temperatures, Svalbard is poised for radical change in the coming decades. Whispering Glaciers is, in this sense, an attempt to create an immersive, embodied exploration of Svalbard’s landscapes, shaped by our own lived experience during a 10-day expedition through the archipelago.
Our goal is to offer visitors an experience that allows them to freely explore Svalbard’s visual and acoustic environments as they exist in 2025 — the Year of the Glacier. This experience functions as an experiential archive, centring on the landscapes of Svalbard. While the region is home to diverse wildlife, our focus remains on ice—its structures, textures, colours, and behaviours.

We are particularly drawn to capturing the subtle sounds that shape Svalbard’s sonic landscape. Through VR, we seek not only to allow the exploration of visual forms and textures but to amplify often-overlooked sounds—sounds that carry a profound connection to melting, transformation, and, ultimately, disappearance.
The current research is therefore focused on creating a space that allows us to admire the vastness, monumental beauty and uniqueness of such an environment but also reveals its subtle, delicate, and often imperceptible layers. At the same time, it seeks to capture its fleeting, transitional nature—a landscape on the brink of radical transformation or even disappearance.

The installation is expected to have two experiential spaces: 1) a large room with one or more video projections depicting different elements of Svalbard landscapes. 2) a VR experience in which we can explore, by moving in space, different sounds connected to different visual elements of the landscape (glaciers, icebergs, wide spaces covered by snow). The first space is more contemplative and passive, while the second space requires an active engagement, some exploratory investment and curiosity.

After an evening spent exploring Longyearbyen under almost perfect weather conditions, the next day started to change. Adding to the cold weather, the clouds, pushed by moderate to strong winds started to fill the sky above the small town. Coming all the way from Lisbon, André Nascimento, a musician and sound designer, joined the project to help with sound field recordings and sound design. After his arrival, we spent time preparing the equipment, testing, and defining a strategy to store and organise recordings. Then, we started the sound répérage, first by wandering around the town centre, then moving towards the outskirts, the naval area, the church and cemetery, the coal cable centre (Taubanesentralen), and walking along the Longyearbyen river towards the seashore. During this first day of active sound recordings, we focused on capturing the soundscapes of and around Longyearbyen, the sound of birds flocking in the Longyearbyen estuary, the sound of yard dogs howling at the distance, the sounds of the wind, the sounds of passing coal trucks, and the sounds of the river running towards the sea. This day was rich in many aspects — it not only allowed us to have a first understanding and mapping of Longyearbyen from a sonic perspective, showing us the first general different sound sources in and around town, but it also revealed a little bit of the routines of the place. This first day also exposed us immediately to one of the main difficulties in our field work — the wind. The almost omnipresent wind felt throughout the day made the sound recording process quite challenging. Wind, invisible in most photos we see from Svalbard, is an important part of the landscape. One of the main reasons why there are no trees and vegetation is scarce in the archipelago is exactly because wind is an almost permanent condition.

While waiting for a free slot on a boat to Borebreen — despite strong winds, icy rain, and fog — we took the opportunity to continue exploring the surrounding areas of Longyearbyen, particularly those accessible only when carrying a firearm. We spent a considerable amount of time observing and recording the soundscapes around Gruve 1B and Gruve 1A, as well as the steep mountains on the left-hand side of the valley. Here, Arctic terns circled the mountaintop, most likely where their nests were hidden.

As a land of exceptional interest for scientific exploration, Svalbard hosts a range of unique infrastructures that shape the surrounding landscape — not only visually, but also sonically. To explore this less perceptible dimension, we moved towards the Seed Vault area, where we extended our recordings to capture electromagnetic soundscapes from both the building and its surroundings. Using an electromagnetic microphone crafted by Lom, we spent the day listening to the “inaudible” — sounds created by electromagnetic waves. This led us on to the mechanical infrastructure of Mine 7, with its distinctive sonic identity, and further to the EISCAT Svalbard Radar and the SOUSY Svalbard Radar (SSR). The latter is an array of antennas in Adventdalen used for troposphere and mesosphere research — studying tides, gravity waves, turbulence, and their interactions, the structure and dynamics of Polar Mesosphere Summer Echoes, as well as Arctic stratosphere–troposphere dynamics linked to the formation of Polar Stratospheric Clouds and to stratosphere–troposphere exchange processes. (source)

After spending some time listening to these technical infrastructures and their surrounding environments, our attention turned to one of the most pressing subjects in Svalbard and the Arctic: thawing permafrost. Very close to the SSR field, on the riverside of the Adventelva, our guide pointed us towards what seemed at first to be nothing more than moss and dried vegetation. After a 15-minute walk, we found cavities and cracks — some wide, some narrow — where the ice beneath the moss was exposed. Around these openings, water had begun to pool, fed by the melting permafrost. It was an unsettling sight — not only because it was the first time we'd had such a direct glimpse of permafrost, but also because of the far-reaching consequences this thawing holds for the Arctic and for the planet as a whole. Recent studies warn that abrupt permafrost thaw could double carbon emissions (Nature, 2019). In some ways, these understated images of thawing permafrost were even more troubling than the familiar photographs of melting glaciers and icebergs.

The strong wind and light snow made both sound recording and filming a challenge. We decided to return in the coming days to give it another try.

Due to bad weather conditions, we were unable to continue our expedition at sea and visit other tidewater glaciers. Instead, we decided to return to the banks of the Adventelva River to take a closer look at the thawing permafrost. This time, closer to Longyearbyen, we encountered an even more dramatic scene than in our previous observations. From the roadside, we could see patches of brown moss and tundra vegetation breaking apart, revealing white, crystalline ice beneath. The ice lifted and supported the vegetation in irregular mounds, while meltwater pooled and small streams wound between them. Clear signs of erosion and ground collapse caused by the melting permafrost hinted at what the field we had observed earlier might look like in the near future.

The rest of the day was spent exploring the landscapes of Bjorndalen (bears valley), an eight-kilometre-long valley running along a south–north axis before opening into Isfjorden. It is drained by the Bjordalselva and its tributaries, all fed by glacial meltwater. Vegetation is limited to the surrounding tundra, home to wild reindeer.

On the opposite side of Longyearbyen, we spent some time capturing the Adventdalen valley from a drone’s perspective. The flight began at Tredalshytta and ended roughly 4 km away, near Lomdammen. The footage revealed a striking travelling shot, tracing the intricate network of Adventelva’s channels as they wove their way towards the sea.

As our departure from Svalbard was approaching, on the final day — despite strong winds and a heavy, overcast sky — we managed to charter a sturdy boat to take us back to Borebreen. Our aim was to re-record the floating ice, this time with a binaural microphone to enhance the stereo image and spatial depth.

Curiously, upon arrival at Borebukta, we found the landscape had changed. Just two days earlier, the bay in front of the glacier had been crowded with ice pieces of varying sizes. According to our guides, an easterly wind had pushed much of the ice away. A few scattered pieces remained, enough to allow us to proceed with our recordings. Yet, perhaps due to the colder temperatures, the sizzling sounds we had heard so vividly two days before were now noticeably more subdued. It was, once again, a reminder of how rapidly the landscape shifts, and how dynamic the Svalbard environment is.

After spending considerable time capturing these sounds and trying to record the sharp reports of collapsing ice blocks, we decided to make a short land expedition to see the glacier front from another angle. We boarded a small support zodiac and left the main boat, heading towards the right side of the glacier (Boremorenen). From there, we hiked for nearly an hour until we reached a higher vantage point overlooking the glacier. This position allowed us to continue our environmental sound recordings while also taking privileged, high-resolution photographs of the glacier’s mass and intricate crevasses.

Back in Longyearbyen, we spent the last hours of our stay in the Bolterdalen and Adventdalen valleys, carrying out aerial filming.

After ten days of residency and fieldwork in Svalbard, we left with mixed feelings. Despite long days of hard work in difficult weather and challenging hikes that would have benefited from a fitter, better-prepared version of ourselves, we departed with the sense that much was still left to do and discover. The residency was first disrupted by our guide’s accident, and later by the demanding weather conditions we had to work through. Most days were windy, cold, and rainy — by far the greatest challenge for sound recording, video work, and drone operations. Our aim was to auscultate Svalbard and its glaciers, yet the wind often made this mission extremely difficult, and at times impossible. Sea expeditions were also curtailed by the weather, limiting our ability to visit a greater number of glaciers.

These setbacks, while at times frustrating, brought valuable insights. We came to understand — and accept — that Svalbard is an environment that resists predictability, where perfect light and acoustic conditions are rare and fleeting. One must be ready, and when those brief moments arrive, make the most of them. In this sense, what we experienced and collected lends the project a more authentic tone; it reflects Svalbard as it truly is at this time of year, rather than an idealized vision.

Although we felt the absence of certain opportunities, we gained much: knowledge of the ecosystems, of the historical and social layers of Svalbard, and an extensive collection of the sound and visual materials we had sought. Even more importantly, we made unexpected discoveries along the way — the extraordinary sonic experience of crackling floating ice, which left a lasting impression and will undoubtedly shape the final outcome of the project; the tangible, unsettling reality of thawing permafrost, visible right before us; and other moments of revelation that no amount of prior research could have anticipated.

As I had hoped, this expedition allowed me to immerse myself fully in Svalbard, experiencing it directly rather than shaping the project from afar through idealized or commonplace depictions of such a rich and nuanced environment. We wanted to carefully listen to the glaciers melting — and we did. At times the sound was quiet and discreet; at others it was punctuated by sudden, gunshot-like bangs; and sometimes it was a delicate sizzling, curiously reminiscent of hot oil in a frying pan, circling back to the very idea of global warming — ironically making me wonder how such a cold place could evoke such a warm image.

If there is one regret, it is not having been able to spend more time in the wild — with the space to explore, observe, and document the transformations of this fragile landscape at a slower, more deliberate pace. But, as always, one needs an entry door. Next time, we will return with a more nuanced approach, ready to go deeper, and to bring back even greater inspiration, awareness, and humility.

We recently came across the work of Dr. Richard Hann, a senior researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), who specializes in icing on unmanned aerial vehicles. Dr. Hann has conducted extensive research on glaciers in Svalbard—such as Tunabreen, Borebreen, Vallåkrabreen, and Wahlenbergbreen—collecting aerial imagery and publishing photos on Kuula, along with 3D glacier models on Sketchfab.
His work is a great contribution to our field trip preparations, helping us in simulating various scenarios for our VR experience. We have begun importing some of his 3D models into Unreal to evaluate rendering quality and performance. These tests will provide deeper insights into the techniques and considerations for capturing glacier and ice imagery, both aerially via drones and from the ground.

To capture unique perspectives and access otherwise unreachable areas of the glaciers, we will be using two drones alongside ground cameras. The first step was selecting the best drones for the task. Since much of our glacier exploration will take place from a boat, one risk quickly became apparent—the possibility of a drone crashing into the water.

We were advised that if a drone went down, we would need to retrieve it from the freezing depths of the sea. This concern played a major role in our decision-making, leading us to choose the SwellPro Splash Drone 4—a waterproof drone capable of landing on water without issue. To complement it, we also acquired the DJI Mavic Pro 3 for its superior image quality. To mitigate the risk of losing it, we equipped it with a foam float system to prevent it from sinking in case of an accident.

With most of the preparations for our field trip and technical explorations slowing getting behind, it's time to refocus on the essentials—the experience we aim to create.

Given the current pace of rising temperatures, Svalbard is poised for radical change in the coming decades. Whispering Glaciers is, in this sense, an attempt to create an immersive, embodied exploration of Svalbard’s landscapes, shaped by our own lived experience during a 10-day expedition through the archipelago.
Our goal is to offer visitors an experience that allows them to freely explore Svalbard’s visual and acoustic environments as they exist in 2025 — the Year of the Glacier. This experience functions as an experiential archive, centring on the landscapes of Svalbard. While the region is home to diverse wildlife, our focus remains on ice—its structures, textures, colours, and behaviours.

We are particularly drawn to capturing the subtle sounds that shape Svalbard’s sonic landscape. Through VR, we seek not only to allow the exploration of visual forms and textures but to amplify often-overlooked sounds—sounds that carry a profound connection to melting, transformation, and, ultimately, disappearance.
The current research is therefore focused on creating a space that allows us to admire the vastness, monumental beauty and uniqueness of such an environment but also reveals its subtle, delicate, and often imperceptible layers. At the same time, it seeks to capture its fleeting, transitional nature—a landscape on the brink of radical transformation or even disappearance.

The installation is expected to have two experiential spaces: 1) a large room with one or more video projections depicting different elements of Svalbard landscapes. 2) a VR experience in which we can explore, by moving in space, different sounds connected to different visual elements of the landscape (glaciers, icebergs, wide spaces covered by snow). The first space is more contemplative and passive, while the second space requires an active engagement, some exploratory investment and curiosity.

After an evening spent exploring Longyearbyen under almost perfect weather conditions, the next day started to change. Adding to the cold weather, the clouds, pushed by moderate to strong winds started to fill the sky above the small town. Coming all the way from Lisbon, André Nascimento, a musician and sound designer, joined the project to help with sound field recordings and sound design. After his arrival, we spent time preparing the equipment, testing, and defining a strategy to store and organise recordings. Then, we started the sound répérage, first by wandering around the town centre, then moving towards the outskirts, the naval area, the church and cemetery, the coal cable centre (Taubanesentralen), and walking along the Longyearbyen river towards the seashore. During this first day of active sound recordings, we focused on capturing the soundscapes of and around Longyearbyen, the sound of birds flocking in the Longyearbyen estuary, the sound of yard dogs howling at the distance, the sounds of the wind, the sounds of passing coal trucks, and the sounds of the river running towards the sea. This day was rich in many aspects — it not only allowed us to have a first understanding and mapping of Longyearbyen from a sonic perspective, showing us the first general different sound sources in and around town, but it also revealed a little bit of the routines of the place. This first day also exposed us immediately to one of the main difficulties in our field work — the wind. The almost omnipresent wind felt throughout the day made the sound recording process quite challenging. Wind, invisible in most photos we see from Svalbard, is an important part of the landscape. One of the main reasons why there are no trees and vegetation is scarce in the archipelago is exactly because wind is an almost permanent condition.

Despite our growing fascination with Svalbard’s social layers, we were eager to immerse ourselves in landscapes devoid of human presence. While awaiting our boat trip to the tidewater glaciers, we set out for a closer, more accessible one: Foxfonna. Located about 15 km southeast of Longyearbyen, Foxfonna lies on a flat mountain plateau above the EISCAT station.

We walked past the station, leaving behind the mechanical noise of Mine 7, which faded into a silence broken only by occasional bird calls and the sound of our own footsteps. Reaching the plateau felt like stepping into another world — a white desert interrupted by gentle snow-covered hills, reflecting sunlight in sharp variations. The scene felt more like a dream or a digital rendering than reality. This would be one of the strongest and marking experiences I have taken from Svalbard.

We set our sights on a dark snow depth marker in the distance — the only human-made object on the horizon — and began walking towards it. What looked like a short walk took more than 30 minutes, our first direct encounter with the “distance compression” effect common in such wide, featureless landscapes.

Up there, the visual experience dominated, its surrealism amplified by near-total silence. It was as if time itself had slowed. The glacier beneath the snow remained hidden despite our attempts to dig through; it was June, yet winter still clung to the ice. We recorded the ambient stillness and sent a drone aloft to capture the immensity of the plateau and its surroundings.

Appearances, however, deceive. Dr. Arwyn Edwards, a researcher in glacier ecology, describes Foxfonna as “a terminally ill glacier,” adding: “This is palliative, and yet nobody cares.” According to his observations during a recent visit to Svalbard, Foxfonna’s ice surface now lies four metres lower than it did last summer and has been steadily shrinking since his first encounter with it in 2011 (source).

While waiting for a free slot on a boat to Borebreen — despite strong winds, icy rain, and fog — we took the opportunity to continue exploring the surrounding areas of Longyearbyen, particularly those accessible only when carrying a firearm. We spent a considerable amount of time observing and recording the soundscapes around Gruve 1B and Gruve 1A, as well as the steep mountains on the left-hand side of the valley. Here, Arctic terns circled the mountaintop, most likely where their nests were hidden.

As a land of exceptional interest for scientific exploration, Svalbard hosts a range of unique infrastructures that shape the surrounding landscape — not only visually, but also sonically. To explore this less perceptible dimension, we moved towards the Seed Vault area, where we extended our recordings to capture electromagnetic soundscapes from both the building and its surroundings. Using an electromagnetic microphone crafted by Lom, we spent the day listening to the “inaudible” — sounds created by electromagnetic waves. This led us on to the mechanical infrastructure of Mine 7, with its distinctive sonic identity, and further to the EISCAT Svalbard Radar and the SOUSY Svalbard Radar (SSR). The latter is an array of antennas in Adventdalen used for troposphere and mesosphere research — studying tides, gravity waves, turbulence, and their interactions, the structure and dynamics of Polar Mesosphere Summer Echoes, as well as Arctic stratosphere–troposphere dynamics linked to the formation of Polar Stratospheric Clouds and to stratosphere–troposphere exchange processes. (source)

After spending some time listening to these technical infrastructures and their surrounding environments, our attention turned to one of the most pressing subjects in Svalbard and the Arctic: thawing permafrost. Very close to the SSR field, on the riverside of the Adventelva, our guide pointed us towards what seemed at first to be nothing more than moss and dried vegetation. After a 15-minute walk, we found cavities and cracks — some wide, some narrow — where the ice beneath the moss was exposed. Around these openings, water had begun to pool, fed by the melting permafrost. It was an unsettling sight — not only because it was the first time we'd had such a direct glimpse of permafrost, but also because of the far-reaching consequences this thawing holds for the Arctic and for the planet as a whole. Recent studies warn that abrupt permafrost thaw could double carbon emissions (Nature, 2019). In some ways, these understated images of thawing permafrost were even more troubling than the familiar photographs of melting glaciers and icebergs.

The strong wind and light snow made both sound recording and filming a challenge. We decided to return in the coming days to give it another try.

Due to bad weather conditions, we were unable to continue our expedition at sea and visit other tidewater glaciers. Instead, we decided to return to the banks of the Adventelva River to take a closer look at the thawing permafrost. This time, closer to Longyearbyen, we encountered an even more dramatic scene than in our previous observations. From the roadside, we could see patches of brown moss and tundra vegetation breaking apart, revealing white, crystalline ice beneath. The ice lifted and supported the vegetation in irregular mounds, while meltwater pooled and small streams wound between them. Clear signs of erosion and ground collapse caused by the melting permafrost hinted at what the field we had observed earlier might look like in the near future.

The rest of the day was spent exploring the landscapes of Bjorndalen (bears valley), an eight-kilometre-long valley running along a south–north axis before opening into Isfjorden. It is drained by the Bjordalselva and its tributaries, all fed by glacial meltwater. Vegetation is limited to the surrounding tundra, home to wild reindeer.

On the opposite side of Longyearbyen, we spent some time capturing the Adventdalen valley from a drone’s perspective. The flight began at Tredalshytta and ended roughly 4 km away, near Lomdammen. The footage revealed a striking travelling shot, tracing the intricate network of Adventelva’s channels as they wove their way towards the sea.

As our departure from Svalbard was approaching, on the final day — despite strong winds and a heavy, overcast sky — we managed to charter a sturdy boat to take us back to Borebreen. Our aim was to re-record the floating ice, this time with a binaural microphone to enhance the stereo image and spatial depth.

Curiously, upon arrival at Borebukta, we found the landscape had changed. Just two days earlier, the bay in front of the glacier had been crowded with ice pieces of varying sizes. According to our guides, an easterly wind had pushed much of the ice away. A few scattered pieces remained, enough to allow us to proceed with our recordings. Yet, perhaps due to the colder temperatures, the sizzling sounds we had heard so vividly two days before were now noticeably more subdued. It was, once again, a reminder of how rapidly the landscape shifts, and how dynamic the Svalbard environment is.

After spending considerable time capturing these sounds and trying to record the sharp reports of collapsing ice blocks, we decided to make a short land expedition to see the glacier front from another angle. We boarded a small support zodiac and left the main boat, heading towards the right side of the glacier (Boremorenen). From there, we hiked for nearly an hour until we reached a higher vantage point overlooking the glacier. This position allowed us to continue our environmental sound recordings while also taking privileged, high-resolution photographs of the glacier’s mass and intricate crevasses.

Back in Longyearbyen, we spent the last hours of our stay in the Bolterdalen and Adventdalen valleys, carrying out aerial filming.

After ten days of residency and fieldwork in Svalbard, we left with mixed feelings. Despite long days of hard work in difficult weather and challenging hikes that would have benefited from a fitter, better-prepared version of ourselves, we departed with the sense that much was still left to do and discover. The residency was first disrupted by our guide’s accident, and later by the demanding weather conditions we had to work through. Most days were windy, cold, and rainy — by far the greatest challenge for sound recording, video work, and drone operations. Our aim was to auscultate Svalbard and its glaciers, yet the wind often made this mission extremely difficult, and at times impossible. Sea expeditions were also curtailed by the weather, limiting our ability to visit a greater number of glaciers.

These setbacks, while at times frustrating, brought valuable insights. We came to understand — and accept — that Svalbard is an environment that resists predictability, where perfect light and acoustic conditions are rare and fleeting. One must be ready, and when those brief moments arrive, make the most of them. In this sense, what we experienced and collected lends the project a more authentic tone; it reflects Svalbard as it truly is at this time of year, rather than an idealized vision.

Although we felt the absence of certain opportunities, we gained much: knowledge of the ecosystems, of the historical and social layers of Svalbard, and an extensive collection of the sound and visual materials we had sought. Even more importantly, we made unexpected discoveries along the way — the extraordinary sonic experience of crackling floating ice, which left a lasting impression and will undoubtedly shape the final outcome of the project; the tangible, unsettling reality of thawing permafrost, visible right before us; and other moments of revelation that no amount of prior research could have anticipated.

As I had hoped, this expedition allowed me to immerse myself fully in Svalbard, experiencing it directly rather than shaping the project from afar through idealized or commonplace depictions of such a rich and nuanced environment. We wanted to carefully listen to the glaciers melting — and we did. At times the sound was quiet and discreet; at others it was punctuated by sudden, gunshot-like bangs; and sometimes it was a delicate sizzling, curiously reminiscent of hot oil in a frying pan, circling back to the very idea of global warming — ironically making me wonder how such a cold place could evoke such a warm image.

If there is one regret, it is not having been able to spend more time in the wild — with the space to explore, observe, and document the transformations of this fragile landscape at a slower, more deliberate pace. But, as always, one needs an entry door. Next time, we will return with a more nuanced approach, ready to go deeper, and to bring back even greater inspiration, awareness, and humility.