Betsey Biggs

Immersive audiovisual installation based on feature-length music-film sung to life by members of Moving Star vocal ensemble and Hazel Biggs, using ice core data, archival footage and sounds, images, and stories collected through fieldwork in Ilullisat, Greenland. 4k color, Dolby Atmos sound. 74 minutes.

In the spring of 2024, I applied for and was awarded a two-week residency from CU Boulder’s ATLAS B2 Center for Music, Art & Performance to create an immersive installation based on my music-film, MELT: The Memory of Ice, which I titled MELT: Topographic Remix. This residency allowed me to work with a fully immersive projection system and a 40.4 ambisonic sound array, not to mention wonderful staff.

It was important to me to truly create a space of contemplation and transformation for the audience to wander through and witness, rather than simply playing the film in a gallery space. B2 Scholar in Residence and surround sound mixing engineer Sean Winters and I began creating a much more adventurous spatial audio mix than the original film soundtrack had employed. Technical & Production Specialist Brad Gallagher and I began experimenting with image mirroring and an immersive screen arrangement, and I believe the visual transformations of the film’s images allow us to understand the images in a different, more imaginary way: a kind of inner topography.

MELT: Topographic Remix premiered at CU Boulder's ATLAS B2 Center for Music, Art & Performance in October 2024. It was subsequently exhibited at the New Bedford Art Museum's “Arctic Voices” show which brought together contemporary and historical Arctic artworks including several indigenous works. In January 2025, Jared Bowen of WGBH’s “The Culture Show” invited me, along with the museum’s director, to be interviewed about both the film and the installation, and its relationship to the rest of the “Arctic Voices” exhibit. In June 2025, MELT: Topographic Remix was selected for exhibition at the 2025 International Computer Music Conference, at the Emerson College Media Art Gallery.

CREDITS

writer, director, composer, editor:
Betsey Biggs

producers:
Betsey Biggs
Susan Capitelli

executive producer:
Jill Mazursky

contributing producers:
James and Elinor Biggs
Susan Capitelli
Ann Reeves and Bill Swanson
John Wrobel

director of photography:
Troy Fairbanks

moving star vocal ensemble:
Sasha Bogdanowitsch
Emily Eagen
Tim Kiah
Jeremy Lydic
Holly Nadal
Onome
Peter Sciscioli

solo vocalist:
Hazel Biggs

recording engineer & vocal mix:
Jeff Cook
2nd Story Sound

music producer & mixing engineer:
Michael Hammond
Big Ship Audio

postproduction services:
Peder Morgenthaler
Frame Linear
Mass FX

atmos surround sound mix:
Sean Winters

immersive projection:
Brad Gallagher

very special thanks:
Eric Coombs Esmail
Ondine Geary
Christian Hammons
Amy Harrison
Tara Knight
Sharifa Lafon
James Manning
Jeremiah Moore
Chris Petillo
Laurids Andersen Sonne
Suzanne de Vegh
Amber Vistein

PERFORMANCES AND EXHIBITIONS

2025: 2025 International Computer Music Conference, Emerson College Media Art Gallery, Boston, MA, USA

2024-25: “Arctic Voices,” New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA, USA

2024: ATLAS B2 Center for Music, Art & Performance, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

PRESS

2025: Mark Feeney, “"In New Bedford, heading way up north and way, way out there,” The Boston Globe, Boston, MA, January 15, 2025.

2025: Jared Bowen, “January 6, 2025 - Arctic Voices, The New Garden Society, and upcoming screenings at The Brattle Theatre,” The Culture Show, WGBH, Boston, MA, USA. January 6, 2025.

2025: 2025 Sawyer Smook-Pollitt, “Timeless Echoes Through Ice: Exploring Beauty, Change, and Life from the Far North,” Artscope Magazine, January/February 2025.

2025: 2024 Don Wilkinson, “Art Museum’s ‘Arctic Voices’ a fascinating, thoughtful and diverse exhibition,” The New Bedford Light, November 1, 2024.