Morgan Hendry

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LONGCOVE INSTAGRAM CAMPAIGN

ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN

A Metaphor For How We Should Process Climate Change Information

The album's Instagram campaign was set up to mirror some of the challenges in understanding climate change. Pieces of larger images were revealed bottom to top over a series of days. When viewed in a user’s scrolling main feed, it was often impossible to understand what Hendry was posting. Much like conducting science in the real world, the evidence must be pieced together, analyzed as a whole, and put into a global perspective. When the content was viewed the artist's main Instagram page – in context and with an eye to the big picture – the individual posts revealed the full images and told the story behind Longcove.

The following preserves Morgan Hendry’s Longcove Instagram campaign from January 1, 2018 to March 30, 2018. The copy that accompanied each photo can be read by clicking on the images below.

VIEWING NOTES

Viewing with a wide browser window or a horizontal smartphone screen will show how the images originally appeared on Hendry’s Instagram page. Viewing in a narrow browser window or on a vertical mobile device will show how it appeared on user’s main Instagram feeds.

Make no mistake: the Earth will self regulate to restore a balanced climate. It's just that it might wipe out the things we love in the process... Longcove is available tomorrow, March 30, at morganhendry.bandcamp.com. I am so thrilled to finally share this piece of music with you all.

Let 2018 be the year we respond. Longcove available this Friday.

Here are a few previews of Longcove, available this Friday, March 30.

Longcove isn't just for a tiny community in Maine. It's about every shoreline, every landlocked town, every person on this planet. Big, small, and still to come.

Longcove. Coming March 30. Just posted a playlist of tracks on Spotify that inspired the production of the piece. Link in bio.

For now, a brief rest. Longcove is coming soon.

I have been using @Ableton Live for many years now, and it has enabled me to express myself in ways I never thought possible, both in @bewareofsafety and as a solo artist. Longcove would not have been possible without the tools and flexible workflow that Live provides. Looking forward to 10!

@arca1000000 and @eccopn are two artists that constantly inspire me. Despite the sonic pallet I used, their shadows can be heard on Longcove.

Further inspiration from Laura Bolton's African field recordings.

June 7. Brian Eno's work and techniques played heavily into the conception and execution of this record. Ambient 4: On Land was referenced often.

When the tide drops, the path can become shakey and uncertain, and lead to places unexpected. Looking into options for how Longcove is eventually presented to you all...stay tuned.

Longcove release date coming soon. Please consider following if you'd like more info on this music project!

My life has been affected by climate change, as has yours. If we do not take action, places like Long Cove will be silenced. Industries erased. Homes wiped off the map. Lives forever altered. We can only change what we are connected to. It is my hope that this piece of music will bridge the gap between my Long Cove and yours, and help more people understand what we can save by fighting climate change together.

Long Cove stands to feel the forces of climate change as well. Aside from higher high tides and increased risks from storm surges, shifting lobster populations will eventually drive one of the chief businesses of the region out to sea.Source: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-and/climate-lobsters https://www.nrcm.org/projects/climate/global-warming-air-pollution/sea-level-rise-maine/faqs-regarding-the-effect-of-sea-level-rise-in-maine/

We all have a Long Cove. We all have a special place that we would do anything to protect. Maybe it's your home. Maybe it's a place you've only seen once in your life, or some where you dream of going some day. Though I didn't live there the year round, Long Cove has directly shaped who I am today. I cannot bear to see it, and countless places like it, ravaged by the effects of climate change.

While climate change plays out over decades, it is also affecting your day-to-day actions. Possibly without you realizing it... Here in Los Angeles, drought is becoming a fact of life. During the summer, we have to conserve water for the sake of our neighbors. That means not flushing your toilet for most of the day... With my son now in the picture, we have to cross our fingers and hope that we dodge the rolling brownouts that occur as everybody in the city cranks up their air conditioning to deal with the persistent, record-breaking temperatures. Elsewhere in the US, winter storms are plunging temperatures lower and lower. Or it is getting more and more rainy. Pick your poison. No, it doesn't happen every day, nor every year, but the trend of climate change is making it harder and harder to live in our respective hometowns. For now, many of us can engineer our own personal environments to stay off the effects of what's happening outside, but I don't doubt that there is a limit to that approach.

In December 2017, Southern California was struck by a number of wildfires on a scale we have not seen before. My family was most affected by the Creek fires, which spewed smoke and ash across our neighborhood of Van Nuys for days, severly reducing air quality and forcing us to take extra measures to protect our 10 month old's tiny lungs. On a more personal note, the Thomas Fire claimed a number of homes and cabins in the tiny enclave of Ojala, just north of Ojai. One cabin, known as the Love Shack to many of its guests, was a small slice of heaven outside of Los Angeles. My wife and I would sneak away for weekends there. I proposed to her in the cabin in 2012, and recorded my album Ojai Drones on the banks of its creek in 2016. Now it is gone. Climate change is contributing to drier and drier years in California, which in turn leads to stronger and more frequent wildfires. Which leads to more frequent and damaging landslides off the recently burned terrain. Climate change isn't just about sea level rise. It affects each of us in its own way. A fund has been set up to help the residents of Ojala. Please consider giving: https://www.gofundme.com/rebuild-ojala. Photo: Mathew Auric

In September 2017, my wife and I took our 7 month old son to Bonita Springs, Flordia to visit his grandmother. Later that week, we found ourselves evacuating in the path of Hurricane Irma. Once we returned to Los Angeles, I had to watch in terror from across the country as my mother's home was battered by one of the strongest hurricanes we've ever seen. Stronger, more powerful hurricanes like Irma, Harvey, and Maria are what we should expect in a warming world.

7 years later, I began work as a Mechanical Systems engineer on the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) spacecraft. Launched in 2015, it helps monitor global ground water content for flooding, wildfire, and mudslide prevention, agriculture productivity, and weather/climate monitoring. It was one of the biggest honors of my career to help bring this mission to life. Photo credit: NASA

For years I thought that it was enough to work diligiantly in the background towards a better understanding of our Earth, that those who dictate policy would do right by our findings. Unfortunately that is no longer enough. The planet now needs every truthful voice to speak out on her behalf: climate change is real, and we must act now to reduce its impact on the future of humanity. Climate change has affected my family in 2017 - here are two examples.

In the summer of 2002, I had my first opportunity to address our changing Earth by creating satellite mission architectures to study the nearshore ecosystem off of Southern California. The student team was so successful that we were brought back for a second summer internship in 2003. Still have my original internship proposal at my desk!

In 2005 and 2006 I graduated the University of Southern California (@uscedu) with a BS and MS in Astronautical Engineering (@uscviterbi). While there, I decided use my degree to fulfill a life goal: to leave the world in better shape than when I found it.

June 2, 2017 - The United States elects to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. By November, it would be the only country on Earth to reject the agreement. This moment changed the way I approached Longcove over the coming months.

Sometimes the path you're on takes a left turn...

Longcove began as a study in time and memory. Sometimes you think you know the path you're on...

May 17-18. I've had the pleasure of taking group piano classes with Betty Oka for several semesters @pcc.piano @pcclancer, and it's improved my playing and productions dramatically. Thanks Mrs. Oka!

17 years. The idea for Longcove first came to me back in 2000 during my last trip to Maine before heading off to @uscedu in 2001. I was just starting to scratch the surface of electronic music, and, aside from drum set, had little in the way of music theory or composition to draw on. The idea would sit until I returned to Longcove a decade later.

One of the biggest things that made Longcove possible was the democratization of audio technology in the 2000's. Back in high school, the best recording equipment I could afford was the Soundblaster microphone in on my desktop computer. Today, there are a wealth of portable, high quality tools available at a reasonable cost. Longcove was recorded primarily on a Marantz PMD661 with a selection of microphones.

You know those things on your todo list that never seem to get done...

About 2.4 GB of sounds were recorded during the two trips. Over several years, the files were dissected, spliced, and prepared for production in Ableton Live.

When I returned to Maine in 2010 and 2015, I was accompanied by my brother Rob @bewproductionsllc, who helped me capture many of the sounds that appear in this piece.

17 years ago this was the tool of choice. We all had to start somewhere...

My son was born on February 20, 2017, and that May I got to take my second stretch of paternity leave. As part of that, I decided to go on a social media fast. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. While I did decide to come back after eight weeks or so, it has had a lasting impact on how I approach Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Additionally, it gave me the mental clarity needed to focus on completing Longcove.

I am excited to announce that I will be releasing a new piece of music soon, composed exclusevely out of sounds that I found in the area shown. It is deeply personal, and the result of seven years of work and two trips to Maine. Many more details to come...

Maine Cabin [1932] Built by Nell Hendry for Morgan Leland Hendry II

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