Tag Archives: Sirenomelia

Midterm Close Reading

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Kayla Poland

ECL 305

Pressman

24 March 2024

Dual Reality

In Sirenomelia by Emilija Skarnulyte at 4:32, framing the mermaid in a small canal then immediately the vast ocean creates a drastic divergence between the two moments. These binary spaces contrast each other to reiterate the dual reality of the environment and the life it holds while being mistreated by humans. This alludes to creating a separation between human and nonhuman, in other words natural viruses not. This malalignment of visuals and sounds tells us we have created a separation power amongst these worlds. 

While understanding the first frame, it is important to recognize that she is moving through a canal that is manmade, and contains metal barriers. She is surrounded by the remains of what once were a NATO base, which is now fully decommissioned. One could say the remains being left here is presumptuous, as they could have been removed or properly disposed of. This scene itself can identify where the line is drawn between human and nonhuman. She continues to wear goggles throughout, in this polluted space that is becoming more unnatural with time because of human acts. It is important to note how the sounds accompany this scene and how they are somewhat eerie. The power of humans is seeming to overtake the natural form of the environment, making us separate from it. Humans left the remains, polluting the entire ecosystem that resides there while trying to maintain its biodiversity. 

In the following clip she is welcomed into the open ocean, while the sounds take a drastic shift to become calm and relaxing. As she becomes free from the small, enclosed area she demonstrates how marine life ought to be free and uncaged. This again highlights the separation between human and nonhuman whilst emphasizing the power that humans have granted themselves over the natural world. The sound of the open ocean is peaceful and inviting, while the enclosed space with manmade parts blares. This allows us to feel different emotions during each moment, and have the noise be the words that were not said aloud. 

It is important to note that the mermaid herself was not in a realistic costume, but clearly a human dressed up while she was swimming through the water. This provides another moment where it is made clear that humans try to remain in control in a place that is meant to be natural. Also noting that she wears a mask for the sake of protecting herself from the toxicity of the water from the remains. 

Having these binary scenes parallel to each other brings forth alternating perspectives of the environment. The one that is altered to fit human needs, and on the other hand the one that is in its natural form. These next to each other allows us to compare the two worlds and see how we have separated them from each other. Emphasizing the ability that humans have to create and destroy as we wish and build while breaking down the natural world. 

There is this strange power dynamic that humans have taken on, but there is an aspect where Sirenomelia reminded us how big the ocean is and how much life can be held within. Almost in a way warning us to proceed with caution, because the environment can regrow itself around our destruction. The constant comparison, especially in literary work we have studied, goes to show how humans comprehend this power dynamic. When really there is clearly a lack of knowledge, and maybe even misunderstanding when it comes to other creatures and the depth of the ocean. This film allows us to take a step back and recognize how we treat the environment and understand its effects, but also that human and nonhuman do not have to be parallel, and can work together. 

Week 11: Horror for Whom?

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Watching Emilija Skarnulyte’s short film “Sirenomelia” reminded me of found footage, a subgenre of horror movies that heavily involve cameras and employ a first-person point of view (POV), which also reminds me of why found footage movies are a thing. In found footage movies, a group of characters use cameras to record their “discovery,” which happens to be the home or resting place of a monster or a deadly nature spirit. Often, one of the members of the group will disrupt the monster’s home or break a rule, which will understandably upset the monster and give them cause to come after them. We always view the movie from the disruptor’s/enabler’s POV, but never from the monster’s POV. Perhaps the monster is going through a horror movie of their own, seeing someone disrupt their home and break their rules so brazenly.

“Sirenomelia” is an interesting short film because it feels like a found footage horror movie, but instead of being from the POV of a human exploring the decommissioned submarine base, we get it from the point of view of a “monster”–a siren. If this found footage film was made from the POV of a human, we would only get a view of the base at the beginning of the film. We’d see the mountains, the surface of the icy sea, the inside of the base, and the lonely expanse of the land. Without the siren’s POV, we wouldn’t be able to see the underwater rail and the sea life that has made its home on the metal poles holding up the base. Exploring the submarine base from the siren’s point of view essentially turns us away from our terracentrist, anthropocentric view and asks us to explore another POV that is not human and not land-based.

Sirenomelia

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This week, we watched the short film “Sirenomelia” by NOWNESS. This was an extremely confusing, yet interesting short film. It was extremely haunting and eerie, and its confusion only. amplified the feelings I felt while watching this short film. Defined as “a contemporary culture piece of the ‘New East'” in the description of the video, This piece features sci-fi-esque music that is described as the white noise of a quasar over what feels like a soulless video. I found the symmetrical shots in the beginning of the video to be extremely interesting after looking up the definition of the word sirenomelia, which happens to be a rare condition where a newborn will be born with legs conjoined together. Sirenomelia is referred to as the mermaid syndrome because of this. The shots are long, and with the knowledge I have obtained from a film class I took in high school, these shots are intentional ways of creating stress and tension, as your brain is trained to wait for something to happen in a shot. The mermaid creature that is featured in the second half of the film seems almost lifeless. You cannot see its eyes and it is alone. It almost feels like it is a robotic freak of nature. The closing shot of the mermaid swimming in what looks like an infinite and empty ocean gives me a nihilistic perspective of what life would look like to these creatures. The description also states that the film is essentially about a mermaid exploring an abandoned NATO base, but because of the eerie direction, it is hard to follow (which I mean as a compliment as it truly induced a feeling of angst in me). The ending leaves me feeling empty, which I come to realize I felt that way throughout the entire short, from the long title sequence to the symmetrical shots of the antenna.

Sirenomelia

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Eerie. Liminal. Isolated. I can only imagine that someone with Sirenomelia must feel isolated with the condition that they have. What piqued my interest is that when I looked up the word “sirenomelia”, Google told me that not only is this mutation extremely rare, but the likelihood of survival past childhood is even more uncommon. Therefore, I wonder if Škarnulytė purposefully created an isolated character to display how someone who has sirenomelia might feel. I like this piece because it explores a more modern form of art that we haven’t looked at yet in class.

Another aspect of the film I think is cool is the fusion of documentary and fiction. Part of the film observes the natural environment. The sound recordings from a quasar and the slow panning of the desolate landscape. On the other hand, there are depictions of a mermaid in a warmer climate.

Škarnulytė draws an interesting parallel between the deep cosmic and the deep water. I like how the shots of the deep ocean are combined with the cosmic soundtrack and the galactic sounds. It seems like the filmmaker is trying to emphasize the similarities between the Ocean and Space. Somehow this short draws the curious eyes and ears through suspense and the uncanny environment. It starts by showing a place at 2 above freezing, a temperature humans can’t survive in, and I only reluctantly experience for short periods in my ice bath. Although there are people who live above the Arctic Circle, it is for the most part abandoned by humans. Even the word “decommissioned” adds an element of spectrality, making the space seem more liminal. I’d like to hear what my classmates think of this film, and if it reminds them of anything.

The use of variable white balance also makes me question the choice of warmer colors towards the end of the film. Could it be to emphasize a warmer climate? Invoke intimacy with the character? Why did it go black and white for a moment? Was that to make it seem like a long time ago? Galaxy far far away?

Sirenomelia

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I watched the video at least 5 times trying to understand its purpose and meaning. What I saw was a NATO base in the Arctic with scenes of melting ice and no signs of life other than the Sirenomelia. The video description says “… Sirenomelia—named after a rare congenital deformity called Mermaid Syndrome— sees a mermaid explore a decommissioned NATO base in Arctic Norway.” With this intel, I interpret the video to be a call for action for humans to address climate change. I went ahead and researched what a NATO base was, and it was intended to protect humans against “a variety of threats” but now the challenge is “from human actions against the natural environment” (Bennet). With this context, the video shows the failed mission of humans to protect the environment, and this is further interpreted due to the Sirenomelia shown in the video. As mentioned above, Sirenomelia is a congenital deformity which can symbolize how humans’ relationship to the environment is distorted. 

Bennet, Maddy. “NATO’s Role in Securing a Changing Arctic.” The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, 6 May 2020, jsis.washington.edu/news/natos-role-in-securing-a-changing-arctic/#:~:text=NATO%E2%80%99s%20involvement%20in%20the%20Arctic%20to,long%20term%20due%20to%20environmental%20damage.&text=NATO%E2%80%99s%20involvement%20in%20the,due%20to%20environmental%20damage.&text=in%20the%20Arctic%20to,long%20term%20due%20to. 

Week 11: Sirenomelia

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While watching Sirenomelia, it felt very off-putting and almost uncomfortable to watch. The sounds in the background and visuals in the beginning definitely contributed to this feeling. It reminded me of watching an episode of Black Mirror where you are so drawn in but you’re not really sure why. It’s simultaneously familiar, while also unsettlingly surreal. The juxtaposition of the mermaid figure against the backdrop of a decommissioned NATO base in the Arctic Circle creates the surreal atmosphere, similar to the unsettling scenes often seen in the Black Mirror episodes. When the camera panned to the mermaid swimming in an industrialized area, it created a contrast that shows the clash between nature and human intervention. It kind of made me feel uneasy as there could easily be mythical creatures living among the ocean and coexisting with the manmade. I think this scene portrays the consequences of industrialization on ecosystems and the intrusion of human activity on natural environments. The inoperative site once filled with activity and human presence now stands abandoned and still, serving as an obstruction among the surrounding natural environment. This sense of desolation, isolation, and decay of the abandoned landscape adds to the overall uneasiness that I felt and I’m sure other viewers felt through watching the film. I feel as if the mermaid and the decommissioned base serve as constructs of past and present, as well as imagination versus reality. The mermaid is a timeless presence, as they have been ingrained across numerous cultures and time periods. They tend to symbolize the untamed forces of nature and the lure of the unknown. The mermaid exists beyond time constraints and can transcend boundaries, or even the lack thereof.

The ending of the film shows the mermaid swimming, on the open ocean from an aerial view. To me, I think this truly shows the endless possibilities and unknowns that may lie in the ocean and beyond the known world. Just as the ocean offers a limitless amount of opportunities, so does the human imagination. Knowing how vast the ocean is truly scares me and maybe it should. Maybe we weren’t meant to explore the ocean, but I still find myself questioning what we are missing by not diving deeper.

Week 11: Sirenomelia

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This week’s Sirenomelia left me a bit confused. What stood out to me is the connection between humans and sirens that we have talked about in class. The portrayal of advanced technology in the form of satellite systems can be seen as the representation of “man made” things. Next there is the deep ocean with the representation of a siren that swimming around. When looking at those two representations the viewers have been confronted with a threshold/ liminal state between the two “different” worlds. But what is the real meaning behind the video? I came up with two different analyses about the core message of the video. The first is, that through technology, humans have learnt to find a way to conduct research on oceans and thus also on mermaids. The second analysis could be that the liminal state between humans and mermaids can never be crossed as long as humans are irritated by wrong narratives. What I mean by wrong narratives is the discussion we had about STEM and STEAM. As long as humans tend to believe in STEM instead of STEAM, the liminal state will never be crossed again. Humans will see mermaids as this indistinctive figure that only exist in a world of fairytales, whereas the siren (as shown in the video) is accepting the world of the humans, as she looking at human inventions like the bridge.

I am eager to hear more about that in class! My analysis might be wrong.

Sirenomelia

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Sirenomelia left me with many questions.
The video was a bit strange, but the first things that came to mind were the following:

What does NATO do? Why is that operation “decommissioned”? What were they doing there? Is this video real or staged?

So according to google, NATO’s purpose is to guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means. Security in the ocean… from what??

This video made it more apparent to me that we really don’t know what’s going on in the ocean , but also politically. Politics are also part of the environment, but our access to information is very limited. There are many classified things that isn’t revealed to the public and this video is sending me down a conspiracy rabbit-hole. 😭

Mermaids are probably real and the government probably knows this too…

Week 11: Sirenomelia

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This week’s video left me confused, interested but also a bit scared in a way. It was hard to forget about the audio because it sounded like screeching noises but it had taken me back to a certain day in class in which we listened to the theme song for a mermaid tv show. I thought it was interesting to use that noise as the history of sirens that I have learned showed that these mythical beings used their song to lure sailors which made it feel almost intentional to use as it would lure in viewers to continue watching. The opening scenes were a bit confusing as I didn’t know what I was supposed to be seeing from the kaleidoscope scene but what really caught my attention was the amount of snow and ice there was. It makes me think about how this is also a different form of nature that is a bit more neglected and ultimately doesn’t get the attention needed, the area in which this was filmed in has most likely changed as global warming continues to be an issue but it continues to not be a public issue as it is a place that is out of our nature element and seems extraordinary. There was a scene in which the mermaid was swimming between two pieces of land and it kept taking me back to last week’s class in which the big topic that was talked about was not being able to claim the Ocean. In a way for me it continued to show the idea of flow and flexibility that the Ocean has as it is a constant moving place that is touched by so many things but yet there is no clear indication that countries have full claim over parts of the water. The closing scene in which the mermaid was swimming through the Ocean also resinated with me as it showed how small humans are in comparison to the Ocean but yet there’s this belief in humans that they are the most “powerful” being on Earth, so if we’re this “big” and “powerful” why don’t we take up 71% of the planet? Why is it that the Ocean does? And why is it that the Ocean is continued to be portrayed as a small part of our world when in fact it is something huge?

Week 11: The Sounds of Sirenomelia

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While there were many aspects of this film project that stood out to me, the audio was the one thing I could not ignore. It was unsettling at times and loud, but there were times where it was also very peaceful. The sounds of the ocean and the waves lapping against the ice was a stark contrast to the high-pitched and occasionally distorted frequencies that would play soon after. This contrast signifies the unnaturalness of humans being so involved in the ocean. The more peaceful audio shown with the natural scenery of both the ocean and the land showcase how the environment is at peace when it is untouched by humans. When there are no buildings or roads placed into the natural formations of the land or sea, the environment is at equilibrium. However, when there are man-made satellites, ports, passageways, etc the audio becomes more uncomfortable to listen to, signifying that the environment is uncomfortable when humans start to interfere with it. Even though the base has been decommissioned and seems to be abandoned, the structures still exist and create a lasting mark on the environment. The ocean and the land surrounding it has been disrupted for human gain, so the audio forces viewers to be uncomfortable in the same way that the environment is after being altered. 

The audio of this video project also reminds me of the discussion in class we had about what a siren song would sound like. The ending scene contained audio that was almost hypnotic. It was both a little unnerving but also peaceful at the same time which made me think about what would be in a mermaid or a siren’s song. The sample of the mermaid song we listened to in class was a bit more melodic and sounded a little more human but the audio here was a little more animalistic, in that it reminded me of whale calls. This reinforces the idea that the ocean is so vast and unexplored that we, as humans, cannot fathom all that exists in it and we cannot imagine what a mermaid song could sound like. Does it lean more towards the example we heard in class or does it sound more like the audio in this short film? I think the basis of a siren song would be that it makes humans uneasy and intrigued.