About the Film

This tidal sculpture documentary film follows ~Flow, a floating artwork moored on the Newcastle Quayside in 2012. Part tide mill, part musical instrument, part sculpture, ~Flow was built to harness the movement of the River Tyne and turn it into sound. Filmed over several months, the documentary features interviews with artist Ed Carter and members of Owl Project, alongside the builders, designers and engineers who brought the piece to life.

A Tide Mill Reimagined

Traditional tide mills used the rise and fall of the river to grind grain. ~Flow repurposes that same principle, but instead of milling grain it mills data, turning tidal movement, salinity and water flow into music. As Ed Carter explains in the film, the idea was to treat the river itself as a collaborator rather than simply a backdrop, giving the Tyne an active role in shaping the sound the piece produced.

Built to Move

The construction of ~Flow was an ambitious engineering undertaking. Built by Amble Boat Company on the Northumberland coast, the vessel is a catamaran supporting a timber-framed mill house, with a large waterwheel sitting between its hulls, an unusual sight on the Tyne. Filming the build meant working around marine engineering constraints and moving mechanical parts rarely encountered on a typical construction documentary, and getting close enough to show how the wheel, the hull and the mill house all had to work together as one moving structure.

Turning Tides into Music

As the tide rises and falls, the waterwheel turns and powers a set of acoustic instruments on board, while sensors reading salinity and water movement feed into the sound as well. One of the more unusual elements is a salinity sample sequencer, which shines lasers through river water and turns the particles and salt content suspended in the current into sonic texture. It is this blend of art, engineering and sound that made ~Flow such a rewarding subject for a tidal sculpture documentary film, since almost nothing about the piece worked the way a conventional sculpture or instrument would.

A Living Orchestra

~Flow was also designed as a participatory space. Visitors could come aboard for free and experiment with the instruments Owl Project had built into the structure, adjusting pitch, resonance and rhythm by hand as the river did the rest. The documentary spends time with people encountering the piece for the first time, treating them less as an audience and more as players in a living orchestra shaped by the Tyne’s own rhythm.

Filming ~Flow

This was the first project I filmed using both my Panasonic AF101 and a Panasonic GH2 together, a combination that gave me the flexibility to move between wide establishing shots of the vessel on the water and close, handheld detail on the instruments, the wheel and the mechanisms below deck. Shooting on and around a moving, tide-dependent structure meant working to the river’s own schedule rather than mine, and returning across several months to capture the piece in different light, tides and states of use. That patience mattered as much on this tidal sculpture documentary film as any single technical decision, since ~Flow never looked or sounded quite the same twice.

The Tyne’s Changing Story

Beyond its engineering and sound, ~Flow speaks to Newcastle’s changing relationship with its river. Ed Carter talks in the film about how the Tyne, once the engine of heavy industry, has become a cultural artery for the city over recent decades. ~Flow sat within that shift, inviting people to think of the river as a creative partner rather than simply a stretch of water to be crossed or worked. It shares that territory with Jem Finer’s Slowplayer, another North East sound art project from the same year that asked audiences to think differently about time, place and sound.

Although ~Flow’s time on the Quayside ended in 2012, it remains one of the more ambitious things I have filmed, and people who visited still remember its soundscape and its slightly playful, unpredictable spirit.