There are many things about Audemars Piguet (AP) any watch aficionado can admire. They have revolutionized the watchmaking art on many occasions: from introducing the first wrist-worn minute repeater in 1892, to changing the way we think of sports watches as luxury items in the 1970s, to being the only watch brand still in the hands of the founding family, and to winning three prizes at the 2019 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) — including the top prize. However, for me what makes me admire the famed watch brand is what they do outside of watchmaking. For instance, their sustain involvements in the arts, which is in full view again at the 2019 Art Basel in Miami Beach, FL. And this year they may have reached the pinnacle of that long-term patronage with their sponsorship of Norwegian sound artist Jana Winderen.
Norwegian sound artist Jana Winderen
Last year I interviewed Mr. Olivier Audemars, direct grandson of one of the founders and Vice Chairman of the AP board of directors. During that conversation, Mr. Audemars was clear that AP’s efforts are for the long term and that AP has a multi-generation approach to their sponsorship in the arts. As you may recall, in 2018 they sponsored Argentine artist Tomas Saraceno who was exploring a sustainable livable means using the sun’s power. That same year they also sponsored London-based artist Davide Quayola who took multidimensional videos of the Vallée de Joux. Quayola explored how the Vallée has changed and the environmental impact of climate change has had on this location in the Jura Mountains that AP has called home for over 100 years.
Mr. Olivier Audemars (right) during the Aerocene presentation in 2018 in Miami Beach, FL
As Mr. Audemars said to me, their sponsorship of the arts has had a deeper impact on the brand than they had ever anticipated. AP has since committed to improving its environmental impact in the Vallée but also to be a fore bearer to watchmaking enterprises that take the efforts to reduce their ecological footprints while also increasing the consciousness and awareness of the impacts we all have on the planet. For 2019, Audemars Piguet, with the help of sound artist Jana Winderen, is turning to the oceans and specifically to the sound pollution that we are creating (knowingly or unknowingly) on the oceans and its inhabitants. With an exhibition at the Rotunda in the heart of Miami Beach, AP showed us the results of this work and it’s nothing short of breathtaking, sad, while also joyful.
With the help of long-time collaborator, sound engineer and scientist, University of Surrey Professor Tony Myatt, the artist spent a few days at the Miami harbor to record the various sounds that the different species that make Miami Beach their home. The resulting soundtrack is like a natural symphony of nature. While the oceans cover 70% of our blue planet, they are perhaps the least understood parts of our common homeland. And coupled with the many evidences that we can see and now acknowledge about climate change, the oceans are screaming from the pain that they are feeling. The underwater symphony that the artist Jana Winderen recorded is at times clobbered by the overpowering of the sound that shipping and cruise liners produce on the fragile ecosystem.
Listening to the soundtrack in the darken room with 22 speakers set to encircle listeners inside the Rotunda, you can not only hear, but also feel, the resulting impact that the war-like sounds have on the natural soundtrack of the ocean. One can only hope that the resulting sound pollution can be dealt with by the creatures living in the deep. And we know that many creatures (including humans) do experience increase stress levels when subjected to loud external sounds. Talking to Professor Myatt after the artist’s presentation, he reminded me that various research by oceanographers have already proven that the noise pollution of ocean liners in the Nordic seas are actively causing harm to the endangered Blue Whales. These magnificent creatures, the largest known animal to exist on our planet, use sound to not only communicate between them but also as a means to help find places to eat and to meet with others of their kind in order to mate.
The large ocean liners have created divisions among these giants and thereby slowly impacting their habitats and the future of their species. And this is on top of the impacts of warming oceans and bleaching corrals. So is it all doom and gloom? Is this work just about pointing out how we (humans) are we the worst noise polluter on the planet — in addition to many ills we are causing to our animals neighbors. Well there is a little hope. The artist’s work also showed the beauty of the noise deep in the ocean. The cacophony created by large to small animals. How they communicate (or at least we believe) and the music that they play. By highlighting these unknown sounds, AP’s ultimate goal is to help raise a new generation that tries to hopefully build boats and cruise liners that have less impact on the medium we know has created all life on earth: the oceans.
So what does this have to do with watchmaking? Well as mentioned during my talk with Mr. Audemars last year, AP does not do these patronages in order to get a direct results on their business. However, for me, every time they do sponsor one of these art exhibitions, as it is often the case with art, they end up with unintended consequences and benefits. For instance in this case, Jana Winderen, during her residency in the Vallée de Joux, had a chance to have long conversations with the current watchmakers, including those responsible for AP’s supersonneries and minute repeaters. As a watch aficionado, I already know that AP has proven its mastery of adding sounds to mechanical watches, they are arguably the best at it. The 2019 GPHG win is proof positive of that. But what we don’t see is the emotion and the search for pleasant sounds that goes into creating these highly emotional timepieces.
By exposing their watchmakers to soulful projects such as Jana Winderen’s work, one can hope that the future minute repeaters from AP will not only keep getting more perfect, mechanically; but also produce the kind of sounds that not only tells the time audibly, but does so by blending into our human environments and be as pleasant as the sounds these crustaceans in the shores of Miami did in the artist’s ocean soundtrack. The overall result is a better connection between the little mechanical marvels we admire and collect, with the environment we live in. For this effort, and many like it, Audemars Piguet will always remain to me one of the watch brands that stands apart from the rest. They truly are a family business, a watch brand for the human family. AudemarsPiguet.com
For 2019, Audemars Piguet (AP), with the help of sound artist Jana Winderen, is turning to the oceans and specifically to the sound pollution that we are creating (knowingly or unknowingly) on the oceans and inflicting on its inhabitants. With an exhibition at the Rotunda in the heart of Miami Beach, AP showed us the results of this work and it’s nothing short of breathtaking, sad, while also joyful.