Bioacoustics
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v IssueAntennae 27 - Winter 2013 ISSN 1756-9575 Bioacoustics Craig Eley – “Making Them Talk”: Animals, Sound and Museums / Catherine Clover – Listening in the City / Cecilia Novero – Birds on Air: Sally Ann McIntyre’s Radio Art / Sari Carel – What is the Sound of One Bird Singing / Matthew Brower – Ceri Levy: The Bird Effect / Adam Dodd – David Rothenberg: Bug Music / Helen J. Bullard – Listening to Cicadas: Pauline Oliveros / Michaële Cutaya – Fiona Woods: animal Opera / Austin McQuinn – The Scandal of the Singing Dog / Jennifer Parker-Starbuck 1–Chasing Its Tail: Sensorial Circulations of One Pig / Merle Patchett – Perdita Phillips: Sounding and Thinking Like an Ecosystem / Justin Wiggan – The Phonic Cage and the Loss of the Edenic Song Antennae The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture Editor in Chief Giovanni Aloi Academic Board Steve Baker Ron Broglio Matthew Brower Eric Brown Carol Gigliotti Donna Haraway Linda Kalof Susan McHugh Rachel Poliquin Annie Potts Ken Rinaldo Jessica Ullrich Advisory Board Bergit Arends Rod Bennison Helen J. Bullard Claude d’Anthenaise Petra Lange-Berndt Lisa Brown Chris Hunter Karen Knorr Rosemarie McGoldrick Susan Nance Andrea Roe David Rothenberg Nigel Rothfels Angela Singer Mark Wilson & Bryndís Snaebjornsdottir Global Contributors Sonja Britz Tim Chamberlain Lucy Davis Amy Fletcher Katja Kynast Christine Marran Carolina Parra Zoe Peled Julien Salaud Paul Thomas Sabrina Tonutti Johanna Willenfelt Copy Editor Maia Wentrup Front Cover Image: Giovanni Aloi, The Zookeeper Says, found image, 1963 © Giovanni Aloi 2 EDITORIAL ANTENNAE ISSUE 27 In 2011 an article published in The New Yorker titled ‘Prince of Darkness’, brought to the surface an interesting aspect of Jacques Arcadelt’s madrigal of 1539 called Il Bianco y Dolce Cigno in which the text presents a typical Renaissance double-entendre, comparing the cry of a dying swan to the 'joy and desire' of sexual oblivion. At the climax, the voices split into an ecstatic series of wavelike lines — the first graphic simulation in music of orgasm. Shifting away from the historical epistemological prominence that sight and the visual have played in the forming of our understanding of the world, this issue proposes a human-animal aural turn. Far from being understood as a radical liberation from the visual, the images chosen for the front and back covers of this issue, two of the most classic See ‘N’ Say early acoustic toys, function as ambiguous reminders that in human-animal relations sound can be just as epistemologically affirmative as the visual, especially in our early formative years. Starting from the notion of recording natural sounds as central to the practices of institutionalised preservation for the purpose of education and entertainment explored by Craig Eley, the issue focuses on the quintessential animal voice: that of birds. Our starting point is therefore grounded in the affirmation of classical mimetic values. From here on, the issue attempts to depart from such trope through the reconfigurations of a number of contemporary artists and scholars. The multifaceted human-bird relationals revisited through the medium of sound are thus explored through the artistic practice of Catherine Clover; connections between listening and thinking, perceiving and imagining, sound and movement, language and the city are considered in this piece with specific reference to the everyday and the ordinary. Cecilia Novero’s discussion of New Zealand- based artist Sally Ann McIntyre's site-specific art transmission raises questions about colonialism, nationalism, and the environment. Novero argues that operating in the realm of sounds both with an ear to birds, and with critical attention to the technological and institutional history of the medium of radio, McIntyre broadcasts Mark Dion’s call to resist nostalgia in our relationships with animals. An exploration of the potentialities proposed by the intertwining of sound and visuality is drawn by a series of graphic works by Sari Carel in which a soundtrack incorporating the original recordings of extinct and nearly extinct birds creates a layered sonic environment enveloping the viewer. As sound turns into drawing and unfurls notions of transformation, translation and extinction, the piece emerges as a document chronicling that which is slowly disappearing. A clear activist approach to preventing the extinction of birds is brought into focus by Ceri Levy, well known film-m aker, writer, and curator. In an extensive interview with Matthew Brower, Levy discusses the challenges involved in preventing the extinction of protected bird species and demonstrates how visual and sonic arts can aid the process. The central section of this issue takes a stark insect turn with another quintessential animal voice, that of cicadas, through the musical work of David Rothenberg, writer and performer actively engaged in human-animal relations subjects. He is the author of Why Birds Sing, a book on making music with birds, Thousand Mile Song, on making music with whales and most recently, Bug Music. Insect-human sound-relations are further explored by contemporary artists Helen Bullard and Pauline Oliveiros. Oliveiros, an illustrious improviser, composer, performer, Founder and Executive Director of Deep Listening Institute, humanitarian, and writer, has, in her life of over eighty years, impacted the world’s appreciation and understanding of what listening is, and can be. The third section of the issue proposes a series of difficult and complex considerations on animal presences in contemporary operas and experimental musical performances through Michaële Cutaya’s discussion of Fiona Wood’s animal Opera, Austin McQuinn’s questioning of Alexander Raskatov’s opera A Dog’s Heart and Jennifer Parker-Starbuck’s exploration of One Pig, by experimental musician Matthew Herbert. The issue concludes on a holistic note emerging from Merle Patchett’s interview to Perdita Phillips, a Western Australian artist working across the media of walking, sound, installation, photography and digital media. A coda is provided by the enigmatic and non-affirmative sketching of the phonic cage and the loss of the edenic song by Justing Wiggan. My gratitude goes to all the kind colleagues and contributors involved in the making of this issue, and most especially Chris Hunter and Helen Bullard for providing extremely useful and defining help, advice, and inspiration. Giovanni Aloi Editor in Chief of Antennae Project Lecturer in Visual Culture: Queen Mary University of London Sotheby's Institute of Art Tate Galleries 3 CONTENTS ANTENNAE ISSUE 27 6 “Making Them Talk”: Animals, Sound and Museums Historians and theorists have often identified the natural history museum as a primarily visual experience, but starting in the 1930s, museums were audiovisual spaces. The development of mobile sound recording by the ornithologists at Cornell University reconfigured natural history knowledge and the way that knowledge was conveyed to the public. Natural history museums added audio playback technologies to their static taxidermic displays in response to the rapid development of entertainment technologies outside of the museum, especially synchronized sound motion pictures. However, these new, "scientific" environmental sounds were implemented largely through representational paradigms that had been established by popular entertainment forms. This essay looks specifically at exhibitions at the Cornell University Museum and the American Museum of Natural History in order to amplify the ways that recorded natural sounds were embedded in the techniques and technologies of preservation, education, and entertainment. Text by Craig Eley 19 Listening in the City This article looks at our relationship with nature through the voices of common noisy wild urban birds (ravens and crows, seagulls, pigeons, starlings, sparrows). Using three recent exhibitions from my art practice (A Filth of Starlings, Us & Them Umwelten and The Auspices 2012), the article looks at our relationship with these birds, our understanding and misunderstanding of them and how we share our cities with them. Connections between listening and thinking, perceiving and imagining, sound and movement, language and the city are made with specific reference to the everyday and the ordinary. Text by Catherine Clover 31 Birds on Air: Sally Ann McIntyre’s Radio Art The essay considers New Zealand-based Sally Ann McIntyre's mini-FM radio station for programme-based and site-specific art transmission, i.e., Radio Cegeste. In particular, the article focuses on the programmes conceived for Radio Cegeste, namely a series of radio projects in which the artist investigates avian acoustics at the crossroads between museology and this medium’s history. Based on several conversations with the artist and a long interview, the essay offers an appraisal of the myriads of ways in which McIntyre approaches issues such as New Zealand's colonial past, nationalism, as well as the environment. At the same time it situates McIntyre's production within the larger context of other contemporary art with birds. The essay argues that operating in the realm of sounds both with an ear to, for instance, birds, and with critical attention to the technological and institutional history of the medium of radio, McIntyre translates for radio Mark Dion’s call, in his manifesto, to resist nostalgia. Text by Cecilia Novero 45 What is the Sound of One Bird Singing Semaphore Island is a sound and print project utilizing found sound and early