"1799.
How to become-bats?" is a radio piece focused on the exploration (by
aural means) of concepts and ideas exposed by the American zoologist
Donald Redfield Griffin – known as the scientist who
discovered
animal echolocation – in his 1959 book „Echoes of
bats and
men“. In this work Griffin, after having explained basic
concepts
on sound propagation and its use between many species of animals,
traces a systematic correlation between animals – especially
bats
– and the human species. We assume some of the book
statements as
starting points for the construction of different experiences of
radio-space.
The
piece is a fictional
documentary exploring some of the similarities between the acoustic
space that bats build to live in complete darkness and the
technologically mediated space that humans build with acoustic
prosthesis like radio devices. In a waveform space like the one
generated by contemporary wireless technologies humans perform a sort
of echolocation for situating themselves into an expanded concept of
space. In this view, humans become a sort of echolocating mammals
wandering into an electronic time/space.
The piece is an
electroacustical composition made of a texture of field-recordings of
bats and other animals recorded with special microphones; processed
digital data; electronic signals and radio waves; human voices reading
some adapted excerpts from Griffin's book. The composition traces a
psychical route between the aural world of different species, a
sounding space where animal ultrasounds and electronic signals become
progressively indiscernible.
Links:
|
PLAY
