Sur le Chanson des Oiseaux

Why is the bird the only animal known for its musicality? Messiaen's love of the songbird was well-documented, and sound is immediately associated with the relaxing air of the country landscape. Hell, I even wrote a piece of music last year called Passeriformes (pretension most certainly intended). I've often wondered if there are any other animals that make any sound that could be classed as 'musical'. Obviously Cage would say that anything you hear would be music, and of course I'm bound to agree to an extent, but I'm thinking more within a wider cultural sphere. Would many people consider the howl of a wolf 'musical'? The hum of a swarm of locusts? I've long been fascinated by frog calls - as varied and distinctive as birds, but less discussed. Interestingly, the only frog that makes a sound anything like the "ribbit" we've come to associate with all species lives in the Los Angeles area (or so I heard). No prizes for guessing why that's the one that gets used in films...

But anyway, back to birds. I went to the Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's installation at the Curve Gallery in the Barbican Centre recently: comprising of two rooms exploring a multimedia approach to art and sound. Upon walking in, through the metal chain curtain and strobe light, we were struck by a wireframe image of devilishly fast guitar playing projected onto the wall, accompanied by a strange buzzing that sounded like a broken laptop. Amid the sand and dry grasses the effect was fairly surreal, but context came only from the exhibition program; the sound was apparently generated from translating the black-and-white image directly into sound (presumably through Max/MSP or something). The effect was interesting, and the aim of subverting the audience's expectation of a 'performance' pretty clear, but the overall effect was just weak; without a clear understanding of how one influenced the other, the image and sound were discordant. I've often considered art (by which I don't just mean the visual) to be more about a relationship between artist and audience. When the audience can't see or appreciate how or why the artist created a piece of art (be it a painting or piece of music), the relationship is interrupted and the loop broken.

The second room, however, was certainly the main attraction: inverted cymbals with contact microphones attached, and electric guitars and basses poised horizontally on stands were placed among the post-apocalyptic desert decor. Yet the key ingredient was the addition of a whole flock of Zebra Finches living amongst the instruments. Flitting about from string to sting, the tiny movements of the birds amplified through the induction on the pickups, a subtle yet complex choreography took place.



I found the whole thing incredibly fascinating, and stood transfixed for quite some time as the birds flew around the instruments, building nests in the headstocks, seemingly oblivious to the humancs gawping at them and the sounds made by their flights. Sadly I couldn't take a photo because of the constant presence of the gallery staff making sure no-one ran off with a new pet bird, but I was able to surreptitiously make a field recording (if you can call it that) on my phone. The quality's fairly terrible, but gives some idea of the actual sound produced.



There's probably a lot to be said about the installation, contrasting the frailty of the finches with the image of the electric guitars as signifiers of power and exaggerated masculinity, or forcing the audience to reconsider the meaning of a musical performance. I spent a fair while studying one bird intently as it walked up and down the fretboard, creating a fairly comic chromatic scale; to what extent did the bird associate its own movements with the sound coming from the speaker behind it? This sort of thing could be used as an intelligence test for animals, similar to the mirror test, ascertaining their sense of the abstract. While Pavlov rang a bell for his dogs, their behavioural conditioning associated the sound with a basic need (food). The conditions are fairly different, but hell, it could be interesting.

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. The birds demonstrated precisely what it was that I found unsatisfying (and slightly self-indulgent) about the first half of the installation. The association between the sound and the visual aspect was obvious, thus completing the artistic loop. I suppose it was that directness, itself a kind of artistic feedback or something, that really drew me to the piece. It's probably why I find texture in paintings so important; I love seeing the artist's hand, seeing how it was made. Presumably this all stems from my fascination with taking stuff apart to see how it works. Essentially, I'm just a massive child.

Quite a bit of the promotional stuff I'd seen, and the reviews for the show, played up the comical aspect of a load of birds on guitars, but just to look at it as inherently amusing is pretty destructive. I mean, sure, the absurdity of the situation is kind of objectively funny, but to appreciate it solely on that level misses out on the contemplative effects of the art-feedback-loop thing. I don't know. I really like the idea of loops. I'm sure it's been done before though? Maybe not. I should come up with my own name for them.

But yeah, it was dead good. Recommend.