AITSC
And in the Silence Came…
AV Installation – Collaboration with Clare Langan
Duration: 8 min
This audiovisual installation is situated at the intersection of artistic practice and ecological research. Developed during a masterclass with Bernie Krause, the work emerges from an extended engagement with the sonic environment of Nantesbuch, a landscape undergoing processes of rewilding. Through immersive moving image and amplified environmental sound, the installation draws attention to animals, insects, and micro-ecologies that persist at the threshold of audibility, often obscured by human activity and sound pollution.
By digitally transforming these sounds, the work makes otherwise invisible ecological patterns perceptible, inviting reflection on the delicate balance of life and the ongoing environmental changes and transformations of natural habitats. At its core lies the dawn chorus, approached as a temporal and ecological marker – a living indicator of biodiversity, habitat integrity, and rhythmic coexistence. The installation forms an immersive, shared map of living sound that bridges local experience and global patterns. Through attentive listening, perception becomes an embodied way of sensing continuity, fragility, and change within a shared environment.
The work foregrounds sound as both medium and evidence. By processing and amplifying environmental recordings, it reveals acoustic layers increasingly suppressed by anthropogenic noise. In doing so, it raises questions about the impact of human activity and sound pollution on ecosystems and the accelerating loss of species across both micro and macro scales. How can attentive listening become a tool for awareness and action? How does individual and collective attention shape our sense of place and belonging?
By integrating technology, human engagement, and artistic transformation, the work proposes attentive listening as a critical and ethical practice. Through the act of listening, participants become active agents and witnesses within a shared acoustic space. The dawn chorus and its biodiversity are reframed not merely as a natural occurrence, but as a living archive of ecological presence and change. The installation underscores the interdependence of human and nonhuman forces, emphasizing how ecosystems are continuously shaped through interaction, disturbance, and care. In making invisible patterns of biodiversity audible and visible, the work gestures toward the urgency of ecological attention in a time of increasing environmental instability and extinction.
