The human desire to overcome gravity as a bird does is ancient. Numerous fairytales and stories have been told about a temporary transformation from human to bird. In the natural sciences, ornithology studies birdlife by identifying and categorizing these animals based on their appearance, incidence and vocalization. Birding tours delight bird watchers all over the world. The sound of a bird’s voice is not always easy to recognize and mimic, with phonetic descriptions in bird field guides attempting to identify the bird via its specific sound. The warning signal of a starling, for example, is a ki-yeck ki-yeck, or it howls much like a short wave on the radio when searching for a station with a wi-ouu-ii. The sound installation “Verdeckte Parallelen” takes up this topic and uses phonetic descriptions to examine the mimicry of the starling.
The social purpose of vocalization among starlings, such as expression, aggressive behaviour towards members of the same species, vocalization among pairs, tasks while feeding young ones or threats from enemies were the starting points for the sound model we developed of a group of starlings. A configuration of 4 loudspeakers installed in the exhibition space plays back recordings of speakers who use phonetic depictions to imitate starling sounds. What can be heard is a tonal interplay, of surrounding noises, mimicry and imagined correlations.

Speakers: Michael Hirsch, Christian Kesten

presentation of musical history