aves: soni fluctus
B.F.A Thesis Exhibition
April 2022
In aves I attempt give a voice to the disappearing birds by distorting texts from recovery documents, that is, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s official plan to save endangered or threatened species.
When choosing the sections of text I wanted to work with, I looked for ironic references to the roadblocks standing in the way of recovering these birds. These roadblocks are found in an extensive list of things that are threatening the existence of each species such as habitat destruction, predation, human interference, and natural disaster.
The Revised Recovery Plan for Hawaiian Forest Birds actually says, “In addition, due to the small number of existing individuals and their very narrow distribution, these taxa are subject to an increased likelihood of extinction from random naturally-occurring events such as hurricanes.”
Other text subjects I chose to use include statistics about a specific species’ decline, proposals to change a species’ status on the Endangered Species List, and regular language that outlines the Fish and Wildlife Service’s actions.
As the documents are specific to each bird species, I stretched the characters to match the waveforms of the endangered birds’ calls.
These compositions give the birds a voice that mocks our poor efforts to save them.
︎︎︎VIEW EACH SOUNDWAVE
