Decoy

In a moment where we are increasingly required to discern the veracity of our media landscapes, this installation reflects on the power and lure of imitation. Using a self-constructed birdsong machine, the installation creates a perceptual decoy that invites the listener to sense the shifting boundaries between the “natural” and the “artificial.”

The birdsong is mimicked by the sounds of organ pipes submerged in water, controlled by a digital machine listening system. This system listens to a vinyl recording from the Cornell Laboratory Of Ornithology to decode and reproduce their sounds, in a reversal of their technological history. The project draws on the histories of sound recording technology and musical automatons, where the seemingly-miraculous nature of birdsong has been treated as a testing ground for successful simulations of the natural world.

The installation is placed within the early morning setting of the Bloedel Conservatory, a tropical plant and bird sanctuary built in 1969 in Vancouver. Inside the dome, an impossible ‘dawn chorus’ is sung from bird species all over the world, where a choreography of maintenance, mediation, and infrastructure sustains life under glass.