The Songs We Sing Amsterdam is a site-specific installation that may be experienced at the Lloyd Hotel and Cultural Embassy from May 27th till June 7th, 2013. Part of a multi-city project which is currently on display in Europe, The Songs Cycle piece considers the concept of a biotope – small environments shared by humans and other species.
According to The naturalist E.O. Wilson, half of the species currently living on Earth will become extinct in the next 100 years. In this new world, we may have to create fictive environments in order to experience a sense of calm and beauty – especially in an urban context.
The Songs We Sing, the title of the installation in each city, is about connecting our ecological moment with our cognitive/behavioral needs. It ponders the lack of human companion species in a postindustrial Western landscape, and offers a possible solution.
The Songs We Sing–one installation site at the Lloyd Hotel and Cultural Embassy
The Songs Cycle project attempts to improve the current lack of animal centric sounds in our auditory experience of the natural by collecting bird calls from human volunteers. In Amsterdam, each installation sits features audio of randomly sampled human bird calls that were collected from project participants between May 5th and May 7th at the Lloyd Hotel and Cultural Embassy. Over the course of the exhibition these sampled sounds will be wirelessly installed at multiple outdoor locations in the vicinity of the Lloyd. The project aims to mix these human generated animal noises with the ambient sound of the local environment. Anybody interested in experiencing the installation need only look for the project sign on the outside of the Lloyd building and listen.
Special thanks to the project participants below:
Hugo Bastidas_Fischreiher,
Andrew Cramer_Oehoe, Theadore Dean_Seidenreiher, Elizabeth Demaray_Rohrdommel, Dylan Koomen_Mallard, Nanny Roed Lauridsen_ Grutto, Abdel Patrijs_Grebe, Ellen Rikkink_Pheasant, Brenda Saunders_Heron Crabier, Eva Schepens_Egrit, Renate Schepen_Roodborstje, Suki Verwiel_Porseleinhoen
For more information on The Songs We Sing and other projects at the Lloyd please see: http://www.lloydhotel.com/en/about-us/cultural-embassy
For information on the The Songs We Sing at DADAPost Berlin see: http://demaray.rutgers.edu/2013/05/04/the-songs-we-sing-berlin/
elizabethdemaray 