I am intrigued by the idea of a work of art being based on the transcription of bird sounds into phonemes. I love to listen to the different sounds birds make. Even within a genus like gulls (Larus), there can be a wide variance of sounds produced by birds of different species. In the summer, I live on Hatteras Island and witness this fact. Bonaparte’s gulls make a “cherr” sound. Ring-billed gulls call “hyah hyah.” Herring gulls have a longer call that sounds like “ow ow ow keekeekee kyow kyow.” Lesser black-backed gulls make the same sound but in a lower pitch. Great black-backed gulls make a low “cowp cowp cowp” sound. My favorites, laughing gulls, make a high pitched call that sounds like laughing. In Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs, humans voice the linguistic interpretations of bird sounds. In a variety of creative ways, these sounds are merged with a corresponding visual image of a bird. In each image, the analogous phonemes are represented.
When I first watched and listened to this piece, I was disappointed. I have heard people mimic bird calls with accuracy, and that is what I was expecting. Although the introduction stated otherwise, I still wanted the shape of each bird to accurately correspond to the sound it makes. But it seems that Marie Mencia had something else in mind. Clearly, Mencia wanted the emphasis to be on the human voiced phonemes and morphemes not the accuracy of the birds, thus the difference between what I was expecting and what I experienced. The piece is interesting and to some degree thought provoking. I love nature and couldn’t help but think of other animal sounds that could be transcribed, like the sounds made by marine mammals. Although it would be challenging to transcribe whistles, they could be scored like music. The click is already a recognized phoneme. The songs of whales and other marine mammals have been recorded and graphed. Another idea would be to create a system of applying consonants and vowels (or other symbols) to points on the graph that would translate into a language code.
For me, Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs is a more enjoyable engagement than many of the other works we have explored. I appreciate the fact that Mencia assigns control of the experience to the user. The ability to select the entrance and exit of the birds with a stop and start button allows each user to experience the piece in her own way. For me, this empowerment circumvents the frustration and agitation that result from a bombardment of overstimulation that cannot be regulated or controlled. True to nature, Mencia does not force her users into sensory overload. She presents the work and politely invites us to participate. Whether you choose to focus on just one or two birds at a time or invite a cacophony of sounds to enter your sky, Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs is an enjoyable experience, like a pleasant day outside.
Just in case anyone is interested, this link is to a page of recorded marine mammal sounds http://www.whoi.edu/science/B/people/kamaral/Sound/MammalHits.html