Laurent Labourmène

 a work in progress

lisTen carefully to the voices of

Around the world and across time humans have noticed birds and learned from them. Recent research from the field of ethno-ornithology confirms this too, highlighting how these ancient beings of the Earth are often seen as sign-bearers, guides and teachers that can affect our lives.*

Following numerous encounters I have had with birds over the last few years, their songs and calls have begun to hold a particular meaning for me. And throughout this time we've begun conducting experiments. At dawn and dusk I often invite my avian kin (or they invite me to invite them, I'm never quite sure) to time-travel to near and distant futures and intercede, to contribute on our descendant’s behalf, to help make their presence heard today. They then return back in time to the present, to share what they've heard with me. With my field recorder in hand I’ve begun recording each response.

For this particular recording, I commissioned my collaborators, including the rare and notoriously timid Menura Alberti (the Albert's Lyrebird) as well as many other creatures from an ancient Gondwana rainforest on Bundjalung Country, to time-travel one millennium into the future, to the year 3021, to listen to what unborn generations might have to communicate with their ancestors.

From times enfolded, this is what our descendants have to share with us.

To listen to this work, set aside some time in a quiet place to consider and experience this transmission from the future. I recommend turning off your phone, finding a comfortable place to sit or lay down uninterrupted for the duration of the recording, wearing some over-the-ear/ noise-cancelling headphones, then press play, close your eyes and listen.

* Listen Carefully to the Voices of the Birds: A Comparative Review of Birds as Signs Journal of Ethnobiology, 2018, 38(4): 533–549. The title of the paper “Listen carefully to the voices of the birds” were words spoken by a Tukano hunter from northwestern Amazon and noted in Reichell and Dolmatoff’s 1971 book Amazonian Cosmos: The Sexual and Religious Symbolism of the Tukano Indians: We “must...listen carefully to the voices of the birds because they predict success or failure…”.

public art - australia

LISTEN CAREFULLY TO THE VOICES OF

I envisage the aforementioned Listen Carefully to the Voices Of as an installation as well as a permanent public art work in Australia. In terms of the latter, it could be reimagined and be enabled across multiple generations as a long durational artistic and cultural work (along the lines of what I discus here). One idea I have in terms of how this might unfold is summarised below.

Each year a new field recording could be played within Listen Carefully to the Voices Of, commissioned from a new resonant site within one of Earth’s increasingly threatened quiet places. Echoing the shared community rituals of the Ise Grand Shrine in Japan, The White Horse of Uffington in the UK and Future Library in Norway, this soundscape could be changed/renewed regularly for the work at a specific time of the year as part of a new kind of annual public ceremony. People would be able to listen to each new message from our descendants within an architecturally designed listening room, a type of time capsule or antenna which receives transmissions from the future. A place to ‘listen to the sounds beneath the sounds’, the listening room could be situated within a public space such as a public library. museum or gallery or as a stand alone structure in an urban or rural setting.

Three artistic and cultural works that engage recurring shared community rituals and public ceremonies that encourage people and societies to care beyond an average human lifespan: