Nocturnal Birds

Sound Recordings from the Habitat of Bats, Owls and Barn Owls

Dating to 2008 in Jerusalem, Leipzig, and Berlin

Sound Recordings from the Habitat of Bats, Owls, and Barn Owls.

Why listen to a bat? How long does it take for the human pupil to adjust to night vision? What is the necessary duration required by protracted night photography? Prolonged silent observation, characteristic of recordings of nocturnal birds, slowly frees us from a concrete stand or of a narrative structure. Wing, motion, flight and movement of body and pupil create together an encoded dance. Evidence of this dance in darkness provided me with years of delving into the anatomy of denial (הַכְחָשָׁה) and oblivion (שִׁכְחָה) processes occurring in darkness (חֲשֵׁכָה). In Hebrew, the words Denial, Oblivion and Darkness are formed by the same three-letter root, positioned differently in each word.  There is a profound connection between the root and the essence of the word's meaning. I work with the hidden potential of the root words and the different energetical options each root can lead to.

For more than 15 years, I have been devoting significant time to making sound recordings in the living habitat of bats, owls and other nocturnal birds. For these birds, the night is the scene of action and movement. Sharp body maneuvers, encoded choreography, and an as-yet unsolved language.

Collecting the sound data from the birds' habitat is a key action relating to the recording process I have been doing for years. The recordings are made close to or attached to the bodies of the birds.

Sound waves and information related to or seeming to relate to human lives fascinate me. I find it important to listen to particles of the system which have been disconnected and imprisoned while bearing an essential and groundbreaking message for us as a society and community.

Metaphorically, the owls and bats represent our gatekeepers, and their bodies contain information likened to evidence enclosed in darkness. Prolonged observation of the motion conducted in the habitat functions as a testimony to an encoded dance containing information. This night dance expands during the night and also bears information significant to our waking hours.

These testimonies are later presented as sound works and parts of sculptural installations, which in turn function as witnesses in an active field of oblivion in a museum or the public domain.

The nocturnal birds are key actors in activating the subconscious field of information during the night hours. The actions of recording, collection of data and prolonged observation are a key part of my work, in which I'm forcing myself to slow down, listen and dismantle the narrative related to a concise stand, as well as "melt down" the familiar in favor of uncovering the unprocessed subconscious raw material, bringing it into the light of our conscious self.