Module 505- Annotated Bibliography, Outline, and Intro
A Ubiquity of Sparrows: New York
, 24" x 35", Giclée on moab30 , 2017
Advisor: Simon Pope
Annotated Bibliography
Adams, P.C., Placing the Anthropocene: a day in the life of an enviro‐organism. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2016. 41(1): p. 54-65.
Albrecht, G., Solastalgia. Alternatives Journal, 2006. 32(4/5): p. 34-36.
Charlton, B.G., The vital role of transcendental truth in science. 2009. p. 373-376.
Karnicky, J., Scarlet experiment : birds and humans in America. 2016, USA: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 221.
Kolbert, E., The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. First ed. 2014, New York: Henry Holt and company. 336.
Langgemach, T. and H. Watzke, Nature Conservation in Agricultural Landscapes - the Example of the Great Bustard Conservation Program. Tagungsband: Fachgesprach Agrarvogel - Okologische Bewertungsgrundlage Fur Biodiversitatsziele in Ackerbaugebieten, 2013. 442: p. 112-125.
Macfarlane, R. Generation Anthropocene: How Humans have altered the planet. 2016 [cited 2016 April 1, 2016]; Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/01/generation-anthropocene-altered-planet-for-ever.
Monastersky, R., Anthropocene: The human age. Nature, 2015. 519(7542): p. 144.
Strohbach, M., D. Haase, and N. Kabisch, Birds and the City: Urban Biodiversity, Land Use, and Socioeconomics. Ecology and Society, 2009. 14(2).
Strycker, N., The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human. 2014, US: Riverhead Books. 288.
Tucker, I., Sense and the limits of knowledge: bodily connections in the work of Serres. (philosopher Michel Serres' 'The Five Senses')(Critical essay). Theory, Culture & Society, 2011. 28(1): p. 149-160.
Wesling, D., Michel Serres, Bruno Latour, and the edges of historical periods. (A Special Issue on Periodization). CLIO, 1997. 26(2): p. 189.
Outline
I. The Feathered Cloaks of Poets
A reiteration of the story of my Muses: how I started my journey [1]
A. Have we heard this song before? Why birdsong is so compelling
1. It’s in the genes: Vocal Learning
2. Memory [11-14]
II. A Confusion of Birders
A. What’s in a song? Capturing the magic of birdsong
1. Musical notation
2. Mnemonics
3. Sonograms
III. Twitchers
A. Did they fly the coop? Our relationship with birds in the Anthropocene
1. Defining the Anthropocene [33-38]
2. Urban biodiversity [39-43]
3. Solastalgia and the more-than-human [20, 44-47]
4. Exploration of the ontological and semiotic relationships between the human and more-than-human
Additional Supporting Information
1. Carruthers, D. Between the Song and the Silence: My Muses. 2016;
Available from: http://www.deborahcarruthers.com/my-muses.html.
2. Richards, R.J., Darwin and the emergence of evolutionary theories of mind and behavior. Science and its conceptual foundations. 1987, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. xvii, 700 p.
3. Hauser, M.D., N. Chomsky, and W.T. Fitch, The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science (New York, N.Y.), 2002. 298(5598): p. 1569.
4. Pinker, S., The language instinct : the new science of language and mind. 1994: Penguin.
5. Scharff, C. and I. Adam, Neurogenetics of birdsong. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 2013. 23(1): p. 29-36.
6. Olias, P., et al., Reference Genes for Quantitative Gene Expression Studies in Multiple Avian Species. Plos One, 2014. 9(6): p. 12.
7. Scharff, C. and S.A. White, Genetic Components of Vocal Learning. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2004. 1016(1): p. 325-347.
8. Bolhuis, J.J., K. Okanoya, and C. Scharff, Twitter evolution: converging mechanisms in birdsong and human speech. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2010. 11(11): p. 747-759.
9. Scharff, C. and J. Petri, Evo-devo, deep homology and FoxP2: implications for the evolution of speech and language. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 2011. 366(1574): p. 2124-2140.
10. White, S.A., et al., Singing mice, songbirds, and more: Models for FOXP2 function and dysfunction in human speech and language. Journal of Neuroscience, 2006. 26(41): p. 10376-10379.
11. Miller, G., A surprising connection between memory imagination.(NEUROBIOLOGY). Science, 2007. 315(5810): p. 312.
12. Freeman, M., Telling Stories: Memory and Narrative, in Memory : histories, theories, debates, S. Radstone and B. Schwarz, Editors. 2010, Fordham University Press: New York. p. pp 263-277.
13. Hage, G., Migration, Food, Memory, and Home-Building, in Memory : histories, theories, debates, S. Radstone and B. Schwarz, Editors. 2010, Fordham University Press: New York. p. 416-427.
14. Sutton, J., C.B. Harris, and A.J. Barnier, Memory and Cognition, in Memory : histories, theories, debates, S. Radstone and B. Schwarz, Editors. 2010, Fordham University Press: New York. p. pp 209-226.
15. Goodman, S. and L. Parisi, Machines of Memory, in Memory : histories, theories, debates, S. Radstone and B. Schwarz, Editors. 2010, Fordham University Press: New York. p. pp 343-359.
16. Bergson, H., Matière et mémoire; essai sur la relation du corps à l'esprit. 36. éd. ed. Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine. 1941, Paris,: Presses universitaires de France. 2 p. l., 280, 2 p.
17. Bergson, H., Matter and memory. 1988, New York: Zone Books. 284 p.
18. Treadaway, C., Translating experience. Interacting with Computers, 2009. 21(1): p. 88-94.
19. Dudai, Y. and M. Carruthers, The Janus face of Mnemosyne. Nature, 2005. 434(7033): p. 567.
20. Tekula, S. The Poetry Lab: “Hopes Echo” by Author Julianne Warren. 2015 2015-11-03; Available from: http://www.merwinconservancy.org/2015/11/the-poetry-lab-hopes-echo-by-author-julianne-warren-center-for-humans-and- nature/.
21. Macfarlane, R. Generation Anthropocene: How Humans have altered the planet. 2016 [cited 2016 April 1, 2016]; Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/01/generation-anthropocene-altered-planet-for-ever.
22. Dijck, J.v., Mediated memories in the digital age. Cultural memory in the present. 2007, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. xviii, 232 p.
23. Rohrmeier, M., et al., Principles of structure building in music, language and animal song. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 2015. 370(1664): p. 107-121.
24. Stimpson, C.R., The Somagrams of Gertrude Stein. Poetics Today, 1985. 6(1/2): p. 67-80.
25. Gould, E., Behind Bars: The Definitive Guide to Music Notation. 2011, England: Faber Music Ltd. 676.
26. Bevis, J., Aaaaw to zzzzzd : the words of birds : North America, Britain, and northern Europe. 2010, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 143 p.
27. Phillips, T. Graphic music scores - in pictures. 2013 2013-10-04; Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2013/oct/04/graphic-music-scores-in-pictures.
28. Mathews, F.S., Field book of wild birds and their music; a description of the character and music of birds, intended to assist in the identification of species common in the eastern U.S. 1904, New York etc.: G.P. Putnam's sons. xxxv, 262 p.
29. Carruthers, M., How to Make a Composition, in Memory : histories, theories, debates, S.e. Radstone and B.e. Schwarz, Editors. 2010, Fordham University Press: New York. p. pp 15-29.
30. Marler, P. and H.W. Slabbekoorn, Nature's music : the science of birdsong. 2004, Amsterdam ; Boston: Elsevier Academic. xviii, 513 p., 12 p. of plates.
31. Kroodsma, D. Understanding birds through their songs. May 10, 2009 [cited 2016 April 6]; Available from: https://www.newscientist.com/gallery/mg20227071600-birdsong-by-the-seasons/.
32. Soha, J.A. and S. Peters, Vocal Learning in Songbirds and Humans: A Retrospective in Honor of Peter Marler. 2015. p. 933-945.
33. Kolbert, E., The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. First ed. 2014, New York: Henry Holt and company. 336.
34. Monastersky, R., Anthropocene: The human age. Nature, 2015. 519(7542): p. 144.
35. Carruthers, D. Between the Song and the Silence: Select German Extinct or Threatened Bird Species. 2016 May 1, 2016; Available from: http://www.deborahcarruthers.com/8203select-german-extinct-or-threatened-bird-species.html.
36. Wesling, D., Michel Serres, Bruno Latour, and the edges of historical periods.(A Special Issue on Periodization). CLIO, 1997. 26(2): p. 189.
37. Lewis, S.L. and M.A. Maslin, Defining the Anthropocene. Nature, 2015. 519(7542): p. 171-180.
38. Lewis, S.L. and M.A. Maslin, Defining the Anthropocene. Nature, 2015. 519: p. 171-180.
39. Strohbach, M., D. Haase, and N. Kabisch, Birds and the City: Urban Biodiversity, Land Use, and Socioeconomics. Ecology And Society, 2009. 14(2).
40. BohningGaese, K. and H.G. Bauer, Changes in species abundance, distribution, and diversity in a central European bird community. Conservation Biology, 1996. 10(1): p. 175-187.
41. Langgemach, T. and H. Watzke, Nature Conservation in Agricultural Landscapes - the Example of the Great Bustard Conservation Program. Tagungsband: Fachgesprach Agrarvogel - Okologische Bewertungsgrundlage Fur Biodiversitatsziele in Ackerbaugebieten, 2013. 442: p. 112-125.
42. Armistead, H.T., Strycker, Noah. The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human.. 2014. p. 132.
43. Karnicky, J., Scarlet experiment : birds and humans in America. 2016, USA: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 221.
44. Hoffman, E., The Long Afterlife of Loss, in Memory : histories, theories, debates, S. Radstone and B. Schwarz, Editors. 2010, Fordham University Press: Ashland, Ohio. p. pp 406-415.
45. Albrecht, G., Solastalgia: environmental damage has made it possible to be homesick without leaving home. Alternatives Journal, 2006. 32(4 5): p. 34.
46. Higginbotham, N., et al., Environmental injustice and air pollution in coal affected communities, Hunter Valley, Australia. Health and Place, 2010. 16(2): p. 259-266.
47. Tucker, I., Sense and the limits of knowledge: bodily connections in the work of Serres.( philosopher Michel Serres; The Five Senses ( Critical essay). Theory, Culture & Society, 2011. 28(1): p. 149-160.
Research Question:
Using an encounter between two elderly birdwatchers as the narrative framework, is it possible to create a performance which would evoke an awareness of losses in our surrounding environment? As the voices of species are extinguished, are we aware of these absences?
Is it possible to provoke a sense of loss without having directly experienced it?
Introduction
I.The Feathered Cloaks of Poets
When I had begun to think about birdsong a few years ago, specifically that of extinct and threatened birds, I had wondered how I could communicate their songs. I thought of recreating and recording the different birdsongs myself, and combining that with another track of ambient sounds from where you’d normally find those kinds of birds: fields, forests, shorelines.
I drew sketches and made some recordings of me doing some of the birdsongs, but found it ultimately unsatisfying. I was working with some people from the Royal Ontario Museum (known as the ROM), and we discussed looking further to see if I could find any extant recordings of some of these birds. When we were looking at dates of last sightings of these birds, it occurred to me that there might still be people alive who were birdwatchers who had actually heard them. Better yet, they might have their own notes about the songs, and might even know how to do the calls.
I tracked down an elderly centenarian who now lived in a residence, let’s call him Jack, and arranged to go and visit him. By mutual arrangement I was to arrive with a bottle of Jura single malt in hand. In exchange, we would look through his notes, talk about his life-long birding adventures, and maybe give some bird calls a whirl while having a wee dram.
I showed up on the appointed day, armed with the Jura, and we sat in Jack’s room and sipped and reminisced. He told me about going birding with his uncle when he was small, and showed me a drawing he did of a passenger pigeon when he was 5 or 6 years old. He said that his uncle would tell him stories about there being so many passenger pigeons that when the flocks would take to the air, it would look like advancing thunderclouds, and sound as loud as thunder overhead. He said that there were so many of them that they considered it unimaginable that they could vanish from the earth. His uncle maintained that it was indicative of the “end of times” that they were disappearing.
Once we were sufficiently lubricated, Jack began to go through his notes and demonstrate the various calls of different birds, and asked me to “call” them back to him. We’d been doing this back and forth for a while, when suddenly from the doorway someone else answered his call. Another resident, “John”, was standing there. John looked back and forth between us, and then called out another birdcall. Jack responded, and what happened after that mesmerised me. John entered further into the room and sang out another call, and Jack responded yet again. John shuffled over to the chair and sat (although I prefer to think of it as perched), looked closely at Jack, and emphatically called out another birdsong reminiscent of a query. The two of them carried on in this call and response, conversational birdsong really, for a good half hour longer, until one of the staff came looking for John. John looked more animated and far more relaxed than when he’d come in, and when the nurse helped him to his feet, he didn’t yell out and push her away in frustration, which is apparently what he’d usually do – a result of the dementia which severely impaired his ability to converse. Once on his feet, he shakily reached out to Jack, who took his hand and shook it.
I found this exchange profoundly moving, and it confirmed for me that there was something about birds and birdsong that fundamentally touches something deep within us.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Jack and John – they spoke using the extinguished voices of birds I would never hear: the Passenger Pigeon, the Labrador Duck and the Eskimo Curlew. I felt an unexpected sense of loss.
I began to wonder if, as the voices of species are extinguished, we are aware of these absences?
And if we had never heard their voices to begin with, could we truly miss them?
Over time, I asked myself if it would be possible to use an encounter between two elderly birdwatchers as the narrative framework for a performance which could provoke an awareness of such loss?
Time to let these ideas take flight…
Annotated Bibliography
Adams, P.C., Placing the Anthropocene: a day in the life of an enviro‐organism. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2016. 41(1): p. 54-65.
- Adams discusses communication in the Anthropocene between the human and non-human via consideration of place as an “enviro-organism”. In examining the semiotics of communication between the human and non-human, he cautions avoidance of an anthropocentric focus which reinforces an idea of the human and non-human as separate. Ontological discussions framed by the agency of an enviro-organism allow for a clearer understanding of the biosemiosis of a given place and may give a greater voice to non-human agents.
Albrecht, G., Solastalgia. Alternatives Journal, 2006. 32(4/5): p. 34-36.
- Solastalgia is a condition which Abrecht describes as being as distressing as homesickness, but rather than the source of the distress originating from leaving a prized place, it comes instead from staying in a place where you cannot leave, and watching changes to it that you feel helpless against. While his discussions revolve around the human, his concept can be aptly applied to the more-than-human. Albecht suggests that it is also possible to ameliorate to a degree the distress experienced by engaging in social and environmental remediation.
Charlton, B.G., The vital role of transcendental truth in science. 2009. p. 373-376.
- In this editorial, Charlton posits that it is vital for science to return to the pursuit of “transcendental truth”, which he defines as being “located outside of science; beyond scientific methods, processes and peer consensus”; this despite an inability to prove that it is anything other than an unquantifiable ideal. He argues that as per Charles Murray’s contention in Human Accomplishment: the pursuit of excellence in the arts and sciences, 800BC to 1950 (2003), science must look outside science to avoid axiomatic arguments which fail to be critical, and which do not encourage ‘thinking outside the box’, but may allow for convenient fictions.
Karnicky, J., Scarlet experiment : birds and humans in America. 2016, USA: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 221.
- Karnicky discusses how the public at large has perceived their relationship with birds since the mid-nineteenth century, from the utilitarian aspects of food and fashion, to the scientific - which includes citizen scientists - to how bird conservationists in the US have been influenced in their perceptions by writers such as Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, and Christopher Cokinos. These perceptions paved the way for governmental initiatives which will greatly impact avian ecology throughout North America.
Kolbert, E., The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. First ed. 2014, New York: Henry Holt and company. 336.
- An exploration of the anthropocentric nature of the sixth extinction which delves into various paradigms which surround the history of extinctions. Kolbert offers concrete examples of species which are either extinct or near extinction, and examines their histories via the viewpoints of researchers in various social and scientific disciplines. Of importance is the way in which human intervention has shaped into these histories, and the implications of that involvement for what has become known as the Sixth Extinction.
Langgemach, T. and H. Watzke, Nature Conservation in Agricultural Landscapes - the Example of the Great Bustard Conservation Program. Tagungsband: Fachgesprach Agrarvogel - Okologische Bewertungsgrundlage Fur Biodiversitatsziele in Ackerbaugebieten, 2013. 442: p. 112-125.
- An example of a conservation program which rather than imposing remediation upon a site to conform to a pre-agricultural landscape, enjoins stakeholders – including the Bustards – to arrive at a compromise which meets the needs of all concerned. Conservation researchers acted as intermediaries in providing solutions which socioeconomic benefited all parties.
Macfarlane, R. Generation Anthropocene: How Humans have altered the planet. 2016 [cited 2016 April 1, 2016]; Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/01/generation-anthropocene-altered-planet-for-ever.
- A discussion of the definitions of the Anthropocene framed by solastalgia. He provides arguments for and defines a new vocabulary necessitated by the new epoch. A look at cultural expression and exploration as emerging from the impetus of the Anthropocene.
Monastersky, R., Anthropocene: The human age. Nature, 2015. 519(7542): p. 144.
- An overview of the various debates regarding the definition of the Anthropocene. The implications of the adoption of the term by popular culture is examined within the context of the work of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) to codify it within the geologic timescale. Various debates regarding the utility of proposed definitions are presented and clarified.
Strohbach, M., D. Haase, and N. Kabisch, Birds and the City: Urban Biodiversity, Land Use, and Socioeconomics. Ecology and Society, 2009. 14(2).
- Strohbach et al. present a through survey of research on avian biodiversity in urban ecologies. They then specifically examined the relationship between socioeconomic indicators, avian biodiversity and urban land use in Leipzig, Germany. They urge that it is necessary to incorporate plans to increase biodiversity in urban planning, especially in areas of lower socioeconomic status. Interestingly, the language that they use deliberately distances the idea of “altruism”, but reinforces the socioeconomic benefits.
Strycker, N., The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human. 2014, US: Riverhead Books. 288.
- This book was written by an associate editor of Birding magazine, which is published by the American Birding Association. He has traveled the world, working on research projects with scientists, and by his own count – which I’m sure has greatly increased in the almost two years since he published this book – observed nearly 2,500 species of birds. He has an interesting perspective: without undue anthropomorphism, he posits that the behavior of birds is driven by the same things that drive our behaviours: “food, shelter, territory, safety, companionship, a legacy”. Additionally, he divides the book into three parts: Body, Mind, and Spirit.
- What drew me to this book is the way in which he entwines the narrative of the bird behaviors with the history and narrative of the human. It is compelling reading not in spite of this, but because of this. It is what I would like to achieve I the telling of the narrative for Between the Song and the Silence, a fusion of the narratives of history and behaviour of humans and birds. Once one has a history together, a shared story and experience, one can begin to have true empathy for the loss each has experienced.
Tucker, I., Sense and the limits of knowledge: bodily connections in the work of Serres. (philosopher Michel Serres' 'The Five Senses')(Critical essay). Theory, Culture & Society, 2011. 28(1): p. 149-160.
- Given the interest Serres has in the natural world in general, this analysis of his book ‘The Five Senses’ within the context of movement and process is helpful in contextualizing how he views the way in which humans inhabit the world around them. Of interest to me is the discussion of sound relative to language and knowledge (the over-reliance “on the power of language to define reality”), as well as to place (“noise marks territories”).
Wesling, D., Michel Serres, Bruno Latour, and the edges of historical periods. (A Special Issue on Periodization). CLIO, 1997. 26(2): p. 189.
- Wesling considers periodization as a framework for the examination of historical paradigms. His hypothesis regarding what he terms “ecological thinking” is that a reassessment of global cultural issues is necessary within the current paradigms and timelines. Of particular interest is the reframing of the social creation of nature as presented by Michel Serres and Bruno Latour in their philosophical “eco-writing”.
Outline
I. The Feathered Cloaks of Poets
A reiteration of the story of my Muses: how I started my journey [1]
- Using an encounter between two elderly birdwatchers as the narrative framework, is it possible to create a performance which would evoke an awareness of losses in our surrounding environment? As the voices of species are extinguished, are we aware of these absences?
- If we had never heard their voices to begin with, could we truly miss them?
A. Have we heard this song before? Why birdsong is so compelling
1. It’s in the genes: Vocal Learning
- A discussion of language acquisition theory as it relates to the genetics of vocal learning in humans and birds [2-10]
- A survey of research leading to the implications of shared genetics with birds regarding human affinities for birdsong [5-10]
2. Memory [11-14]
- How notions of déjà vu and paramnesia figure in human relationships to birds [15-19]
- Mediated memory and music [20-24]
II. A Confusion of Birders
A. What’s in a song? Capturing the magic of birdsong
1. Musical notation
- Historical survey of notation of birdsong in music [23, 25-28]
2. Mnemonics
- The use of mnemonics in music and birdwatching [26, 29-31]
3. Sonograms
- How sonograms have been used to decipher birdsong and their dialects [26, 30-32]
III. Twitchers
A. Did they fly the coop? Our relationship with birds in the Anthropocene
1. Defining the Anthropocene [33-38]
- an historical perspective of the Anthropocene and an examination of the importance of the more-than-human within the context of increasing lack of biodiversity in contemporary urban life and its implications for humans. The role of solastalgia in creating awareness and hope will also be part of that critical framework.
2. Urban biodiversity [39-43]
- In urban environments, we are confronted with false abundance – for example, we may see a profusion of birds, but a paucity of species. Have our environments become so cluttered with the sonic detritus of contemporary urban life that we are oblivious? Perhaps we confuse what we now hear with memories of what we once heard, or confabulate?
3. Solastalgia and the more-than-human [20, 44-47]
- Glenn Albrecht coined the word solastalgia to describe a condition as distressing as homesickness, but rather than the source of the distress originating from leaving a beloved place, it comes instead from staying in a place where you cannot leave, and watching changes to it that you feel helpless against
- Although conceived of as a human condition, solastalgia applies to the plight of the more-than-human in an anthropocentric time.
- What role do Albrecht’s concepts of solastalgia play in urban environments, both for the Human and more-than-human?
4. Exploration of the ontological and semiotic relationships between the human and more-than-human
Additional Supporting Information
1. Carruthers, D. Between the Song and the Silence: My Muses. 2016;
Available from: http://www.deborahcarruthers.com/my-muses.html.
2. Richards, R.J., Darwin and the emergence of evolutionary theories of mind and behavior. Science and its conceptual foundations. 1987, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. xvii, 700 p.
3. Hauser, M.D., N. Chomsky, and W.T. Fitch, The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science (New York, N.Y.), 2002. 298(5598): p. 1569.
4. Pinker, S., The language instinct : the new science of language and mind. 1994: Penguin.
5. Scharff, C. and I. Adam, Neurogenetics of birdsong. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 2013. 23(1): p. 29-36.
6. Olias, P., et al., Reference Genes for Quantitative Gene Expression Studies in Multiple Avian Species. Plos One, 2014. 9(6): p. 12.
7. Scharff, C. and S.A. White, Genetic Components of Vocal Learning. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2004. 1016(1): p. 325-347.
8. Bolhuis, J.J., K. Okanoya, and C. Scharff, Twitter evolution: converging mechanisms in birdsong and human speech. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2010. 11(11): p. 747-759.
9. Scharff, C. and J. Petri, Evo-devo, deep homology and FoxP2: implications for the evolution of speech and language. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 2011. 366(1574): p. 2124-2140.
10. White, S.A., et al., Singing mice, songbirds, and more: Models for FOXP2 function and dysfunction in human speech and language. Journal of Neuroscience, 2006. 26(41): p. 10376-10379.
11. Miller, G., A surprising connection between memory imagination.(NEUROBIOLOGY). Science, 2007. 315(5810): p. 312.
12. Freeman, M., Telling Stories: Memory and Narrative, in Memory : histories, theories, debates, S. Radstone and B. Schwarz, Editors. 2010, Fordham University Press: New York. p. pp 263-277.
13. Hage, G., Migration, Food, Memory, and Home-Building, in Memory : histories, theories, debates, S. Radstone and B. Schwarz, Editors. 2010, Fordham University Press: New York. p. 416-427.
14. Sutton, J., C.B. Harris, and A.J. Barnier, Memory and Cognition, in Memory : histories, theories, debates, S. Radstone and B. Schwarz, Editors. 2010, Fordham University Press: New York. p. pp 209-226.
15. Goodman, S. and L. Parisi, Machines of Memory, in Memory : histories, theories, debates, S. Radstone and B. Schwarz, Editors. 2010, Fordham University Press: New York. p. pp 343-359.
16. Bergson, H., Matière et mémoire; essai sur la relation du corps à l'esprit. 36. éd. ed. Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine. 1941, Paris,: Presses universitaires de France. 2 p. l., 280, 2 p.
17. Bergson, H., Matter and memory. 1988, New York: Zone Books. 284 p.
18. Treadaway, C., Translating experience. Interacting with Computers, 2009. 21(1): p. 88-94.
19. Dudai, Y. and M. Carruthers, The Janus face of Mnemosyne. Nature, 2005. 434(7033): p. 567.
20. Tekula, S. The Poetry Lab: “Hopes Echo” by Author Julianne Warren. 2015 2015-11-03; Available from: http://www.merwinconservancy.org/2015/11/the-poetry-lab-hopes-echo-by-author-julianne-warren-center-for-humans-and- nature/.
21. Macfarlane, R. Generation Anthropocene: How Humans have altered the planet. 2016 [cited 2016 April 1, 2016]; Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/01/generation-anthropocene-altered-planet-for-ever.
22. Dijck, J.v., Mediated memories in the digital age. Cultural memory in the present. 2007, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. xviii, 232 p.
23. Rohrmeier, M., et al., Principles of structure building in music, language and animal song. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 2015. 370(1664): p. 107-121.
24. Stimpson, C.R., The Somagrams of Gertrude Stein. Poetics Today, 1985. 6(1/2): p. 67-80.
25. Gould, E., Behind Bars: The Definitive Guide to Music Notation. 2011, England: Faber Music Ltd. 676.
26. Bevis, J., Aaaaw to zzzzzd : the words of birds : North America, Britain, and northern Europe. 2010, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 143 p.
27. Phillips, T. Graphic music scores - in pictures. 2013 2013-10-04; Available from: http://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2013/oct/04/graphic-music-scores-in-pictures.
28. Mathews, F.S., Field book of wild birds and their music; a description of the character and music of birds, intended to assist in the identification of species common in the eastern U.S. 1904, New York etc.: G.P. Putnam's sons. xxxv, 262 p.
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Research Question:
Using an encounter between two elderly birdwatchers as the narrative framework, is it possible to create a performance which would evoke an awareness of losses in our surrounding environment? As the voices of species are extinguished, are we aware of these absences?
Is it possible to provoke a sense of loss without having directly experienced it?
Introduction
I.The Feathered Cloaks of Poets
When I had begun to think about birdsong a few years ago, specifically that of extinct and threatened birds, I had wondered how I could communicate their songs. I thought of recreating and recording the different birdsongs myself, and combining that with another track of ambient sounds from where you’d normally find those kinds of birds: fields, forests, shorelines.
I drew sketches and made some recordings of me doing some of the birdsongs, but found it ultimately unsatisfying. I was working with some people from the Royal Ontario Museum (known as the ROM), and we discussed looking further to see if I could find any extant recordings of some of these birds. When we were looking at dates of last sightings of these birds, it occurred to me that there might still be people alive who were birdwatchers who had actually heard them. Better yet, they might have their own notes about the songs, and might even know how to do the calls.
I tracked down an elderly centenarian who now lived in a residence, let’s call him Jack, and arranged to go and visit him. By mutual arrangement I was to arrive with a bottle of Jura single malt in hand. In exchange, we would look through his notes, talk about his life-long birding adventures, and maybe give some bird calls a whirl while having a wee dram.
I showed up on the appointed day, armed with the Jura, and we sat in Jack’s room and sipped and reminisced. He told me about going birding with his uncle when he was small, and showed me a drawing he did of a passenger pigeon when he was 5 or 6 years old. He said that his uncle would tell him stories about there being so many passenger pigeons that when the flocks would take to the air, it would look like advancing thunderclouds, and sound as loud as thunder overhead. He said that there were so many of them that they considered it unimaginable that they could vanish from the earth. His uncle maintained that it was indicative of the “end of times” that they were disappearing.
Once we were sufficiently lubricated, Jack began to go through his notes and demonstrate the various calls of different birds, and asked me to “call” them back to him. We’d been doing this back and forth for a while, when suddenly from the doorway someone else answered his call. Another resident, “John”, was standing there. John looked back and forth between us, and then called out another birdcall. Jack responded, and what happened after that mesmerised me. John entered further into the room and sang out another call, and Jack responded yet again. John shuffled over to the chair and sat (although I prefer to think of it as perched), looked closely at Jack, and emphatically called out another birdsong reminiscent of a query. The two of them carried on in this call and response, conversational birdsong really, for a good half hour longer, until one of the staff came looking for John. John looked more animated and far more relaxed than when he’d come in, and when the nurse helped him to his feet, he didn’t yell out and push her away in frustration, which is apparently what he’d usually do – a result of the dementia which severely impaired his ability to converse. Once on his feet, he shakily reached out to Jack, who took his hand and shook it.
I found this exchange profoundly moving, and it confirmed for me that there was something about birds and birdsong that fundamentally touches something deep within us.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Jack and John – they spoke using the extinguished voices of birds I would never hear: the Passenger Pigeon, the Labrador Duck and the Eskimo Curlew. I felt an unexpected sense of loss.
I began to wonder if, as the voices of species are extinguished, we are aware of these absences?
And if we had never heard their voices to begin with, could we truly miss them?
Over time, I asked myself if it would be possible to use an encounter between two elderly birdwatchers as the narrative framework for a performance which could provoke an awareness of such loss?
Time to let these ideas take flight…
