Feeder 02/SWE was commissioned and made during the 2017 Rävemåla Residency Programme.
Feeder 02/SWE was commissioned and made during the 2017 Rävemåla Residency Programme.
Feeder 02/SWE is a soundsculpture that functions just like a regular bird feeder. The inspiration of the work is drawn from Timothy Morton's dark ecology idea, which claims that separation of nature and technology is a false, anthropocentric concept. Technology is a part of nature, humanity is a product of it and of our whole culture; our tools and ideas.
The Feeder 02/SWE is meant to be a human intervention in an environment mostly occupied by non-humans. It looks "technical" (made from a PC shell which is black and little dark, built using steel, filled with plastic and electronics) and sounds like 80s synthesizers, in an overall tribute to analogue Jupiter 8V and Oberheim's SEM.
It plays slow and nostalgic phrases, but the sculpture is also a sensitive sensor which activates once touched (triggering quiet strings' pizzicatos when birds are pecking or rain is dropping). It's all very carefully integrated with a land- and soundscape of the beautiful Rävemåla forest. It emits melancholic sounds with regular periods of time along with a synthetic voice speaking fragments of words - a kind of digital dada poetry.
This mixes with birds singing, the buzzing of bees and flies, howling of winter and drumming of rain drops just like wind-chimes always do without an aesthetically conflict. It's meant to work no matter if any human is around, day and night as a part of environment. I intend it to be my contribution to the place, like a trace of my presence here, where I have the right to be, where my home was for short time, where I left something which is not harmful and toxic. It's a contact point between me (or other humans ) and other subjects of nature.