Hidden Encounters – Cyprus

Meres Bookstore
33 Pentadaktylou, Nicosia, Cyprus
Tuesday-Wednesday, 24-25 July 2018
10:00 – 17:00

Is that an animal’s voice I think I’m hearing?

Audio only from the installation . . . Different from the video!

Hidden Encounters is an interactive sound installation that encompasses a variety of sound textures made by vocalizations of animals native to Cyprus and subsequent alterations of those vocalizations. Some are short and sudden, while others are noticeable but barely audible, becoming perceptible only as time passes.

This sound file is a sequence of excerpts from a recording of the sound of the installation. Sounds and altered sounds, among others including the voices of kittens belonging to the famous Cyprus cats (recorded at Kykkos Monastery), a native Cyprus warbler, wheatear, Scops owl, and tree-creeper, and a hooded crow (see below for all the sounds), were heard as people approached the vicinity of the equipment, while in the immediate acoustic surroundings a call to prayer was sung, and vehicles passed by doorways open to the very warm weather.

A goal of the installation is to inspire listeners to question: what made that sound? Not only where is it coming from—which is somewhat ambiguously difficult to determine—but what sort of entity could make the sound? Sounds are presented so that each appears out-of-place and yet striking, with the aim of creating a sparse sonic texture, conducive to the activities of a bookstore. My aim is to engage listeners through gently surprising them by unexpected, unusual sounds, and through that surprise foster empathy and insight into the very different perceptual worlds occupied by the animals who are their sources.