Björk’s new Paris Centre Pompidou sound exhibition will “recreate” extinct animal calls
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(Credits: YouTube)
Singer, composer, producer, occasional actor, activist, and all-around eccentric icon Björk has always been predictably unpredictable, so it makes perfect sense that an upcoming exhibition she’s spearheading will recreate the calls of extinct animals.
The ‘Queen of Experimental Pop’ has been every bit as avant-garde in her personal life as she has been in her professional one, even if some of her supporters might be disappointed to find out she’d become the latest high-profile name to embrace AI technology to make her latest installation happen.
Taking place at the Centre Pompidou in Paris between November 20th and December 9th, the Björk-backed ‘Natural Manifesto’ exhibition is an audio piece that runs for three minutes and 40 seconds, created via AI software that recreates the sound of animals that vanished off the face of the planet a long time ago and combines them with spoken-word lyrics.
Created alongside French artist Aleph and backed by the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music, an organisation dedicated to the research of music and sound with a speciality in avant-garde and electro-acoustics, the project boasts Chloé Siganos and Delphine Le Gatt as curated, as well as environmentalists hailing from both France and Bjork’s native Iceland.
“We wanted to share their presence in an architecture representing the industrial age, far away from nature,” a statement posted on Bjork’s social media read. “In the veins of the escalator of the museum, known as the ‘caterpillar’, we wanted to remind citizens of the raw vitality of endangered creatures.”
“Even though you are restlessly travelling between floors whilst listening to this soundpiece, the tone of the animals’ voices hopefully builds a sonic bridge towards the listeners,” the statement continued. “And in the spirit of these animals, in the magic of how they are sensually aligned with their environment, they become our teachers! Their ghosts remind us of improving our primordial mindfulness.”
Activism has become an increasingly important part of Bjork’s public persona in recent years after she released the single ‘Oral’ alongside Rosalia last year, which she’d written in the late 1990s but didn’t record until she decided it was the perfect track to help fight the rise of open-pen salmon farming in Iceland.
Bjork also shared an audio teaser in support of ‘Natural Manifesto’, which finds her reciting a spoken-word verse that will play as part of the exhibit. With a star of her magnitude and popularity involved as a creative driving force, it’ll be one of the hottest tickets in town when the showcase begins next week.
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