birding by ear, a sound art installation by Yvonne Mullock

Sound Studies Gallery, 3-47 Arts Building
7th December 2022 – 25th January 2023

Marking the opening of the new Sound Studies Institute sound art gallery is the premiere of a new multichannel realisation of a sound art piece by U of A guest artist-in-residence Yvonne Mullock.

birding by ear is a sound work that uses audio field guides to aid memory and recall of bird song, as both material and conceptual starting point. 

Though the editing process dialogue has been removed, leaving only phonetic birdie-talk. Stripped of its intent and context these short mnemonic rhymes take on new meanings and become a type of incoherent poetry. 

For this polyphonic iteration made for The Sound Institute at University of Alberta, a free limited edition letterpress poster has been created. Using font size to denote the size of wingspan, rhymes and mnemonics of each bird has been printed in a collective cacophony of language.