a nest brimming with with its own locality (cuckoo transmission)


date: 08.05.2012
location: waiorua valley
time: 3.15pm
duration: 20mins

notes: a thin line of radio noise weaves through the spatialities of the birdsong in the surrounding bush and the transmission of birdsong recorded two days earlier in the same spot. feedback from the microphones nestled too close together in the nest itself and surrounding radio feedback also complicate the playback process. signal and noise are both present. a saddleback sounds in the background of this passage, announcing its own territory. then the radios themselves alone after the audio playback has finished. at the conclusion of the piece the tape recorder is stopped, the tape pulled out of its cassette housing and wound up into a new housing - the nest. the mostly empty cassette shell is then tucked under the nest and the structure placed carefully back into the bush where it was initially found. The materiality of the tape becomes analogous to a new nesting material, which is itself an alien, non-endemic element in the bush, will be further documented as it sits in the bush for the duration of the residency. It will be removed from the island at the residency’s conclusion.

it is all I can do not to start attributing animistic properties to the tape recorder, nestled among my menagerie of radios it itself looks like a cuckoo.