The piece I chose to study as part of my work this week was ‘From Here to Ear’ by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, specifically his 21st version which took place at Copenhagen Contemporary.

In this piece, Céleste has 44 zebra finches playing compositions on electric guitars and basses. With no beginning or end, the birds flew around freely in the winter; chirping and perching upon the strings of the instruments creating a mixture of beautiful ambient sounds and more harsh tones, depending on how the bird landed on an instrument, or which instrument it landed on.

For me, the piece quite obviously draws to the idea of nature, through the use of audience participation and improvisation. The manner in which people in the audience choose to walk around may influence how one of the finches behaves, therefore creating a unique sound at a unique time that occupies a piece of the composition as a whole. Improvisation, on the other hand, may be a lazy theme to draw to. Ultimately, the piece is improvised by the finches, but who knows how/why the finch lands in a particular place. Continuing on from this point, it could even be wrong to try and idealise that the finches are even making music or art. The finches land on the guitar strings and use their beaks to try and construct a nest, this all being in vain. To me this is a pretty depressing conclusion, and promotes themes of existentialism and the ethics around sound art.