The 'Lost Whale Song' explores the complex cross-species relationship between humans and whales. It highlights the impact of noise pollution on whale communication.

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The current human-nonhuman relationship is defined as an ‘I - it’ relationship. We distinguish ourselves from Nature in our society and are willing to dominate Nature to extract more profit. One example is using seismic air guns in the ocean to survey the subsurface structure under the seabed.

 

By using the compressed air fired from an air gun, the impact is transmitted through sound waves through the seabed, and the information obtained from the returned waves is used for data analysis. However, the sound emitted through the air gun is very harmful and has life-threatening impacts on marine life, including whales. 

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Concept

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In this collaborative project, our core principle is to foster empathy, one of the imperative social sensibilities, and to extend a subject for sensitivity to not only humans but also non-human lifeforms.

 

The human experience of emotion is deeply intertwined with physical interaction and sensory perception. 
According to Kay Milton, the identification of personhood is a key for humans to nourish our empathy toward the subject, and finding a personhood in something is not based on what the object is, but on a relational epistemology in which the object responds to move and change. Based on Milton’s hypothesis, we devised an interactive system in which the audience performs a pre-designated action on the subject (non-human representative) and the subject responds with an emotional sound, which leads to discovering personhood in the subject through this sequence of events. Lost Whale Song leverages this connection by utilizing sound not just as information but as a sculptural material. 

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The core philosophy of the project is rooted in the ecological thought by Timothy Morton, the direct involvement by the audience becomes a part of the artwork, as a consequence of the soundscapes directly affected by such interaction. 

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The interaction to create  a soundscape

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As the audience walks up on the platform, they will inevitably create an air-gun-like noise through the embedded microphone underneath, which embodies our inevitable impact on non-human lifeforms in the ocean. However, by approaching the object, the audience will discover a personhood in the whale embryo, through the act of blowing.

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The sounds are designed based on Bernie Krause's soundscape ecology: Geophony (sound of earth), Biophony (sound of bio-habitants), and Anthrophony (sound of humans). 

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(1) Geophony - sounds resembling the underwater always present in space despite no interaction.

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(2) Anthophony -  as the audience first gets on the platform and walks up to the sculpture, an intense and heavy air-gun-like noise is emitted.

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(3) Biophony - we used the sound of the humpback whales sourced by the Ocean Alliance. As the audience blows their breath into the transparent balloon, the whale song synchronises and reveals its emotion, attempt creating an emotional connection with the audience. 

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If the interaction gets too intense on the platform, the humpback whale's song will be brushed out, so the work will require thoughtful gestures by the audience to interact with the whale and listen to their emotional singing. This work is a social interactive project that envisages non-human beings as part of our society.