Audio
Transcript
This is a long-form sound piece including voices and ambient electronics. This is not a full audio description, but summarizes and represents some of the textual elements that the overlapping, slow voices speak. Paintings and text by Rachel Gray.
Hello! Hello? Hell-hello? Hello! Hello...
We're glad you're here. We're glad you're listening.
We are here to tell the story of our history.
We don't know who our audience is - who we are reaching for.
We must be reaching for you.
So we will speak as many languages as possible.
We want you to understand, to understand.
Be grateful, we told each other. There are many who never experience this.
We want you to understand.
Hello! Hello? Hell-hello? Hello! Hello...
We're glad you're here. We're glad you're listening.
We are here to tell the story of our history.
We don't know who our audience is - who we are reaching for.
We must be reaching for you.
So we will speak as many languages as possible.
We want you to understand, to understand.
Be grateful, we told each other. There are many who never experience this.
We want you to understand.
Raise antenna
Fold wings
Lie down
Close your eyes
Lay back
Get comfortable
Spin web
Fold wings
Lie down
Close your eyes
Lay back
Get comfortable
Spin web
We fought like insects, with mass casualties - pinned our prey with chemicals. We gave them to ourselves, grew new paths through their bodies.
We learned to shed our skin / they taught us to transform.
We learned to shed our skin / they taught us to transform.
We found the understanding written in our bodies, sitting at the edge of the world.
Back then we did our best to keep our understandings narrow. We were a chain of people experiencing the exact same thing. We consumed always this one rope.
We did this to feel connected with one another, and to dull our senses.
We consumed the rope and nothing else. We walked through a textured world without experiencing it.
Our feet destroyed without us knowing. We trampled while feeling nothing through our skin.
Some buried themselves underground, seeking relief.
Too loud, too full of guilt and complication.
We consumed the rope and nothing else. We walked through a textured world without experiencing it.
Our feet destroyed without us knowing. We trampled while feeling nothing through our skin.
Some buried themselves underground, seeking relief.
Too loud, too full of guilt and complication.
About the artists
In July 2024, Rachel Gray (artistic director), Pierre-Luc Clement (sound artist) and Kim F-M (choral/vocal director) collaborated with 8 residents at Chartwell New Edinburgh Square to record this 'senior voices choir' featuring: June Kaethler (monarch butterfly), Mary de Bellefeuille (ladybug), John Coleman (dragonfly), Ann Jackson (honey bee), Tudy (Susan) McLaine (snail), Stephanie Walker (stick bug), Jim Walker (mosquito), Barbara Konst (insect).
Project
This project, "Insect Worlds," explores insect perception and the intricate connections between humans and the world of insects. This project is rooted in the recognition of insects as the predominant life forms on Earth, constituting up to 90% of all animal species. Through the mediums of painting, sound, and costume/performance, “Insect Worlds” envisages a speculative future where the boundaries between human and non-human consciousness dissolve, compelling a society to reinvent itself. By adopting survival strategies from insects and imagining alternative modes of existence, Insect Worlds seeks to offer a perspective on social organization, language and consciousness beyond the confines of anthropocentrism and individualism. This project is a collaboration with the Yack Lab (a research lab that studies animal sensory systems and communication, with a focus on insect bioacoustics).
What you experience today is an excerpt of this larger project that is still in development, highlighting a scene with the senior voices of the society - those who are teaching us how to live underground, and to learn from insect ways of being.
What you experience today is an excerpt of this larger project that is still in development, highlighting a scene with the senior voices of the society - those who are teaching us how to live underground, and to learn from insect ways of being.
About the sculpture
These stumps are actually from 2-3 different trees that my arborist friend Ben worked on. I found each piece separately but felt that they belonged together. Calculating with vibes, I eyeballed and drilled some steel rods into the V to see if I could suspend the two cylinders above it, and to my happy surprise, it was a perfect counterbalance. I love the way the vibrations can pass through the steel and resonate in all three wooden bodies. It makes me think of winding, interconnected insect pathways and living as part of a collective whole.
Special thanks to...
Grandma + friends, Chartwell NES, Yack Lab