Marcus Coates – Dawn Chorus Showing at The Last Gallery on weekends throughout May.

Dawn Chorus is an exhibition comprising films of 17 singers that recreate birdsong in their ‘natural habitats’. The individuals sing from various situations such as an underground car-park, an osteopathic clinic and a shed.

Filmed in Bristol, the project is as much a portrait of British society and idiosyncrasy as it is of our natural world. Multiple microphones were placed around woodland to record birdsong at dawn over a two week period in Northumberland.

From this multi-track recording each song was slowed down up to 16 times, and each human participant was filmed mimicking this slowed-down birdsong. The resulting video footage was then speeded up, returning the bird mimicry into its ‘real’ register.

The speeding up of the film both translates the human voice into bird song, and emphasises unconscious gestures that are remarkably similar to the physical behaviour of specific birds; a grandfather becomes a pheasant, teachers in a staffroom transform into chiffchaffs, robins and blue tits and an office worker metamorphoses into a wren.

May 10th & 11th, 17th & 18th, 24th & 25th. The Last Gallery Llangadog Dyfed Wales www.thelast.org.uk

Shown with kind permission from Picture-This and the Artist.