Sounding Batman Park (2016)

Collaboration with Jordan Lacey

Seed funded by the City of Melbourne's Test Sites April 2016

‘Sounding Batman Park’ saw Cath Clover and Jordan Lacey connecting with the park as participants in a sonic environment, listening for its everyday movements and rhythms.

With the aim of discovering a shared avian-infrastructural language, Cath and Jordan initially began constructing a taxonomy of heard sounds. Rather than a hierarchy, they understood the taxonomy as an interrelated sonic network with all components playing an equal and significant part. They began to consider the language of the park as evolving and dynamic rather than static, with the park constantly re-creating itself through sound.

The test began with each artist inhabiting their own sonic relationship, Cath with urban birds and Jordan with infrastructure sounds. By the end of the test they became receivers of an integrated sonic environment in which they transmitted their shared responses with the site. Cath and Jordan discovered 14 species of bird sound and 10 infrastructural types, including transportation and construction.