The Great Animal Orchestra

This is the tuning of the great animal orchestra, a revelation of the acoustic harmony of the wild, the planet’s deeply connected expression of natural sounds and rhythm. It is the baseline for what we hear in today's remaining wild places, and it is likely that the origins of every piece of music we enjoy and word we speak come, at some point, from this collective voice. At one time there was no other acoustic inspiration.’—Bernie Krause

Commissioned by the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain on the occasion of the related exhibition presented in Paris in 2016, The Great Animal Orchestra invites the public to enjoy an aesthetic meditation, both aural and visual, on the animal kingdom, which is increasingly under threat in today's modem world.

Over the course of the nearly fifty years, Bernie Krause has collected recordings of natural soundscapes from all over the world. London-based United Visual Artists created a device able to provide a visual translation of the soundscapes recorded by Bernie Krause. Listening to sounds and visualising them simultaneously enhances both the beauty of the natural soundscape and the complexity of the secret configuration of animal vocalisations. Scrolling sonograms (graphical visualisations of sound) on the walls of the room perfectly illustrate the concept of sound as a landscape and also draw an analogy with an orchestral score.

The audio-visual experience offers a journey through seven territories chosen for their ecological diversity and the richness of their biophony. In a movie sequence by Raymond Depardon and Claudine Nougaret projected in between the soundscapes. Bernie Krause explains more about his approach and introduces live short audio clips of natural habitats in which biodiversity has dramatically deteriorated in recent decades.