This summer a pair of composers are planning to soundtrack four of England's forests by creating individual musical motifs for each and every living organism that inhabit them.
Triggered when the forest inhabitants move or interact with each other, speakers hidden in plant-life and trees will play music, merging together to create a unique soundscape, permanently in flux.
Co-produced by Sound and Music and the Forestry Commission England, Living Symphonies is the work of James Bulley and Daniel Jones. Working with ecologists, Bulley and Jones map the extent of wildlife with an extensive survey for each forest that is then simulated digitally to create a second-by-second model.
Running in real-time, responding to the weather and time of the day, the ecosystem becomes a virtual conductor, with every sound playing in tandem with the movements that take place under the canopy. The intention is to portray the "thriving activity of the forest's wildlife, plants and atmospheric conditions" coming together in a "never-ending symphony heard amongst the forest itself." The project bears similarities to the Forest Symphony installation we looked at last month.
Research visits begin this February in Kent, Norfolk, Northamptonshire and Staffordshire. The first installation opens in May.