Bird Song is an installation informed by Tully Arnot’s interest in mediated relations between humans and nature. The birdsongs are in fact lines of code, translated into sound by electronics and air pumps. Intertwined in the work are the artificial and the natural, the inanimate object and its performance.

A dystopian allusion enters the mind when you first realise the ornithological sounds of Bird Song are in fact artificial. The work forewarns of a mass extinction: an age when we can only access wildlife through the museum context. It is a sobering reminder of the environmental devastation humans are causing. Arnot hopes that this dispiriting notion — a need to artificially replicate nature — might conjure greater support for conservation efforts.