OR poiesis: YAMAMAYU Night Wanderings

The night sound walk takes us into the magical world of nocturnal butterflies, which, as symbionts, represent the syntropic links between nature and culture in Tivoli Park. The series of listening scores aims to intervene in the dominant perceptual agenda and highlight the potentials of aural perception. Hearing is closely related to the capacity for a complex understanding of reality and compassion, the basis for inclusive resonance. How to listen to the invisible? How to perceive beings that do not want to be heard?

Listening to the seemingly inaudible and wandering in night landscapes (which can also be just a reduction of the visual field and listening to the tiny impulses of one’s own body and anima) addresses the sonority of the apparent silence and bioacoustics from the direction of the territory. Japanese silk moths (Antheraea yamamai) inhabit tall deciduous forests, living primarily high in the treetops. These nocturnal butterflies leave behind large light green silk cocoons. Dislocated nocturnal incomers, they managed to flee into the open canopy of the surrounding trees when the locals ventured into silk farming a century ago. Originating in the hills of Japan, they have spread across south-east Europe.

YAMAMAYU Night Wanderings drew on the artist’s ongoing poetic exploration of Japanese silk moths and moths in general, echolocation, the ability of nocturnal moths to absorb sound as protection against predators, silence, the modality of moving/not moving, and the sophistication of the personal aural field in terms of territory.