Drawing birdsong: A comparative analysis between the electronic and the human

Abstract

This research project explores the different ways in which mechanical and manual methods of drawing provide a visual encounter with birdsong. Bruyninckx (2018) has documented historical comparisons of spectrogram analysis and manual music-based graphic transcription in the field of ornithology. Moving away from the field of ornithology in the context of artist research, this project provides a comparative analysis of drawing processes between machine and human. Specifically, between a spectrogram depicted in Audacity®, manual notations and printmaking from encounters with birdsong recordings in the natural landscape. This research aims to explore how drawing from encounters with birdsong in the landscape informs how experiences with sound are visually interpreted. In doing so, I highlight the limitations of and similarities between the two different modalities of drawing. Specifically, I compare drawing processes in the mechanical empiricism of the spectrogram and manual gestures created during moments of perceived embodied experience. The comparative analysis considers how each drawing process articulates the complexity and ephemerality of birdsong. It investigates whether it may be lost or conversely made tangible through the different forms of transcription and composition. Whilst phenomenological theory often underpins investigations exploring embodied experiences, it was not feasible to include it into a research project of this size. Instead, there is potential to build on aspects of phenomenology in future research. In doing so, it can expand on the drawing methods and findings of embodied encounters with the natural landscape. This project has stemmed from my doctoral research that interrogates transposition between the auditory and visual through natural and musical interpretations of birdsong. Transposition as a site of an embodied encounter is explored via my painting practice.