Stephen Vitiello: The Birds

Bird noises at the Domain - aren't they there already? US musician and sound artist Stephen Vitiello's installation ‘The Birds' has opened at the Art Gallery of NSW as part of the 20th Kaldor Public Art Project. The parkland surrounding the gallery is full of birdlife - but Vitiello's installation promises something more intriguing, more unnatural.  

Before anyone starts to imagine that sticking your head out the window would be the same, consider Vitiello's World Trade Center Recordings: Winds after Hurricane Floyd of 1999. Part of the artist's skill is finding the unnoticed - just as the film director zooms in on the eye at the keyhole, or mesmerises with a slow-motion dripping tap, Vitiello sets his recording equipment to capture the overlooked. At the Trade Center he listened in to a world that included whipping winds which made the buildings creak like old wooden ships - but I'm even more fascinated by his use of photocells to translate light into sound. From the 91st floor he discovered that the red Colgate clock on the Hudson River produced a particularly beautiful tone.

‘The Birds' is positioned at the portico entrance to the gallery. Vitiello likes how galleries can be malleable and can deepen the environment he is creating for us - there is greater control over the speakers and the audience than in less formal public spaces.

Here Vitiello gives us a space based on Daphne du Maurier's story ‘The Birds'. His installation is inspired by Australian native birds. Field recordings are the basis of his works but he's an artist not just a collector. Natural history museums present the horrific Halloween faces of insects under extreme magnification and this is what he's doing in sound terms - showing us what is usually hidden. These are only elements of his overall work, which are incorporated almost collage-like, into a final piece. 

In some ways Vitiello is also a sculptor - caught up in recording or presenting within three dimensional spaces. The gallery promises that we will be caught by surprise by a voice or a bird singing. It's probably even more truthful to say he considers four dimensions, as time is another factor. Although here it is more open-ended than with his concerts or CDs as a visitor may stay a few seconds or an hour, but it is still part of the creation process.  

Sound art historically began with the Futurists and Luigi Russolo's manifesto The Art of Noises. It has developed into many forms. Many of us are not so practised in our appreciation of sound art as say visual art. Let me flag up just a few factors a sound artist might consider: the choice of material; how it is recorded (for example stereo or binaural microphones - binaural mimics the positioning of our ears and is good for catching the movement of sound such as footsteps around us); processing; as well as the presentation space and acoustics. This medium can encompass silence - Vitiello has used a low bass frequency, which we can't hear but creates movement at the speaker's surface.

The Curlew on Magnetic Island has perhaps the most gut-twisting bird-cry I've ever heard and is viewed by certain Aboriginal groups as bad luck. Your head tells you it's just superstition but the primitive creature inside of you is cowering. If you doubt the power of this medium consider this: the impact of music in films; why some bars are empty and others are full; and how certain bird cries can instantly bring to mind summer evenings. Lorna Johnston