Melody Owen. Juried Artist
Artist Statement
Sonic and visual languages are unique expressions of each animal’s embodied sensory reality and experience. Perception and communication are embodied and subjective. The world is alive with communication.
FOXP2 is an interdisciplinary practice-based research project about listening to and visualizing the voices of other species and thinking about the connections between our intersecting worlds.
The Styly iteration of FOXP2 built for Everywhen ISEA is a place where the voices of flying foxes are stored in cold temperatures for preservation. These were recorded in Sydney, Australia. They are spinning slowly in the trees. You can locate the flying fox audio by flying to each of the 3 trees.
The bones of virtual architecture representing the voices of Kookaburra, Australian Raven, Pied Currawong, and Australian Magpie float around the perimeter. In Sydney, all these species share the soundscape. You can find the bird voices in the Hyperfy iteration of FOXP2 – https://hyperfy.io/foxp2
The skybox was generated with Blockade Labs Skybox AI. The flying foxes were recorded babbling in the tree outside my bedroom window.
About the artists
Melody Owen aka Pearl Hyacinth is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator from Portland, Oregon. She has used a conceptual remixing methodology across several disciplines for the last two decades working primarily with video installation and collage. Her main focus is on exploring the importance of ecology and multi-species voices. She has exhibited in film festivals, galleries, and museums and has been awarded ten different artist residency fellowships around the world including in Paris, Austria, Iceland and Quebec. Melody is represented by Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland. She has an MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts and an MA in Environmental Arts and Humanities. Pearl Hyacinth is her multiverse avatar. Pearl has been building, curating, and making work within existing social, creative, and virtual worlds since 2018 and with the clean NFT community since 2021.
Credits: Pearl Hyacinth aka Melody Owen