HANNA TUULIKKI: ECHO IN THE DARK
Commissioned by Hospitalfield, Echo in the Dark is an ambitious collaborative project directed by Hanna Tuulikki, weaving together music and live participatory performance to explore interconnections of raving and bat echolocation as a model for ecological coexistence.
Hanna was initially commissioned as part of our Studio Time programme to develop an art work in the context of the lives and heritage of the pipistrelle bat populations here at Hospitalfield after we established a community of interest through bat walks at Hospitalfield since 2019.
Most bats have evolved to use echolocation, a complex navigation system made from emitting ultrasonic pulses, with each species calling at a different frequency. They then interpret the echoes of these sounds to build an intricate picture of their environment and prey. Too high for humans to hear, by using a heterodyne bat detector these signals can be converted into audible synthetic sound waves, allowing us to tune into their detailed clicks, buzzes, rhythms and warbles, which could easily be mistaken for samples of electronic dance music.
What might it feel like to dance to music created by these bat call rhythms? How might we think-with-bat to navigate various crises on the horizon? Can tuning into their hidden sounds help us access new ways of feeling and being that nurture our relationships with nonhumans? Can dance music and raving offer a space to come together to harness radical hope in the dark?
At the heart of Echo in the Dark is a set of electronic dance music tracks created in collaboration with music producer Tommy Perman, made entirely from bat echolocation calls blended with the human voice. The bat sounds, collected through a UK wide open call and by working locally with Tayside Bat Group, form a library of sounds which Tuulikki and Perman sampled to create 13 tracks, each focusing on a different species in the British Isles. The beats and melodies of the music were made by processing and manipulating these sonar samples, synthesising them with Tuulikki’s distinct voice, to create an ephemeral human-bat hybrid world. The tracks also feature samples of bat-related popular culture, as well as spoken word from renowned philosopher Timothy Morton, whose experience of being part of a mass of dancing bodies inform their ideas about ecological awareness.
Drawing on fifty years of electronic music history, Echo in the Dark is conceived as a love letter to dance music, with an invitation to tune into the more-than-human frequencies of bats, to feel the beat and explore the space where species meet. In July 2022, a limited-edition lathe cut 7″ and digital download was released with Scottish label Blackford Hill, featuring two tracks dedicated to bat species local to Hospitalfield – the Daubenton’s bat and Common pipistrelle and Soprano pipistrelle – with an album release in the pipeline. As a live event, Echo in the Dark was first realised as a series of silent ‘bat raves’, premiering in September 2022 on the grounds of Hospitalfield in Arbroath, Scotland, and is being developed for touring in 2023.
In the bat raves, the music is experienced with studio quality closed ear headphones, and augmented by choreography, animation, lights and lasers. On arrival at sunset, audiences collect their headset-and-receiver housed in specially created rave-wear bumbags and, as dusk falls, they are greeted by a cast of costumed dancers, and led into a hidden sonic world beneath a tree canopy. Standing near a DJ booth, a figure holding a bat detector transmits the sounds of soprano pipistrelles as they flit across the sky, their live echolocation calls rippling through the music. On the ground, dancers dart in and out of audience, echoing the bats’ flight before shifting their attention to the podiums that surround the space in a series of solo choreographies inspired by bat movements. A dance floor opens up beneath the canopy, and as dusk turns to night, lyrics invite the audience to move to the rhythm, participate in games of transformation from ‘BAT’ to ‘HUMAN FORM’, and find hope in the darkness. The trees, illuminated by vivid colours, shift between pink, orange, violet, green and blue. Animated acid bat faces and clouds of silhouettes dance in formation on the surrounding trees, pulsing in time with the music, while lasers beam through the air, forming shapes onto the leafy canopy. At the music’s peak, UV light illuminates the dance floor, revealing bat outlines on the light-reactive rave wear, seemingly taking flight as the audience dance. The final track, a song lip-synced by the dancers, is a final invitation to hear the echo, take the memory and change the story.
“Echo in the Dark is not just a momentary experience that concludes once the music stops: it demonstrates a new way of being in the world. One of awareness, of optimism and learning to be ecological. We must continue dancing to the rhythm of co-existence.”
– Caught by the River
“….it comes together, and it musters joy and camaraderie amongst the humans present. That’s partly because, art-world analysis aside, these are great songs. There is no hint of pastiche or arms-length intellectualism in the set, with its peaks and troughs of energy, snatches of sing-along lyric, and the plaintive, echoed vocal trills.”
– The Quietus
«««« “…moving, uplifting and memorable with a finale that’s well worth the wait.”
– The List
“A philosopher duetting with bats on a dance track? That’s seriously deep house.“
– The Guardian
The Echo Location Library
For the development of the work, Hanna gathered an archive of recordings to be made into a public library of sounds, some of which are featured below.
Hanna sought recordings of UK bat species made in a variety of ways, from heterodyne to time expansion and direct sampling.
Recordings
The recordings below are organised into playlists for each bat species and method of recording. In order of the date contributed, these currently include a heterodyne recording of Dauberton’s Bats made by Chris Watson, heterodyne recordings of Common Pipstrelle Bats made by David Moré (Glasgow), Tommy Perman (Perth and Kinross), Cheryl Tipp* (West Sussex), and a heterodyne recording of Noctule Bats by Richard Ranft* (Kent).
* provided by the British Library sound archive
About Hanna Tuulikki
Hanna Tuulikki is an artist, composer and performer based in Glasgow. Her practice spans performance, film and multi-channel audio-visual installation, blending together vocal music, choreography, costume and drawing. Her multi-disciplinary projects investigate the ways in which the body communicates beyond and before words, to tell stories through imitation, vocalisation and gesture. She is particularly interested in how bodily relationships and folk histories are encoded within specific environments and places, often drawing on embodied vernacular knowledges to offer alternative approaches to making kin, both with one other, and across multi-species entanglements.
Current and forthcoming exhibitions include British Art Show 9 (2021-22) and National Galleries of Scotland: Modern One (2021-23). She was Magnetic North Theatre’s first Artist Attachment supported by Jerwood Arts (2017-19) and shortlisted for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women (2020). She was a finalist in the Arts Foundation Music for Change Award (2022), won a Scottish Award for New Music in Sonic Arts (2017), and was twice shortlisted for a British Composer Award (2015, 2017).
Her critically acclaimed work has been commissioned and presented by organisations across visual, musical and performing arts in the UK, Europe, USA, India and Australia. Recent multi-artform projects include Seals’kin commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney (2022); Under Forest Cover commissioned by Helsinki Biennial (2021); Deer Dancer (2019/2021); cloud-cuckoo-island (2016); SOURCEMOUTH : LIQUIDBODY commissioned by Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2016); SING SIGN: a close duet commissioned by Edinburgh Art Festival (2015); Women of the Hill commissioned by ATLAS (2015); Away with the Birds commissioned for Glasgow 2014’s Cultural Programme and the SPACE (2014-2015). Her musical compositions have been commissioned and presented by Scottish Sculpture Workshop, BBC Radio 4, Capella Nova choir, Tectonics Festival and Red Note Ensemble.